I was a very senior minister in the Howard government and I sat around this particular table [in the prime ministerial office] in many discussions. The difference between being a senior minister and the prime minister is that ultimately the buck does stop with the prime minister and in the end the prime minister has to make those critical judgement calls and that's the big difference.

To be sociable, I puffed on a marijuana cigarette, but I didn't inhale...I just hate the idea of drawing smoke into my lungs.

I see myself as a social conservative, but I think that there are lots of social institutions that produce beneficial reforms, like public hospitals, for instance, and schools.

It is fit that justice should be administered with great caution.

It is very important for our long-term economic future that the relationship with Japan, Korea and China, who are our three biggest trading partners, be ever stronger.

Voluntary paid maternity leave: yes; compulsory paid maternity leave: over this Government’s dead body, frankly. It just won’t happen.

Prima facie, every estate, whether given by will or otherwise, is supposed to be beneficial to the party to whom it is so given.