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People who have put money aside on the basis of a certain set of rules shouldn't have that money raided just because government has got a problem.
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I try to treat people as people and not put them in pigeonholes.
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Abortion is the easy way out. It’s hardly surprising that people should choose the most convenient exit from awkward situations.
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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.
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The Australian public are very fair and they are always prepared to give the leader of a major political party a fair go.
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Oppositions are not there to get legislation through. Oppositions are there to hold the government to account.
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It's very easy for Australians living in big cities to either romanticise or demonise the situation in Aboriginal places - to kind of look at things through the 'noble innocents' prism or through the 'chronically dysfunctional' prism, and I suspect that is so often the case.
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There is much to be said for an emissions trading scheme. It was, after all, the mechanism for emission reduction ultimately chosen by the Howard government.
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We will act to build a better world. We always have, we always will. We will act to lend a helping hand, not just here but wherever we humanly can.
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Middle income families with children are Australia’s new poor.
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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.
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I also think that if you want to put a price on carbon, why not just do it with a simple tax? Why not ask motorists to pay more, why not ask electricity consumers to pay more and then at the end of the year you can take your invoices to the tax office and get a rebate of the carbon tax you've paid.
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A government that understands the limits of power as well as its potential.
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The sky is where mathematics and magic become one.
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We are naturally reluctant as a peace-loving people to reach out to far-away conflicts but, as we know, this conflict has been reaching out to us for months now.
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I am a model of positivity compared to the kinds of vitriol, the kinds of destructive criticisms that Labor members of parliament have been making of each other.
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Voluntary paid maternity leave: yes; compulsory paid maternity leave: over this Government’s dead body, frankly. It just won’t happen.
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I instinctively try to protect people from filth.
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The argument behind climate change is absolute crap. However, the politics of this are tough for us. Eighty per cent of people believe climate change is a real and present danger.
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In drawing an inference or conclusion from facts proved, regard must always be had to the nature of the particular case, and the facility that appears to be afforded, either of explanation or contradiction. No person is to be required to explain or contradict, until enough has been proved to warrant a reasonable and just conclusion against him, in the absence of explanation or contradiction.
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Western civilisation came to this country in 1788 and I'm proud of that...
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No country or continent can open its borders to all comers without fundamentally weakening itself and this is the risk that the countries of Europe run through misguided altruism.
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What we are determined to do is to take more people from Syria and that war-torn part of the world as a response to this particular crisis, but again I stress we are taking people from camps because the last thing we want to do is to encourage and reward people smuggling.We are taking people from camps and we are taking family groups; our focus will be on family groups, from persecuted minorities.
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I'm not running for canonisation.