There's always the dole
"They wouldn't be working with me if they weren't happy." — Horse trainer Gai Waterhouse, replying to claims by the Australian Workers Union that her strappers and stable hands are paid below award entitlements.
See a what?
"We don't want to see a great Labor government disaffected by a huge range of people within the community and the public sector, and we want to see government honouring its commitments made before the election." — NSW Labour Council secretary Peter Sams, on the Carr government's habit of breaking election promises.
How far we have come
"To sell an enterprise such as Qantas is not a task that would have been expected of an average public servant 10 years ago." — A Department of Finance spokesperson, commenting on the increasing number of consultants employed by the federal government.
Honest
To gauge the extent of corruption in Russia's traffic police, Reuters reported during August, new Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov sent a truck loaded with vodka 700 kilometres across southern Russia. Police stopped the truck at 24 checkpoints — and asked for bribes at 22 of them.
Fair target
Russian defence minister Pavel Grachev recently visited a hospital full of soldiers who had lost limbs in the Chechnya campaign, the Moscow newspaper
Argumenty i Fakty reported on August 23. Before he arrived, the staff removed all the glasses, jugs and other objects the patients might have been able to throw at him.
Stop press
"I don't go there with a travelling slate of what I think are human rights breaches in his [President Suharto's] country." — PM Paul Keating on his forthcoming visit to Indonesia.
Blame the Liberals?
"He [Suharto] could point to problems we have, prejudicial views about the Aboriginal community, denying them equal opportunity and access. What would you say about that?" — Keating.