JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, you keep saying the clock is ticking on climate change. Why, then, wait until Tuesday to present the Opposition with a deal on emissions trading and make it harder to get a vote by end of next week?
PM: Well we're, in Australia, as you know, one of the hottest and driest continent on Earth and therefore the clock is ticking for Australia and for the world. That's why we need to act and we will make sure that the Opposition has everything they need in time for the proper consideration of this in the Parliament this week, because we're engaged in good faith negotiations with them.
JOURNALIST: But you could get it to them on Monday, couldn't you?
PM: We're engaged in good faith negotiations and Senator Wong and Mr MacFarlane, they have all these things in hand and we're engaged in good faith negotiations. I assume the Opposition is as well and we're working our way though it because we are in a difficult time for the planet, a difficult time for Australia. Everyone in Australia thinking about this this weekend would work it out that we are among the hottest and driest continents on Earth. We will feel the effects of climate change fastest and hardest, and therefore we must act this week and the Government will be doing everything possible to make sure that that can occur.
JOURNALIST: Jim Wallace has warned that tens of thousands of Christians could desert Labor if your government doesn't strike out the same-sex marriage laws that were just passed here in the ACT. Are you concerned about that?
PM: We'll work our way through all of that once we receive the legal advice from the Attorney General's Department and our position is that we will stick with the Marriage Act, but we'll just see what the legal advice says in terms of what can be done here in the ACT. I don't know the outcome of that just yet.
JOURNALIST: Penny Wong's described Mike Rann as a first-class Premier. Is it appropriate that someone who's described as a first-class Premier to have sexual relations with a married woman inside parliament house?
PM: Well, these are personal matters and my experience of Mike Rann over many, many years is that he is a first-class Premier and I know of nobody who sticks up for his State more than Mike Rann.
This is a bloke who goes out there and argues the case for South Australia day-in, day-out, never off the telephone to me wanting something better for his State. He's a first-class Premier. I've known him for a long time and these are personal.