Between 1999 and 2004 there was no investment in Australia, it all wen — Paul Keating

"Hes a pre-Copernican obscurantist."

"The dogs may bark but the caravan moves on."

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

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

"Hewson: I ask the Prime Minister: if you are so confident about your view of Fightback, why will you not call an early election? Keating: The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm out of this load of rubbish over a number of months. There will be no easy execution for you. You have perpetrated one of the great mischiefs on the Australian public with this thing, trying to rip away our social wage, trying to rip away the Australian values which we built in our society for over a century."

"[Australian Reserve Bank] Governor MacFarlane said recently when Paul Volcker broke the back of American inflation its regarded as the policy triumph of the Western world. When I broke the back of Australian inflation they say, "Oh, youre 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?"