@columhead = Very clean
"It is a very clean deal. There is no payment, no nothing." -- Businessman and Suharto crony Mohamad Hasan, confirming that the Indonesian government has given him, free, an additional $1 billion share in the Busang gold mine.
@columhead = Learned the easy way
"The arch enemy of an open society is no longer the Communist threat but the capitalist one ... It is wrong to make `survival of the fittest' a leading principle in a civilized society ... I have made a fortune on international financial markets, and yet now fear the untrammelled intensification of laissez-faire capitalism and the spread of market values into all areas of life is endangering our open and democratic society." -- Canadian billionaire George Soros, writing in the Atlantic Monthly.
@columhead = Test the contents
"If you got a bottle of Dom Perignon from the boss in December, would you be worried?" -- Senator Amanda Vanstone, insisting she's not concerned about rumours that she will be replaced as education minister.
@columhead = You don't?
"In Queensland you expect governments to be backing inappropriate developments ... but you don't expect the Victorian government to be proposing something inappropriate in the Prom [Wilson's Promontory park]." -- Australian Conservation Foundation spokesperson Michael Krockenberger, quoted in the Bulletin.
@columhead = Well done, Sherlock!
"The investigation did not determine where the money had gone, but it is believed to have been stolen." -- Report into the disappearance of $7460 from a safe in a Northern Territory police station.
@columhead = Brave
"Mr Howard ... has said that ministers should not be afraid to appoint people [to government authorities] who have connections or sympathies with the Coalition ..." -- Sydney Morning Herald February 21.
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