Loose cannons

Ambitious

"Honest, there really isn't much wrong with our party that winning a federal election wouldn't fix." — Liberal MP Tony Abbott.

Career path

"Unless and until women become more active in the factions, change is not going to proceed in the way women would like." — ALP assistant national secretary Candy Broad, warning that males in control of the party's factions could end up choosing the women candidates required by the new 35% rule.

Soft-toothed watchdog

"They don't seem to bite people very hard. I do find it intriguing that the EPA has licence conditions on this place, and when they are breached, they don't seem to get terribly excited." — Penrith Mayor Pat Sheehy after the state Environmental Protection Agency declined to prosecute NSW Waste Service over a liquid waste depot found to have leached toxic chemicals into ground water.

Gee, thanks, Paul

"... deregulation of the economy was too 'massive' a task for the Liberals ... Menzies ... pretended to believe in free enterprise ... Malcolm Fraser also pretended to believe in a deregulated economy but never raised a finger in pursuit of it ... Labor did it." — PM Paul Keating, writing in the October 28 Sydney Morning Herald.

Extraordinary

"It was the same with the labour market ... Labor introduced the Accord and with it an extraordinary outbreak of industrial peace ... Now it underpins low inflation and the move to enterprise bargaining." — Keating, same source.

Perish the thought

"Of course, that incorrigible Menzoid, John Howard, reckons that Labor stole enterprise bargaining from him." — Keating, same source.

From GLW issue 165