Loose cannons

This is a change?

"Pauline doesn't know what's going on around her any more." — George Merritt, chair of the SA Pauline Hanson Support Movement, who appears to have lost out in a power struggle among Hanson's lieutenants.

Where did they learn that?

"A young brigade more interested in its own ambition rather than the overall welfare of the party." — ALP ex-MP Ross Free on party members who complain that preselection is going to an older layer defeated in the last election. Free is seeking preselection for Lindsay, which he has lost twice in the last year and a half.

Helpless

"As usual, Mr Costello is not being much help. He can't help himself." — Queensland Premier Rob Borbidge on federal treasurer Peter Costello's plans to rescue state taxes outlawed by the High Court.

Achievers

"It was Keating and Brereton who introduced" non-union individual contracts. — Steve Hutchins, vice-president of the NSW ALP and state secretary of the Transport Workers Union.

Euphoria

"Growth was driven by investment, which was driven by credit. It's easy to criticise, but everyone was euphoric." — A researcher at UBS Securities in Bangkok on Thailand's economic crisis, quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald, August 12.

No Stalinism please, we're Liberals

"This was not a faction. We're an anti-faction ... We don't want Stalinist tactics in our party." — Tony Abbott, Liberal MP for Warringah, on anti-faction fighting that has broken out in the NSW Liberal Party.

From GLW issue 286