Loose cannons

Issue 

Democrat

"We don't have a problem with people coming from other sides. But if the ANC comes here I will order my people to kill them." — Katlehong Inkatha Freedom Party youth leader Jeffrey Sibiya, quoted in the Sunday Times, January 23.

Another ALP?

"How to create a modern centrist-right party capable of winning Federal elections ought to be the abiding obsession of Liberal MPs ..." — Columnist Christine Wallace in the February 4 Financial Review.

When entrepreneurs fall out ...

"I frankly don't believe his word can be trusted on matters where his own involvement is concerned. In my experience he has almost no regard for telling the truth." — Banker Malcolm Turnbull on Fairfax boss Conrad Black. Turnbull was originally involved in the Black-led consortium that took over Fairfax.

Bon appetit

"Either the food industry has had an overnight conversion in their standards, or we cannot rely on the safety of the food we buy." — Andrew Refshauge, NSW opposition spokesperson on health, pointing out that the state's prosecutions for food-related violations declined from 1324 in 1991 to 64 in 1993.

Question

"I think it's a very important question that we have to pass on to the Defence Forces as to why your study was not taken more seriously and was not addressed." — Senator Baden Teague to the author of a 1987 study which found that more than a quarter of women in the Defence Forces experienced problems of sexual harassment.

It's only money

"Now whether she does it in her head, on a whiteboard or doodles on a pad, I mean in the end I don't think it matters." — Paul Keating on the record keeping of his minister for dispensing public funds in marginal electorates.

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