We are going to be a government of no surprises and no excuses; a government which keeps its commitments and a government which is straight and candid with the Australian people and that's what we intend to do.

There are tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of people living in poverty and danger who might readily seek to enter a Western country if the opportunity is there.

I've always been very wary of debates involving women.

Another big problem with any Australian emissions reduction scheme is that it would not make a material difference to atmospheric carbon concentrations unless the big international polluters had similar schemes.

The measure in the budget in relation to parental leave pay is based on a simple proposition. Most women across Australia have access to one scheme funded by the taxpayer. Some women have access to two schemes and that's great.

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.

In Australia’s biggest cities, public transport is generally slow, expensive, not especially reliable and still hideous drain on the public purse. Part of the problem is inefficient, overmanned, union-dominated government run train and bus systems. Mostly though, …there just aren’t enough people wanting to go from a particular place to a particular destination at a particular time to justify any vehicle larger than a car, and cars need roads.