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I think all senior politicians tend to be rather more subtle then the commentators would have it. It is a natural tendency for human beings to try to classify. We all have this classification urge - so and so is such and such, that person is in that camp - but look, most sophisticated people defy stereotype.
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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.
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Whether carbon dioxide is quite the environmental villain that some people make it out to be is not yet proven.
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It seems that, notwithstanding the dramatic increases in manmade CO2 emissions over the last decade, the world's warming has stopped.
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I want to make it clear that I do not judge or condemn any woman who has had an abortion, but every abortion is a tragedy and up to 100,000 abortions a year is this generation's legacy of unutterable shame.
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We shouldn't be willy-nilly creating potential human life just to satisfy the urges of the scientific community.
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The choice made by families not to immunize their children is not supported by public policy or medical research nor should such action be supported by taxpayers in the form of child care payments.
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I have close family members as well as lots of close friends who are gay. Many of them strongly support gay marriage.
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A tax cut to compensate for a tax increase is not a cut - it's a con.
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Well, Michael, we will be telling the people of Australia in good time before the next election exactly what they can expect from us. No surprises, no excuses. They will be our watch words going into the election and afterwards, should we form a government.
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When you are challenging the young, they can come back at you with language of tremendous power and they are no respecters of sacred cows, you know, the young. There's nothing politically correct about the average young Australian when it comes to use of language.
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There'll be some savings from preventing double dipping by public servants which are currently able to access not one but two fully tax payer funded schemes and of course there will be out paid parental leave levy. So all up not only is this an important economic reform, an important reform to have to grow our economy more strongly, it also will leave the budget better off which will help us fix the mess that Labor has created with the budget.
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I'm not really managing the work-life balance, I'm just accepting that the work increases and the ordinary life has to decrease when you're the prime minister.
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I think leadership is knowing what you want to achieve and then purposefully and sensibly taking steps to achieve it, remembering always that you have got to bring people with you if you are seeking to be a successful political leader.
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Well, I'm not saying that an emissions tax is ever going to be good policy.
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And the commitment that I've been giving to the Australian people is that there'll be no surprises and no excuses under a Coalition government.
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Like the Governor-General, when asked what you enjoy most about the job my tendency is to say "today", because of the insights you get into our nation and because of the privileged contact you have with so many people.
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If you want to put a price on carbon why not just do it with a simple tax?
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Prima facie, every estate, whether given by will or otherwise, is supposed to be beneficial to the party to whom it is so given.
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I think I would say to my daughters if they were to ask me this question... it their virginity is the greatest gift that you can give someone, the ultimate gift of giving and don't give it to someone lightly, that's what I would say.
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There may not be a great job for Aboriginal people but whatever there is, they just have to do it, and if it’s picking up rubbish around the community, it just has to be done.
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Mates help each other; they do not tax each other.
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I'm focused on doing the job the treasurer should do.I don't respond to gossip.
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Why isn’t the fact that 100,000 women choose to end their pregnancies regarded as a national tragedy approaching the scale, say, of Aboriginal life expectancy being 20 years less than that of the general community?