I feel a little uncomfortable at being asked the sorts of questions that other Catholics in public life tend not to be asked.

We cannot suffer a person by his affidavit to arraign the whole justice of the country and its administration.

Now, I know that there are some Aboriginal people who aren’t happy with Australia Day. For them it remains Invasion Day. I think a better view is the view of Noel Pearson, who has said that Aboriginal people have much to celebrate in this country’s British Heritage.

The Australian public are very fair and they are always prepared to give the leader of a major political party a fair go.

A midnight knock on the door followed by execution is no way a leader should be treated.

I think anything which improves services is in principle a good thing.

Should we choose to extend our airstrikes into Syria, we will be doing this in the collective self-defence of Iraq. We would be doing this out of a responsibility to protect innocent people at risk of horrible death from the most violent people imaginable.