Most of the people who are coming to Australia by boat have passed through several countries on the way, and if they simply wanted asylum they could have claimed that in any of the countries through which they'd passed.

To move past fear is a cliche.

The smart way to improve broadband is not to junk the existing network but to make the most of it. It's to let a competitive market deliver the speeds that people need at an affordable price with government improving infrastructure in the areas where market competition won't deliver it.

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

The whole 'R' rating depends on a strange sort of fantasy land where all adults are responsible people, and children only ever go to the cinema with their parents.

Everybody ticks differently, but family is very important for me.

With the crime novels, it's delightful to have protagonists I can revisit in book after book. It's like having a fictitious family.

The books that stuck with me most as a child were 'A Wrinkle In Time', 'Dracula', 'Hatchet', 'Bunnicula', 'White Fang', and this YA/kids' book called 'Nobody's Fault' where a kid drowns one weekend as friends play around a flooded ditch.