The pause that depresses
"Confronted by a flagging global economy, G7 finance ministers ... described the current slowdown as a 'pause', and not a cause for concern." —
Financial Review, January 22.
Non-believable
"I don't believe in rudeness. I don't believe in personal effrontery and rudeness." — PM Keating on John Laws' 2UE radio show.
Bad investment
"It seems as if we have paid all this money and will be left watching Easts and Souths play minor fixtures." — A member of the Sydney Cricket and Sports Ground Trust. Members who paid $7000 for a lifetime seat at the cricket stadium and football ground have been informed they have no special privileges for events at the new Olympic stadium at Homebush.
Misleading
"The notion of the people's [Olympic] games is quite misleading; we certainly did not call it that when we were bidding." — Phil Coles, one of two Australian delegates to the International Olympic Committee, squelching demagogy about ordinary people having any role in the Olympics aside from paying for them.
Yellowcake Paul
"The Australians are the ones who make it possible for the French to explode nuclear devices. They're the yellowcake uranium people." — David Lange, former NZ prime minister, on the hypocrisy of Paul Keating's Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.
Imperfect
"Bob Burgess is not a racist, and no candidate can be expected to be word perfect." — National Party leader Tim Fischer, refusing to force out a National candidate who referred to citizenship functions as "dewogging ceremonies".
Might have a use ...
"The board of the World Health Organisation has recommended that the last stocks of the smallpox virus, held by Russia and the United States, be destroyed in June 1999 ... Scientific delegations had urged the destruction of the remaining stocks of the virus for several years, but had run up against vested political and military interests, diplomats said." —
Sydney Morning Herald, January 27.