Loose cannons

Choice

"This is a most interesting election from many points of view: the fact we've known about it for so long, the fact that there are no real issues out there ..." — NSW Premier John Fahey on the state elections.

Advice on credit management?

"Now I can get on and do some consultancy work." — Alan Bond, discharged from bankruptcy in exchange for $3.25 million by creditors owed more than $600 million.

Positive side

"[Alan] Bond's excesses had their positive side, too. His demise helped lead to much stricter bank lending and institutional investment rules." — Sydney Morning Herald, February 28.

Needed a Bond

"Everyone is stunned." — A "senior member" of Barings, Britain's oldest merchant bank, after it was bankrupted by one of its traders gambling and losing œ400 million on the Tokyo stock market.

The best that money could buy

"Whilst he had a lot of friends and associates in the past, I think it's fair to say there are very few who now admit to being his friend." — Alan Bond friend Grant Jagelman.

Wild

"The Tarkine wilderness, so-called, is no more wilderness than Battery Point." — Tony Rundle, Tasmanian minister for forests, in May 1992.

From GLW issue 178