Government Quotes - Page 320

I cannot think of any circumstances in which a government can go to war without the support of parliament.

In government you carry each hope; each disillusion. And in politics it's always about the next challenge.

Ask me my three main priorities for government, and I tell you: education, education and education.

Most of the problems of government come from people being overwhelmed by the size and scale of what they have to do.

It is government policy to phase out subsidies to nationalised industries. In line with this, the government hopes that the coal industry will be able to operate without the need for assistance apart from social grants.

I was a very senior minister in the Howard government and I sat around this particular table [in the prime ministerial office] in many discussions. The difference between being a senior minister and the prime minister is that ultimately the buck does stop with the prime minister and in the end the prime minister has to make those critical judgement calls and that's the big difference.

We will be a consultative, collegial government. No surprises, no excuses. That's what you'll get under the Coalition.

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.

There will be no surprises and no excuses from a Coalition government, Barrie.

Look, good government doesn't look for excuses, good government gets on with the job.

So, my friends, in a week or so the Governor-General will swear in a new government.

This is a government which is proposing to put at risk our manufacturing industry, to penalise struggling families, to make a tough situation worse for millions of households right around Australia. And for what? To make not a scrap of difference to the environment any time in the next 1000 years.

I understand that government should live within its means, value the money it holds in trust from you the taxpayer, avoid waste and, above all else, observe the first maxim of good government: namely, do no avoidable harm.

A government that says what it means, and means what it says.

A government that understands the limits of power as well as its potential.

Oppositions are not there to get legislation through. Oppositions are there to hold the government to account.

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.

In Australia’s biggest cities, public transport is generally slow, expensive, not especially reliable and still hideous drain on the public purse. Part of the problem is inefficient, overmanned, union-dominated government run train and bus systems. Mostly though, …there just aren’t enough people wanting to go from a particular place to a particular destination at a particular time to justify any vehicle larger than a car, and cars need roads.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.