Cory Bernardi quotes:

There seems to be for a long time now a range of issues that the Australian people want to talk about, but for some reason politicians of various shapes and stripes have decided they don't want to talk about.

What I seek to do is to establish the facts as I see them, or as I understand them, and to engage in constructive dialogue to get good outcomes.

In a hyper materialist environment where everything is reduced to mere economic considerations, what we deem to be important is often trivial, a temporary fix for deeper and more profound yearnings.This has given rise to what some may describe as a unique pathology common to modern wealthy societies: moral and spiritual emptiness among opulence and material luxury.

Where there is true variety, there will be inevitable 'inequality' - that is simply the result of human nature and the pluralism that defines us as a people.

The quest to remove all inequality is the deadening hand of socialism and results in social stagnation.

The media, I think, have to be accountable for some of the misdirection that is put forward in politics in some of the misapprehension, maybe even some of the lack of confidence in the political process. Because the most benign, frank thought can be twisted and portrayed as something that it really wasn't intended to.

Fear is not at the heart of Christianity nor of our nation. The very essence of Christian faith lies in forgiveness. Christians believe that Jesus died so we may live. He took upon himself our sins so that we may be forgiven and thereby gave us a model of forgiveness for others. This is a cycle that allows civility and progress in the face of man's faults and imperfectability.

I can assure you that everyone that talks to me doesn't share my views. I seem to be a barometer of public opinion.

In America we're seeing the emergence of Donald Trump, who's the anti-establishment candidate, if you will, who's bucking all the conventional political wisdom on the basis of the fact that so many Americans feel that they've been left behind by the political system and that it's working to entrench advantage by insiders, rather than advantage the people of that country.

For all the advances in technology, science and communications, there are signs that we are failing in areas where it matters most: our personal relationships and society in general. The atomisation of society evidenced by the startling increase in recent decades of single person households and the identification of loneliness and isolation as one of our most pressing new social problems, should give us cause for concern.

I've always said: if we ignore the issues that people want us to talk about, then you will have movements outside of the establishment political parties grow.

I've got to put forward a very strong conservative voice, advocate for conservative values and advocate for principle in politics to restore faith in politics.