Talk:Paul Keating

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Unsourced[edit]

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  • Economic racism.
    • On tariffs.
  • I only had one shot in the locker and I fired it.
    • After a failed leadership challenge against Bob Hawke.
  • Get a job. Do some work like the rest of us.
    • To a student protestor, 1995.
  • We're going to bolt it home.
    • Assessment of his chances at the 1996 election.
  • I like the Queen... and I think she liked me.
    • In response to the controversy caused when Keating placed his hand on Queen Elizabeth II's back during her 1992 Australian tour.
  • Like an Easter Island statue with an arse full of razor blades.
  • An abacus gone feral.
    • Description of John Hewson, then leader of the Australian Liberal Party (1993)


  • I was implying that the Honourable Member for Wentworth was like a lizard on a rock – alive, but looking dead.
    • On John Hewson.
  • This is the sort of little-boy, stamp your foot stuff which comes from a financial yuppie when you shoe him into parliament.
    • On John Hewson.
  • (His performance) is like being flogged with a warm lettuce.
    • On John Hewson
  • I'd put him in the same class as the rest of them: mediocrity.
    • On John Hewson
  • A soufflé doesn't rise twice.
    • On the second (1989) attempt by Andrew Peacock to gain the Liberal leadership.
  • I suppose that the honourable gentleman's hair, like his intellect, will recede into the darkness.
    • On Andrew Peacock
  • The Leader of the Opposition is more to be pitied than despised, the poor old thing. The Liberal Party ought to put him down like a faithful dog because he is of no use to it and of no use to the nation.
    • On Andrew Peacock
  • We're not interested in the views of painted, perfumed gigolos.
    • On Andrew Peacock
  • It is the first time the Honourable Gentleman has got out from under the sunlamp.
    • On Andrew Peacock
  • He, as Foreign Minister, was swanning around the United States of America with Shirley MacLaine or trying to crash one of Ted Kennedy's parties...and he was trying to play statesman...while he swanned around, and then he made a cowardly attack upon the former Prime Minister before slinking back into his cabinet.
    • On Andrew Peacock
  • You've been in the dye pot again, Andrew.
    • On Andrew Peacock
  • [Most politicians have] brains like sparrows' nests - all shit and sticks.
    • As quoted by Peter Botsman in a column in The Australian, July 3 2002
  • What we have got is a dead carcass, swinging in the breeze, but nobody will cut it down to replace him.
    • On John Howard.
  • The principal saboteur, the man with the cheap fistful of dollars.
    • On John Howard.
  • He's wound up like a thousand day clock.
    • On John Howard
  • I am not like the Leader of the Opposition. I did not slither out of the Cabinet room like a mangy maggot.
    • On John Howard.
  • He's like a shiver waiting for a spine to crawl up.
    • On John Howard.
  • Soon we will be at the stage where he will be offering us a free set of steak knives.
    • On John Howard's 1996 election campaign.
  • You boxhead you wouldn’t know. You are flat out counting past ten.
  • I'm not running a seminar for dullards on the other side.
    • On the Liberal Party
  • ...votes for coalition members who have always been cheats, cheats, cheats and will always be cheats, cheats, cheats and will always defend cheats, cheats, cheats..
    • On the Liberal Party
  • You were heard in silence, so some of you scumbags on the front bench should wait a minute until you hear the responses from me.
    • On the Liberal Party
  • The Leader of the Opposition hurls all sorts of abuse at me, and all through question time those pansies over there want retractions of the things we've said about them. They are a bunch of nobodies going nowhere.
  • You had an important place in Australian society on the ABC and you gave it up to be a pop star...with a big cheque...and now you're on to this sort of stuff. That shows what a 24 carat pissant you are, Richard, that's for sure.
    • To journalist Richard Carleton
  • ... you can't write a cheque for taste.
  • Sydney is the only place to live in Australia – the rest is camping out.

1987 Bulletin versus 1995 Press conference transcript

Tell us, we do get reported comments of yours from time to time that sort of seep out of they seem to seep out of dinner parties to the effect that you say things like in Australia if you are not living in Sydney, you're camping out? PM: No somebody falsely attributed those words to me. I, love Melbourne the garden city of Australia.

Souffle rising twice quote[edit]

This has been sort of permanently attached to Keating, but it was first uttered by Alice Roosevelt Longworth in 1948, and repeated by Margaret Thatcher in 1989. [1] -- JackofOz (talk) 23:24, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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