When politicians complain about the media, it strikes me as resembling footballers complaining about the umpire.

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.

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.

What will most certainly happen is that there will be very clear and full communication between the government and independents and minor parties. The precise mechanisms will evolve over time, but we certainly intend to keep the minor parties and the independents very much in the loop. We have to if we want our legislative agenda to have a reasonable chance of success and that's what we intend to do.

Even potential human life needs to be treated with great respect.

A presumption of any fact is, properly, an inferring of that fact from other facts that are known; it is an act of reasoning; and much of human knowledge on all subjects is derived from this source.