There is much to be said for an emissions trading scheme. It was, after all, the mechanism for emission reduction ultimately chosen by the Howard government.

No country or continent can open its borders to all comers without fundamentally weakening itself and this is the risk that the countries of Europe run through misguided altruism.

A bit of body contact never hurt anyone.

I also think that if you want to put a price on carbon, why not just do it with a simple tax? Why not ask motorists to pay more, why not ask electricity consumers to pay more and then at the end of the year you can take your invoices to the tax office and get a rebate of the carbon tax you've paid

It's very easy for Australians living in big cities to either romanticise or demonise the situation in Aboriginal places - to kind of look at things through the 'noble innocents' prism or through the 'chronically dysfunctional' prism, and I suspect that is so often the case.

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.

Look, good government doesn't look for excuses, good government gets on with the job.