Paul Keating Quotes

I used to say in the cabinet room, 'confidence is not like a can of Popeye spinach - you can't take the top off and swallow it down.' You know, confidence has to be earned.

No choice we can make as a nation lies between our history and our geography. We can hardly change either of them. They are immutable. The only choice we can make as a nation is the choice about our future.

One is left with the thought that given the way we now abuse the ocean and abuse the climate that we are heading towards our own iceberg, which is looming on the horizon. It's not visible yet but it certainly exists there and it won't be my generation that has to deal with the fact that the world is not bountiful forever, that the ocean and the atmosphere are not free goods to be abused, that will have to feed these vast populations. That will be your generation.

[Australian Reserve Bank] Governor MacFarlane said recently when Paul Volcker broke the back of American inflation it's regarded as the policy triumph of the Western world. When I broke the back of Australian inflation they say, "Oh, you're the fellow that put the interest rates up." Am I not the same fellow that gave them the 15 years of good growth and high wealth that came from it?

The Labor Party is not going to profit from having these proven unsuccessful people around who are frightened of their own shadow and won't get out of bed in the morning unless they've had a focus group report to tell them which side of bed to get out.

Silly what's his name, the Shrek, whoever he was on the television this morning?

In the end it's the big picture which changes nations and whatever our opponents may say, Australia's changed inexorably for good, for the better.

I always believed in burning up the government's political capital, not being Mr Safe Guy, you know?

The G7, just a European centric show, an Atlantic show, is fundamentally finished.

We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the disasters. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine these things being done to us.

Politicians come in three varieties: straight men, fixers, and maddies.

This is a low flying person

The great curse of modern political life is incrementalism.

You see, before I became prime minister, the Australian prime minister only attended ever two meetings in the world: the British Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and the South Pacific Forum.

The fact is Burke is smarter than two thirds of the Western Australian Labor Party rolled together

While frenetic activity, in the end suiting journos; running at the behest of little press secretaries does not pay off

You see, psychologically, Australia must understand it has to live in the region around it. Australia must find its security in Asia; it cannot find its security from Asia.

We will not adopt the fantastic hypocrisy of modern conservatism which preaches the values of families and communities, while conducting a direct assault on them through reduced wages and conditions and job security.

If one takes pride in one's craft, you won't let a good thing die. Risking it through not pushing hard enough is not a humility.

You get one chance to do something about native title. You get perhaps one chance in your life to do something about a republic. You get one chance, your chance, to build a piece of the political architecture in the Pacific. I wasn't going to give those up.

Well, Australians should speak for the national interests of Australia, and whatever role former Australian prime ministers may have, one of the things you do is speak frankly about the country as you see the country's best interests, you know?

The great changes in civilisation and society have been wrought by deeply held beliefs and passion rather than by a process of rational deduction.

If there was a university degree for greed, you cunts would all get first-class honours.

Australia without the Irish would be unthinkable ... unimaginable ... unspeakable.

The Labor Party is a party of conviction. The Liberal Party is a party of convenience.

You just can't have a position where some pumped up bunyip potentate dismisses an elected government.

You know, in the WikiLeaks cables, the Chinese discovered that Kevin Rudd was urging the Americans to keep the military option open against them. This is hardly a friendly gesture.

One tires of combat, although I can still throw a punch, you know.

When the Berlin Wall came down the Americans cried, 'Victory,' and walked off the field.

For John Howard to get to any high moral ground he would have to first climb out of the volcanic hole he's dug for himself over the last decade. You know, it's like one of those deep diamond mined holes in South Africa, you know, they're about a mile underground. He'd have to come a mile up to get to even equilibrium, let alone have any contest in morality with Kevin Rudd.

If this Government cannot get the adjustment, get manufacturing going again, and keep moderate wage outcomes and a sensible economic policy, then Australia is basically done for. We will end up being a third rate economy ... a banana republic.

Good economics is good politics.

The United States being in Asia is unambiguously a good thing for the region.

I think Australia has to be a country which has the 'Welcome' sign out.