Tony abbott quotes

If we're honest, most of us would accept that a bad boss is a little bit like a bad father or a bad husband ... you find that he tends to do more good than harm. He might be a bad boss but at least he's employing someone while he is in fact a boss.

There's always a lot happening. I mean, that's the thing about politics: it's just one damn thing after another!

It seems that, notwithstanding the dramatic increases in manmade CO2 emissions over the last decade, the world's warming has stopped.

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.

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.

Political parties don't work when people just announce what they are doing and expect everyone else to follow.

Do we really want to invest $50 billion of hard earned taxpayers money in what is essentially a video entertainment system?

I think it would be folly to expect that women will ever dominate or even approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons.

More excuses for more failures.

The one thing that has changed dramatically when you talk to the people of New Zealand and people from Ireland? They feel a darned-sight better about themselves because they made the decision to do what they've done, and I can say to you, we would feel a bloody darned sight better about ourselves once we get an opportunity to put this [vote on same-sex marriage] out there.

The problem with politicians getting to know the issues in indigenous townships is that we tend to suffer from what Aboriginal people call the 'seagull syndrome' - we fly in, scratch around and fly out.

No senior politician can expect to have work-life balance. I'm afraid there are some jobs for which work-life balance inevitably goes out the window. If you want work-life balance you just have to accept that you can't be a senior member of a government, or for that matter a senior member of an opposition.

I want to see an end to sovereign risk questions over Australia.

We are looking at what more we can do. As well as a strong security response we need a strong humanitarian one.

No cuts to health , no cuts to education, no cuts to pensions.

Labor has come out with a series of proposals to increase taxes, including taxes on people across Australia saving for their retirement, he has actually identified so far zero dollars in spending reductions.

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.

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.

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.

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

I think we've produced a stronger prohibition on real racism, while maintaining freedom of speech in ordinary public discussion. So I'm very comfortable with where we're at. We're not dogmatic or impervious to a further argument, that's why we released it as an exposure draft rather than simply releasing it straight into the parliament.

I think it's time for the Prime Minister to stop making excuses and to start governing.

Should we choose to extend our airstrikes into Syria, we will be doing this in the collective self-defence of Iraq. We would be doing this out of a responsibility to protect innocent people at risk of horrible death from the most violent people imaginable.

We have already provided a strong humanitarian response to the problems in the Middle East and that response will be stronger within coming days.

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

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.'

In the era of mobile phones and emails, you're no more out of the loop in China than you are in Sydney.

I think that people should come to Australia through the front door, not through the back door. If people want a migration outcome, they should go through the migration channels.

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.

Middle income families with children are Australia’s new poor

There are some issues where ministers should come and talk to the prime minister, if the prime minister hasn't already talked to them. Any issue which a minister thinks is going to be profoundly controversial, where we do not have a clear existing position, it is important that there be a conversation between the minister and the prime minister. I think they all understand that and I think it is working very well.

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

No one, however smart, however well-educated, however experienced, is the suppository of all wisdom.

Australia will take more refugees from Syria in response to the growing international crisis but it will not increase the total number of asylum seekers it accepts.

I think that the best things that governments can do for productivity is not whack on new taxes and, if we can get institutions like schools and hospitals functioning better, well that's obviously good for the overall productiveness of our society.

The only thing I wouldn't do is sell my arse.

We have a strong and credible broadband policy because the man who has devised it, the man who will implement it virtually invented the Internet in this country.

I instinctively try to protect people from filth.

I do enjoy exercise, not because I am an exercise junkie but because it's terrific stress release.

While I think men and women are equal, they are also different and I think it's inevitable and I don't think it's a bad thing at all that we always have, say, more women doing things like physiotherapy and an enormous number of women simply doing housework.

I can't promise that I won't continue to embarrass people.

We are sticking with the plan. We have a plan to get taxes down, to get regulation down, to get productivity up, to create jobs, to reduce taxes, to boost prosperity. The plan is working and we are sticking with it.

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

The fact is that I'm interested in getting on with my job of holding the Government to account and I think that the Government should get on with the job of effectively running the country and not making excuses for poor performance, not lowering expectations. Their job is to deliver on their election commitments.

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.

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.

The media - and I'm not blaming them - obviously like to seize on the differences between people and, sure, there are some senior members of the government who are in a slightly different philosophical space to mine. But do not underestimate the substantial single-mindedness of this government.

I want to run a government, Barnaby wants to be part of a government, which is characterized by the motto if you like, no surprises, no excuses. That will be the motto of an incoming Coalition government. No surprises, no excuses.

I do not regard myself as a Christian politician. I regard myself as a politician who just happens to think religion matters. I would be appalled, absolutely appalled, to think religion drove anyone's politics in a secular democracy like ours.

I am extremely unwilling that we should take upon ourselves to exercise a jurisdiction which the law does not vest in us.

To move past fear is a cliche.

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.

We accept that sometimes in difficult circumstances, difficult things happen.

Well, I'm not saying that an emissions tax is ever going to be good policy.

The thing about social media is that it is anonymous, so it can be much more vitriolic and extreme than normal media and yet it is there for everyone to see. It is kind of like electronic graffiti. The political process is accelerated and intense in a way that I don't believe it ever really has been before.

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.

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.

We've got to maintain freedom of navigation of the seas and in the air.

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

Australia would play its role in taking displaced people from the Syrian conflict.

I'm still getting my exercise at five o'clock in the morning, that's good. So far I've managed to hold on to a bike ride on Saturday or Sunday morning, probably at least two weekends out of three.

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.

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

We are a very like-minded group, the senior members of this government. The outliers are not very far away from the mainstream.

I am, as you know, hugely unconvinced by the so-called settled science on climate change.

If we boost productivity, we can improve economic growth.

My commitment to the forgotten families of Australia is to ease your cost of living pressure

The climate change argument is absolute crap

There is one fundamental message that we want to go out from this place to every nook and cranny of our country: There should be no new tax collection without an election.

Jesus knew that there was a place for everything and it’s not necessarily everyone’s place to come to Australia.

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.

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

The problem with the Australian practice of abortion is that an objectively grave matter has been reduced to a question of the mother’s convenience.

We can't conclusively say whether man-made carbon dioxide emissions are contributing to climate change.

I think that political marriages are subject to more strain than most precisely because of the nature of politics.

Aboriginal people have much to celebrate in this country's British heritage

Abortion is the easy way out. It’s hardly surprising that people should choose the most convenient exit from awkward situations.

What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it’s going to go up in price and their own power bills when they switch the iron on are going to go up.

I think there is no doubt that the advent of 24/7 news channels, which are voracious in their demand for constant new content, has accelerated the political process. The rise of social media, in addition to talkback, I think has intensified the political process.

It was a positive sign that the conversation took place, it's a sign of the depth of the friendship between Australia and Indonesia.

All of the people who are using their BlackBerries or their iPhones, Facebook, all of the people who are sitting in cafes and hotels rooms doing their work, they're all using wireless technology, and we shouldn't assume that the only way of the future is high speed cable.

And a government that accepts that it will be judged more by its deeds than by its mere words.

I don't bring religion into the square.

I don't think that my particular religious convictions should be held against me in this campaign any more than the Prime Minister's lack of convictions should be held against her.

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

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.

I think there does need to be give and take on both sides, and this idea that sex is kind of a woman’s right to absolutely withhold, just as the idea that sex is a man’s right to demand I think they are both they both need to be moderated, so to speak.

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.

I don't think it's a very Christian thing to come in by the back door rather than the front door.

My mum and mad were both very generous, encouraging parents.

We cannot suffer a person by his affidavit to arraign the whole justice of the country and its administration.

I know politicians are going to be judged on everything they say but sometimes in the heat of discussion you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark. The statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth are those carefully prepared scripted remarks.

Now, I know that there are some Aboriginal people who aren’t happy with Australia Day. For them it remains Invasion Day. I think a better view is the view of Noel Pearson, who has said that Aboriginal people have much to celebrate in this country’s British Heritage.

The quality of government, I suppose, is determined not by what happens, but by how you react to what happens.

The the relationship between the prime minister and the monarch is very much a personal one and when it comes to the constitution of the Order of Australia, which is headed by the monarch, this is governed by letters patent, which are a matter between the prime minister and the monarch.

The last thing Australia needs right now is instability and uncertainty.

We've got to get the system right. That's why we've got this root-and-branch reform under way.

Climate change is crap.

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.

I've always avoided those sorts of self-assessments because if you give yourself a 10 out of 10 people think you're a big head, if you give yourself a 6 out of 10 they think you're plagued with self-doubt, so I'm just not going to rate myself.

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.

The measure in the budget in relation to parental leave pay is based on a simple proposition. Most women across Australia have access to one scheme funded by the taxpayer. Some women have access to two schemes and that's great.

I have close family members as well as lots of close friends who are gay. Many of them strongly support gay marriage.

Mates help each other; they do not tax each other.

Our police, our hard-working police, that our extraordinarily committed and dedicated military personnel, I'm really pleased that they are getting a good paid parental leave scheme.

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.

If you don't want to work weekends, don't.

You try turning up in America without documents, without a visa, without a passport; you'll be treated as very, very much illegal.

A bit of body contact never hurt anyone.

Every prime minister has a whole series of networks, and there are official formal networks and there are unofficial informal networks. I'm lucky in that I have good official formal networks, starting with my own office, the leadership group, the cabinet and the party room.

Taxes will always be lower under a Coalition government

I'm confident that there are plenty of people who have the strength of character and the presence of mind to warn me of difficulties and alert me to opportunities.

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.

Today, we have got more excuses from the government.

I've always been very wary of debates involving women.

Here we go again, a government which is making yet more excuses for yet more failure when it comes to getting our budgetary situation right.

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.

In respect of Indonesia, I am determined to be the best possible friend of Indonesia that I can be, consistent with my overriding duty to protect our country. We would never do anything that was damaging to Indonesia, because we want Indonesia to flourish. We want Indonesia to take its rightful place as one of the really important countries of the world, as it will, sooner or later.

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.

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.

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.

If you want to put a price on carbon why not just do it with a simple tax?

Coal is good for humanity, coal is good for prosperity, coal is an essential part of our economic future, here in Australia, and right around the world.

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.

It is a very heavy responsibility [to be a prime-minister] to make, but someone has to make it for our country and I am thrilled and honoured to have that opportunity and that responsibility.