Loose cannons

Saw no point

"The position of the Australian government is very well understood, and that may well explain why it wasn't raised." — Prime Menzies John Howard, pleased that Asian leaders at the APEC summit hadn't raised the issue of racism in Australia.

Isn't that the idea?

"Schleswig-Holstein's stance has little to do with reality." German federal government spokesperson on plans by the state of Schleswig-Holstein to legalise over the counter sales of marijuana.

End of pretence

"This stacking is different to anything in the 1970s or 1980s. No-one is making a pretence that the recruits know what they are doing or why." — Rod Cavalier, from the NSW ALP "left", on the current surge of branch stacking in preparation for preselection votes next year. ALP membership in the Sydney federal seat of Fowler is reported to have reached 2500.

Blame the weather?

"It is not just heartless but pernicious to assume that ... current rates of unemployment somehow constitute a natural and inevitable outcome of market forces." — Michel Hansenne, director-general of the UN International Labour Organisation, on the ILO's latest annual report, showing that 1 billion people worldwide were unemployed or under-employed in 1995.

Time traveller

"About time we turned back the clock." — Kevin Lingard, Queensland's minister for family services, explaining his decision to bar homosexual couples or single men from being foster parents.

Then don't

"Without these people, you've got nothing to sell." — Elizabeth Bryan, managing director of the NSW government company which manages the state public service superannuation fund, defending an incentive plan for executives during the company's privatisation: they will be given a bonus of a year's salary for agreeing to stay through privatisation, and then the same bonus again if the privatised company doesn't need them. So far, $30 million in state funds has been set aside to pay for the schemes.

From GLW issue 257