Paul Keating Quotations

The great curse of modern political life is incrementalism.

Well, I think that - I think leadership's always been about two main things: imagination and courage.

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.

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

I've always held the view that great states need strategic space. I mean, George Washington took his space from George III. Britain took it from just about everybody. Russia took all of Eastern Europe. Germany's taken it from everywhere they can, and China will want its space too.

I think the Australian people are very conscientious. During the 1980s and 1990s we proved they will respond conscientiously to necessary reforms. They mightn't like them but they'll accept them. But reforms have to be presented in a digestible format.

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

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.

In the end, rational policy is always good.

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

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

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.

I try to use the Australian idiom to its maximum advantage.

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.

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.

I think the rise of China is one of the great events of all economic and human history, and I think this will be overwhelmingly a positive thing for the region and the world.

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

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

Nobody wants to have in their CV in the upper echelons of the American economic family that they nationalised major banks.

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

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

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.

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.

In the end, the key ingredient for public life is imagination. You imagine something better, you try to bring the people with you.

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.

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.

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.

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

The lesson of the Federation should be that the lesson is over. Australia must have a new idea of itself. We have to strike out in a new direction, in a new way, armed with our own self-regard, our own confidence and fully appreciating our own uniqueness. All other roads will lead us into the shadow of great powers.

Good economics is good politics.

John Howard turned the prime ministership into something like a state police minister. He's at the scene of every crime, twice a day on radio, the guy did no thinking.

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

Anybody who achieves what Malcolm Fraser achieved in his life deserves respect as a quite extraordinary Australian.

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.

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.

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.

This is a low flying person

[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?

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

Leadership is not about being nice. it's about being right and being strong

He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up

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

I think leadership's always been about two main things: imagination and courage.

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

A familiar question for Australians is how much we are a product of our circumstances, and how much we are what we have made ourselves to be. In truth, by the act of migration the country was made: by that voluntary act and by the emigrants' ambitions it was built.

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

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

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

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.