Malcolm Turnbull Quotes & Sayings

Government will not nominate the former Labor prime minister [Kevin Rudd] to be the UN's next secretary-general. — Malcolm Turnbull

I believe politicians should aim to be accurate and truthful in what they say at all times. You can be truthful and inaccurate but what you shouldn't be doing at any time is saying things that are untrue or making commitments that you have no intention of honouring. — Malcolm Turnbull

I try to talk about policy issues intelligently, I try very hard to avoid thought bubbles. I make sure my speeches are well researched and footnoted. I make sure I am not talking through my hat. — Malcolm Turnbull

We need to recognise that the whole edifice of our fifth estate, of our journalism, has been built on a foundation of newspaper journalism and that that foundation is crumbling. The management of the media companies will deny that the end is nigh. I hope they are right. — Malcolm Turnbull

Nobody looks at opinion polls with more attention than politicians, but of course you've got to remember that a single poll is a snapshot in time. — Malcolm Turnbull

I don't find myself in moral turmoil. I'm not given to turmoil of any kind. — Malcolm Turnbull

Governments enjoying surpluses have a very strong temptation to splash money around, and while tax cuts are always appealing, cutting taxes at the top of a boom runs the real risk of creating a structural deficit when the boom subsides. — Malcolm Turnbull

We are already experiencing the symptoms of climate change, especially with a hotter and drier climate in southern Australia - the rush to construct desalination plants is an expensive testament to that. — Malcolm Turnbull

What every prime minister struggles with and every leader struggles with is how to balance the two objectives; firstly that of ensuring that all asylum seekers are treated generously and humanely in accordance with the convention and secondly doing everything you can to eliminate or at least discourage people smuggling. And it's a very, very difficult balance. — Malcolm Turnbull

I believe that politicians should speak the truth all the time. Invariably there will be occasions when you make statements that are factually incorrect due to an error. — Malcolm Turnbull

It is our job, as members of parliament, to legislate with an eye to the long term future, to look over the horizon beyond the next election and ensure that as far as we can what we do today will make Australia a better place, a safer place, for future generations to live in. — Malcolm Turnbull

China and India will take the global leadership on climate change: they are suffering for it. — Malcolm Turnbull

The only reason to be in politics is public service. There's no other reason. Frankly, if that's the best job you can get in terms of money, that's too bad, you know. Because frankly, it's not well paid, everyone knows that. So for most people it's a big sacrifice. — Malcolm Turnbull

People learn from failure or from lack of success. — Malcolm Turnbull

Look at countries like China, they are determined to dominate all clean technology areas, putting lots of money into wind, solar, electric vehicles and battery storage. America's political impotence, caused by their terrible partisanship, will see them left behind. — Malcolm Turnbull

It's really corny to say, but if you are happily married and have good kids, that is about 98 per cent of what you should be seeking to achieve. — Malcolm Turnbull

I am an ambitious person, but I am not ambitious in the sense that I want jobs only for the sake of them ... I am here to do things I think are worthwhile. I am always careful that the political positions I take are consistent with good policy. I would not want to be prime minister of Australia at any price. — Malcolm Turnbull

We will certainly have to rethink the way in which we design and protect places where large numbers of Australians and indeed this will happen around the world. — Malcolm Turnbull

Are not the gays who seek the right to marry, to formalise their commitment to each other, holding up a mirror to heterosexuals who are marrying less frequently and divorcing more often? — Malcolm Turnbull

People invest in companies in order to get a share of the profit that company will make. If the Government increases its share of the profits, potential profits, at the expense of the owners of the company, the shareholders, then that makes investment in that company less attractive. — Malcolm Turnbull

It is unmanly. It is not some expression of macho virtue. It is the absolute antithesis of this. Real men don't bully women and children. Respect for women ... is so important. — Malcolm Turnbull

It's not a 24-hour news cycle, it's a 60-second news cycle now, it's instantaneous. It has never been easier to get away with telling lies. It has never been easier to get away with the glib one liner. — Malcolm Turnbull

I love radio - its immediacy and especially its intimacy ... it is part of your life, whispering into your ear. You can't see it, but equally importantly it can't see you. — Malcolm Turnbull

Study after study has demonstrated that people are better off financially, healthier, happier if they are married, and indeed, I repeat, if they are formally married as opposed to simply living together. — Malcolm Turnbull

We learn from every natural disaster. Whether it's a fire or a flood, we learn something from it so we can respond to the next one better. — Malcolm Turnbull

If consulted by friends about marital dramas, I always encourage the singles to marry, the married to stick together, the neglectful and wayward to renew their loving commitment and the wronged to forgive. — Malcolm Turnbull

The question of whether or to what extent human activities are causing global warming is not a matter of ideology, let alone of belief. The issue is simply one of risk management. — Malcolm Turnbull

What we're seeing at the moment is people being radicalised or adopting Islamist, murderous Islamist ideology very, very quickly so that you have people that are not on the counterterrorism radar screen who then often, as a result of mental illness, will then attach themselves to this murderous ideology and then act very quickly. — Malcolm Turnbull

This is a very tough business, politics. It's easy to get resentful or full of bitterness ... (but) I think hatred hurts the hater more than the hated. So I'm looking back on my time positively. — Malcolm Turnbull

I do not believe we can effectively move Australia to a lower emission economy, which is what we need to do if we're going to make a contribution to a global reduction in greenhouse gases, without putting a price on carbon. — Malcolm Turnbull

Climate change is a global problem. The planet is warming because of the growing level of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. If this trend continues, truly catastrophic consequences are likely to ensue from rising sea levels, to reduced water availability, to more heat waves and fires. — Malcolm Turnbull

The most effective check and balance on government has been an independent press which maintains its credibility by ensuring that its criticism is balanced and based on fact - based indeed on solid journalistic work. — Malcolm Turnbull

In economics, one of the most important concepts is 'opportunity cost' - the idea that once you spend your money on something, you can't spend it again on something else. — Malcolm Turnbull

There is a tendency to try to dumb everything down and turn everything into a one-paragraph press release or even less, just a slogan. — Malcolm Turnbull

I'm sick of the cover-ups, I'm sick of the lies, and so are the bloody veterans, that come out daily of the department's mouth. — Malcolm Turnbull

The proliferation of outlets that digital technology has enabled has itself contributed to the changing nature of what we regard as 'news' and the way in which many citizens perceive politics. — Malcolm Turnbull

Everyone's got different views. I think you're better off staying within the party and prosecuting those views than stepping out of it. — Malcolm Turnbull

While our energy efficiency is improving, there is a very high correlation, almost near perfect correlation, between GDP growth, and energy usage. — Malcolm Turnbull

Newspapers are busily experimenting with different models. Traditionally, and I suspect in hindsight very mistakenly, online news was free. And once given free access readers felt it was their entitlement. — Malcolm Turnbull

If Margaret Thatcher took climate change seriously and believed that we should take action to reduce global greenhouse emissions, then taking action and supporting and accepting the science can hardly be the mark of incipient Bolshevism. — Malcolm Turnbull

You've got to remember that it's a two horse race. So when the Government is doing badly the Opposition is doing better and vice versa. — Malcolm Turnbull

Those who condemn gay marriage, yet are silent or indifferent to the breakdown of marriage and divorce, are, in my view, missing the real issue. — Malcolm Turnbull

But who knows, some years from now if there's a global emissions trading scheme agreement, as many have hoped for, then I'm sure Australia would be part of it. — Malcolm Turnbull

There's the occasion when politicians will say things that are simply not true or that they make commitments that they have no intention of fulfilling. That is something that I think should not happen. That's a no-no. That's a third rail that you shouldn't touch. — Malcolm Turnbull

So the proposition that the ideal parents for any child are its biological parents is a statement with which we can all agree in the generality, but which does not apply, for one reason or another, in many particular circumstances. — Malcolm Turnbull

You cannot keep on saying oh, you know, talking about disrespecting women as just being politically correct or it's not a big deal or brushing things off. You've got to be aware of it. — Malcolm Turnbull

I've been around in public life for a long time. I think people know what I stand for. They know that I have strong convictions, committed principles and I'm prepared to stand up for them. — Malcolm Turnbull

What you've got to do is recognize that you don't control everything for a start, you've got to play the cards you're dealt, the hand of cards you're dealt, as best you can, and that's what I always seek to do. — Malcolm Turnbull

Anyone who thinks it's smart to cut immigration is sentencing Australia to poverty. — Malcolm Turnbull

Let us be honest with each other. The threat to marriage is not the gays. It is a lack of loving commitment - whether it is found in the form of neglect, indifference, cruelty or adultery, to name just a few manifestations of the loveless desert in which too many marriages come to grief. — Malcolm Turnbull

In terms of our region, what we need to ensure is that the rise of China [is] conducted in a manner that does not disturb the security and the relative harmony of the region upon which China's prosperity depends. Now - now, that requires careful diplomacy, it requires balancing. — Malcolm Turnbull

Do the bishops seriously imagine that legalising gay marriage will result in thousands of parties to heterosexual marriages suddenly deciding to get divorced so they can marry a person of the same sex? — Malcolm Turnbull

On balance, after weighing the arguments, I believe that the time has come for Australia to create a new sovereign wealth fund. — Malcolm Turnbull

The Liberal Party is and always has been an amalgam between the conservative and the liberal with a small L traditions. And so from time to time people will see it emphasising one more than the other. I think it is genuinely an amalgam between the two. — Malcolm Turnbull

Greece is an extreme case: a country where both the level of spending and the level of taxation were unsustainable! — Malcolm Turnbull

My commitment to the Republican movement was pure and simply patriotism, a love of Australia ... a desire or passion that all of our national symbols should be unequivocally and unambiguously Australian. — Malcolm Turnbull

I will go to the next election saying to Australians, vote for me, vote for the Liberal Party, and I will become your PM. So I'm offering myself as the alternative PM - that's one way people describe the Leader of the Opposition - but I'm not in politics for myself to realize a personal ambition. — Malcolm Turnbull

The biggest review of taxation ever undertaken in this country, is now dead in the water. — Malcolm Turnbull

Many Liberals are rightly dismayed that on this vital issue of climate change we are not simply without a policy, without any prospect of having a credible policy but we are now without integrity. We have given our opponents the irrefutable, undeniable evidence that we cannot be trusted. — Malcolm Turnbull

All Australians understand that high-quality, reliable and affordable broadband is a critical part of the infrastructure our nation needs to prosper in coming years. — Malcolm Turnbull

The way to lose weight is to eat less, so I ate a lot less for a month and lost a lot of weight pretty quickly. — Malcolm Turnbull

To the former child migrants, who came to Australia from a home far away, led to believe this land would be a new beginning, when only to find it was not a beginning, but an end, an end of innocence - we apologise and we are sorry. To the mothers who lost the maternal right to love and care for their child - we apologise, and we are sorry. — Malcolm Turnbull

Mitt Romney speaking to a $50,000-a-plate Republican fundraiser says he doesn't have to worry about the 47 per cent of Americans who don't pay tax. He was not counting on the smart phone recording his speech and then posting it on YouTube. — Malcolm Turnbull

It is our job above all in politics to tackle the big issues and to explain them, and have the honesty to say to people, 'There are no easy solutions here.' — Malcolm Turnbull

Honest people, knowledgeable people, really well-informed people can have very different views about what the right measures are on national security. — Malcolm Turnbull

When politicians offer you something for nothing, or something that sounds too good to be true, it's always worth taking a careful second look. — Malcolm Turnbull

Gone are the days when your indiscretions at university were recorded in a roneoed college newsletter of which there is only one copy left tucked in a filing cabinet at the back of a library. Today that same college newsletter is online, accessible by the whole world now and forever. — Malcolm Turnbull

Broadcasters or politicians or writers who think that they are respecting Struggle Street, the battlers, by dumbing things down into one-line sound bites are not respecting them, they are treating them with contempt. It's our job above all in politics to tackle the big issues and to explain them. — Malcolm Turnbull