No cuts to health , no cuts to education, no cuts to pensions.

I want to run a government, Barnaby wants to be part of a government, which is characterized by the motto if you like, no surprises, no excuses. That will be the motto of an incoming Coalition government. No surprises, no excuses.

The climate change argument is absolute crap

What I would like to see is sufficiently good education and health services being delivered to Aboriginal people so that they are prepared and ready to leave and join the economic mainstream if that's their choice.

I was a very senior minister in the Howard government and I sat around this particular table [in the prime ministerial office] in many discussions. The difference between being a senior minister and the prime minister is that ultimately the buck does stop with the prime minister and in the end the prime minister has to make those critical judgement calls and that's the big difference.

I'm not really managing the work-life balance, I'm just accepting that the work increases and the ordinary life has to decrease when you're the prime minister.

No senior politician can expect to have work-life balance. I'm afraid there are some jobs for which work-life balance inevitably goes out the window. If you want work-life balance you just have to accept that you can't be a senior member of a government, or for that matter a senior member of an opposition.