liberal-conservatives

"None of us want conflict. We want peace and stability. But nor do we want the very world order that underpins our freedoms to be eroded for fear of giving offence, in the vain hope that concessions will ameliorate the determination of those who seek to intimidate and coerce."

"One piece of good news is that, in the May 2022 Australian elections, Scott Morrison and all his coal-loving friends lost their seats in government, largely due to waves of organized people frustrated with climate inaction."

"Morrison is a horrible horrible person."

"As a liberal democracy, we’re also committed to promoting universal values like human rights, gender equality and the rule of law. We’ve always believed in these values, it’s what makes us who we are."

"The Indo-Pacific is where we live. It is where we have our greatest influence and can make the most meaningful impact and contribution. It is the region that will continue to shape our prosperity, security and destiny. It is the region where, together with our allies, and especially the United States, our people made great sacrifices when our peace was threatened."

"I did not shit myself in Endagine McDonalds."

"We face the spectre of a transactional world, devoid of principle, accountability and transparency, where state sovereignty, territorial integrity and liberty are surrendered for respite from coercion and intimidation, or economic entrapment dressed up as economic reward. This is not a world we want - for us, our neighbours or our region. It’s certainly not a world we want for our children."

"We must respect and harness the passion and aspiration of our younger generations, we must guard against others who would seek to compound or, worse, facelessly exploit their anxiety for their own agendas. We must similarly not allow their concerns to be dismissed or diminished as this can also increase their anxiety. What parent could do otherwise? Our children have a right not just to their future but to their optimism."

"Heads of state, people in power, were there face to face with Morrison, imploring Australia to care that their nations might disappear soon-and he flat out refused. Instead, he chose to perpetuate the ongoing imbalance of emissions that has led to the current injustice, with those who did the least to create the crisis bearing the worst burden."

"I don't hold a hose, mate."

"these children are ready to deliver their moral verdict on the people and institutions who knew all about the dangerous, depleted world they would inherit and yet chose not to act. They know what they think of Donald Trump in the United States and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Scott Morrison in Australia and all the other leaders who torch the planet with defiant glee while denying science so basic that these kids could grasp it easily at age eight."

"We know that if we can support developing economies to embrace and use the technologies that achieve net zero emissions, and see their economies grow and increase their jobs, that is not only wonderful for those economies and their peoples, but it also is good for Australia. We know that their success will also be our success."

"Bitterness can often produce all sorts of slings and arrows and attacks. I know where they've come from. And bitterness can always produce this. I've been around politics a long time, and people, when they've had disappointments, whether they be in preselections or in decisions, can often remain bitter for many, many years."

"My family story is not uncommon in our country. Australians quietly going about their lives with simple, decent, honest aspirations. Get an education. Get a job. Start a business. Take responsibility for yourself, support others. Work hard. Deal with whatever challenges come your way."

"This is coal. Don't be afraid. Don't be scared. It won't hurt you."

"That's not my job."

"Ukraine and Australia are separated by half the Earth. Our languages, accents, histories and cultures are different, but we share an affinity for democracy, for freedom, freedom of speech, expression and a free press. For the right to live free of coercion, intimidation and the brute fist of force. And a belief in our shared human dignity."

"Is @jacindaardern willing to denounce this legislation of child sexual abuse?"

"He wanted to be remembered as a person who left New Zealand no worse than he found it. My own view is that he did leave it with substantial problems and substantial dilemmas which have taken us a lot of time and no little anguish to sort out."

"New Zealand was colonised initially by those Australians who had the initiative to escape."

"We are a free and independent nation but in time of trouble we stand with our mother country...New Zealand's decision to break off diplomatic relations with Argentina over the Falklands, immediately after Britain had done so, was not because of Britain's support on the sporting issue. The reason goes much deeper than that. It is in the context of the statement made by a Labour Prime Minister of New Zealand in 1939: "Where Britain goes, we go." We see the Falklands as British territory and the Falklands Islanders as subjects of our Queen. We live at the end of the line and we know the feeling of isolation...With the Falklands Islands, it is family. Historically, Britain has so often on great occasions thrown up the leader that the occasion demanded. I regard Margaret Thatcher as one of the finest and straightest politicians I have ever met...In 1939 we learned the folly of appeasement. A great catastrophe was the price that was paid. The military rulers of Argentina must not be appeased. New Zealand will back Britain all the way."

"After a very long year we've got a very short knight."

"Muldoon, in 1975, had got a huge electoral mandate and he'd squandered it."

"He was an arrogant, pigheaded doctrinaire fool."

"Shortly after I entered Parliament, it became clear to me that I had too many friends. What I needed was some enemies. There was no way that I was ever going to get across the message that I wanted to give to the people of this country if I used the soft, simple word, offending no-one and in fact being heard by no-one."

"Muldoon was an enigma, he worried, he disliked the rich and the powerful and the establishment. He had a very paternal attitude to the poor and powerless. It was a typical Labour Party attitude."

""I came here [Parliament] to help people, not to hurt people, and I find that it has not been possible for me this year to stop very many people from being hurt"."

""Arnold Nordmeyer had probably the most brilliant mind of any politician in my time but his political reputation was destroyed by the 1958 "black" budget. He was a remarkable politician and parliamentarian, as straight as they come, and, I repeat, about the most intelligent that I have come across"."

""There was a lady walking down the pavement and as we passed she stopped and she said: 'I know you, don't I?' ... I said: 'My name's Muldoon.'. She said: 'You're not related to that bastard in Parliament, are you?'. And on that salutary note Mr Speaker, I say goodbye"."

""They won’t put up a statue to me. No, no, no. Nobody’s got that sense of humour"."

""They can't promise anything because I've spent it all"."

"This Prime Minister outgoing, beaten, has, in the course of one television interview, tried to do more damage to the New Zealand economy than any statement ever made. He has actually alerted the world to a crisis. And like King Canute he stands there and says everyone is wrong but me."

"I am not expecting to win"

"This happens...people coming in from South Auckland get to Mount Albert right?...and the thing it's like, hopefully, we could divert some of that traffic and criminals away from Mount Albert..."

"I am expecting to come second, at least...I am not putting in all these hours and putting up with media trying to come second, I am not...I am trying to win this damn thing."

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

"I'll be accountable to the Australian public at the next election - they expect us to stop the boats and that's what we are doing."

"Cardinal Pell is one of the greatest churchmen that Australia has seen. I am a very imperfect Catholic. Why shouldn't I go and seek counsel? Why shouldn't I go and trespass on the time occasionally of someone like Cardinal Pell? If you spent more time with Cardinal Pell, your life might be more interesting."

"Indonesia is a country for which I have a great deal of respect and personal affection based on my own time in Indonesia. I want nothing, but the best for Indonesia, and I certainly want, Leigh, I certainly want the boats stopped and that is overwhelmingly in the interests of both our countries."

"All of the boats in question were in the Indonesian search and rescue zone and I want the fullest possible cooperation between Indonesia and Australia in places where Indonesia has, if you like, the legal responsibility under the law of the sea, but Australia has more practical capacity to help."

"I won't be rushing out to get my daughters vaccinated [for cervical cancer], maybe that's because I'm a cruel, callow, callous, heartless bastard but, look, I won't be"

"Governments which live in fear of tomorrow's headline are incapable of any change."

"These people aren’t so much seeking asylum, they’re seeking permanent residency. If they were happy with temporary protection visas, then they might be able to argue better that they were asylum seekers"

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

"I want to make it clear I do not judge or condemn any woman who has had an abortion. There would not be anyone under 50 in this country who has not come up close and personal against this issue. I accept that resolutions made in church often wilt under the hot breath of passion - I think I know that as well as any person in this chamber - but every abortion is a tragedy and up to 100,000 abortions a year is this generation's legacy of unutterable shame."

"The Jesuits had helped to instil in me this thought that our calling in life was to be, to use the phrase: 'a man for others'."

"John Howard found a problem and created a solution. Kevin Rudd found a solution and has now created a problem"

"Well, that was one boat that did get stopped, wasn't it?"

"My commitment to the forgotten families of Australia is to ease your cost-of-living pressure. Stopping wasteful and unnecessary spending will keep your interest rates down."

"“I certainly have always said that the whole issue here was to try to ensure that we empowered women…[and] gave women in a very difficult position all the support they needed to make what was for them the best possible choice”."