Paul Keating Quotes

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.

He's a pre-Copernican obscurantist.

The little desiccated coconut is under pressure and he is attacking anything he can get his hands on... (he is) still there araldited to the seat.

(On Xi as president for life: ‘A belief in harmony’) Well, it’s a good way to stay in power, I guess. It’s not my way. I actually believe in a community’s right to dismiss the government. But you’ve got to remember that China is broadly a Confucian society that believes in harmony, in authority, and it is with this background that it accepts, I think broadly, the role of the Chinese Communist party. I mean, the idea that we have that if you don’t vote at the local ballot box, that is, if you are not a Jeffersonian liberal, then you are a savage, belies the fact that China has a 4,000-year history which has these characteristics about it.

This society of ours is better than the United States. It’s more even, it’s more fair, we’ve had a 50% increase in real income in the last 20 years. Median America has had zero, zero... We don’t shoot our children in schools and if they were to be shot we’d take the guns off the people who shot them. The Americans do not do this... The idea that… we are some sort of subordinate outfit that has to get a signal from abroad before we think of ours is a complete denial of everything we have created here.

The excesses of the 80s must not reappear in the 90s, The last thing we need now is a return to the 80s philosophy of 'greed is good' and that the only useful interest is self-interest.

He’s the greatest L plater of all time.

This is the sweetest victory of all. This is a victory for the true believers; the people who, in difficult times, have kept the faith.

In October 2020, the IMF in its annual report nominated China as the world’s largest economy. It says China’s economy is now 20% larger than the United States, 24tn versus 20tn – a report which was endorsed by the CIA. So you have the IMF and the CIA out there saying China is 20% bigger than the United States now. These are the key numbers. American GDP per capita is $60,000. China’s GDP per capita is $10,000. But as China is moving out of its old model of cheap manufactured goods, their income is going to rise. But at 10,000 US dollars per capita, China is 20% bigger than the US. How many years is it going to take China to get to 20,000? Not 60 … but with the highly urbanised economy of theirs, it will take a decade, perhaps. If it gets to $20,000 US per capita, it will be 2.5 times bigger than the United States. To which the United States says: “That is all very interesting but, look, if you behave yourselves, you Chinese, you can be a stakeholder in our system.” And you would not have to be Xi Jinping to take the view, if you are a Chinese nationalist, “let me get this right, we are already 1.25 times bigger than you, we will soon be twice as big as you and we may be 2.5 times as big as you, but we can be a stakeholder in your system, is that it?” It would make a cat laugh.

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

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.

Even as it walked out on you and joined the Common Market, you were still looking for your MBEs and your knighthoods, and all the rest of the regalia that comes with it. You would take Australia right back down the time tunnel to the cultural cringe where you have always come from.

The Placido Domingo of Australian politics.

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.

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