Loose cannons

Leaders

"I think in the longer term if there is a clear view that the people of Australia want change, and that change is sensible and there is overwhelming community support for it, I'm sure all political parties in the end will recognise that change." — John Hewson on a republican Australia.

Wallopers

"The Victorian drug squad ... last week ... swooped on a van outside St Vincent's Hospital in Melbourne and wrestled the 10 people inside to the ground. Unfortunately it took an hour and a half of interrogation to discover that the police had succeeded in bringing to justice the entire charity collecting team of the Muscular Dystrophy Association." — The Bulletin, May 4.

Friends

"We are friends." — Ivana Trump after the financial settlement of her divorce from US multimillionaire Donald Trump.

Frauds

"A fraudulent presentation of the facts as they are presently understood in relation to the alleged chronic toxic effects of marijuana." — An official of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre on a marijuana "fact sheet" being distributed by a Wollongong magistrate.

Magnanimous in victory

"They are in the process of self-destruction over the republic and the leadership, so we are not in a position where we need to put the boot into them." — May 2 Sun-Herald, quoting "a senior ALP official" on why the federal parliamentary Labor Party might not call the Opposition "scumbags".

And the numbers

"I've always believed the eyes are the windows of the soul, and Paul Keating has magnificent eyes." — ALP left and former MP Tom Uren.

From GLW issue 98