Faith is important to me. It's important to millions of Australians. It helps to shape who I am. It helps to shape my values. But it must never, never dictate my politics.

Victory is within our ready grasp... We are in reach of a famous victory.

A tax cut to compensate for a tax increase is not a cut - it's a con.

You cannot win an election without a fight.

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

Once people come to Australia, they join the team.

I'm a politician. I'm not going to get into a whole range of scientific argument with scientists.

I'm not running for canonisation.

The truth is I try to take people as I find them.

There are no factions in the Liberal Party.

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.

To move past fear is a cliche.

I'm not saying that people on welfare don't contribute in their own way, but as many as possible should be encouraged to be economically active as well as socially and culturally active.

Oppositions are not there to get legislation through. Oppositions are there to hold the government to account.

I don't think my religious convictions should be held against me.

I try to treat people as people and not put them in pigeonholes.

Now if you are condemned to life on welfare, I'm not so sure that being in a bigger welfare village is that much better than being in a smaller welfare village.

If we boost productivity, we can improve economic growth.

Climate change is crap.

We just can't stop people from being homeless if that's their choice.

I mean there are many, many people in all sorts of different countries who don't have a great life, who are subject to injustice. Are we obliged to take all of them who come here? I think the answer is 'Not necessarily.'

I think my wife and my kids are incredibly good to allow me to stay in public life given that they have to cop a whole lot of collateral attention that, being human, they'd rather not get.

I would not want to see any relaxation of the law prohibiting human cloning.

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

If people are going to do things which have certain consequences that they would rather avoid, they should do whatever they need to avoid the consequences.

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

I instinctively try to protect people from filth.