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" 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. "

Paul Keating

Think

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" In the end, rational policy is always good. "

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

" What distinguished the First World War from all wars before it was the massive power of the antagonists. "

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

" The great curse of modern political life is incrementalism. "

" If you can't imagine it, you sure as hell are never going to see it. "

" When one has been touched by the stellar power and ethereal playing of a sublime musician, one is lifted, if only briefly, to a place beyond the realm of the temporal. "

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

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

" A more worldly and competent foreign and defence policy is by far the preferred first line of defence - rather than the default position of relying on expensive but problematic hardware. "

Paul Keating

Position

First

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" The only reward in a public life is public progress. You stand back and say, 'What did I get out of it?' You look around, and the place is better, and that's it. "

" When we were actually in the Keating reform era, the Business Council was of no help. "

" 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. "

" Geoffrey Tozer's death is a national tragedy. For the Australian arts and Australian music, losing Tozer is like Canada having lost Glenn Gould, or France, Ginette Neveu. It is a massive cultural loss. The kind of loss people felt when Germany lost Dresden. "

" Russia alone has the capacity to obliterate the United States. "

" 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. "

" What we have to do is make our way in Asia ourselves with an independent foreign policy. Our future is basically in the region around us in South East Asia. "

Paul Keating

Policy

Way

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

" I have said before, you don't expect conservative parties to believe in much, but you do expect them to believe in thrift. "

" The First World War not only destroyed European civilisation and the empires at its heart; its aftermath led to a second conflagration, the Second World War, which divided the continent until the end of the century. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" My claim has always been that defeatism pervaded the conservative parties in the 1930s and that it was the defining characteristic of Menzies and his first period as prime minister. "

" The more we view the country through the prism of Aboriginality, the more likely we are to get the angle right. "

Paul Keating

Get

Country

" I have long believed, especially after the unprovoked Western attack on Iraq and the ransacking of the Gaddafi regime in Libya, that North Korea would not desist from the full development of its nuclear weapons program, despite threats and sanctions from the West and even from China. "

" 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. "

" One of the inevitable aspects of debates about euthanasia is the reluctance on the part of advocates to confront the essence of what they propose. "