I try to treat people as people and not put them in pigeonholes.

I've always avoided those sorts of self-assessments because if you give yourself a 10 out of 10 people think you're a big head, if you give yourself a 6 out of 10 they think you're plagued with self-doubt, so I'm just not going to rate myself.

If you want to put a price on carbon why not just do it with a simple tax?

Jesus knew that there was a place for everything and it’s not necessarily everyone’s place to come to Australia.

I can't promise that I won't continue to embarrass people.

Well, Michael, we will be telling the people of Australia in good time before the next election exactly what they can expect from us. No surprises, no excuses. They will be our watch words going into the election and afterwards, should we form a government.

I think that the best things that governments can do for productivity is not whack on new taxes and, if we can get institutions like schools and hospitals functioning better, well that's obviously good for the overall productiveness of our society.