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" The death of Malcolm Fraser underwrites a great loss to Australia. Notwithstanding a controversial prime ministership, in later years he harboured one abiding and important idea about Australia - its need and its right to be a strategically independent country. "

Paul Keating

Death

Great

Important

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" As prime minister, the pastoral lease question was a very vexing and torrid one for me. "

Paul Keating

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

" 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

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

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

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

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

" 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. "

" 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 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. "

" 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. "

" Aboriginal art and culture draws from the land, for Aboriginality and the land are essential to each other and are inseparable. "

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

" 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. "

" I always believed in burning up the government's political capital, not being Mr Safe Guy, 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. "

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

" 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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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? "

" Truth is, of its essence, liberating, as it is possessed of no contrivance or conceit - that it provides the only genuine basis for progress and that the future can only be found in truth. "

" 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. "

" The essence of leadership is essentially taking the responsibility of trying to interpret the future to the present. "

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

" 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. "

" 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