Eric Abetz quotes:

I think the issue of marriage is a vitally important issue on which I would campaign heavily.

Am I conservative? Yes, I am. I would have thought conservative is very much middle of the road, representative of the aspirational values of the Australian people. The extreme right has connotations with it that I would never seek to identify with.

Trying to be just a parliamentarian doing your duty and trying to keep family out and also the celebrity status out is rare and hopefully I have been able thus far to - been able to protect my wife and children.

I don't believe that knifing and that sort of terminology is applicable to myself, but I try to the very best of my ability to be as honest as I can with my colleagues and with the electorate at large.

I think most people would be surprised at the length of the day whilst you're campaigning and then the variety of things that you do and you're asked to do.

I've always enjoyed mixing and mingling with the Tasmanian community and that's, if you like, the bread and butter of politics. And from my perspective, it's meant more time at home, which I also enjoy and it's also meant the greater interaction with the Tasmanian community. And it's also given me freedom to speak out.

I might be a stalwart, but I'm not a kingmaker.

Things like Kitchen Cabinet, I'm not sure they necessarily tell the Australian people whether you have judgement, whether you have discernment, whether you have intellectual acuity, whether you are able to develop policy, whether you are able to represent individual cases to the highest levels of government successfully and in a manner that actually achieves outcomes.