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The lesson of the Federation should be that the lesson is over. Australia must have a new idea of itself. We have to strike out in a new direction, in a new way, armed with our own self-regard, our own confidence and fully appreciating our own uniqueness. All other roads will lead us into the shadow of great powers.

Paul Keating

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Paul Keating
Age: 80
Born: 1944
Born: January 18
Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Politician
Trade Unionist
Bankstown
New South Wales
Australia
Paul John Keating
The Honourable Paul Keating
Way
Confidence
Powers
Federation
Lead
Strikes
Appreciating
Idea
Fully
Uniqueness
Political
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Armed
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Regard
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Australia
Great
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More quotes by Paul Keating

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I try to use the Australian idiom to its maximum advantage.
Paul Keating
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I've always held the view that great states need strategic space. I mean, George Washington took his space from George III. Britain took it from just about everybody. Russia took all of Eastern Europe. Germany's taken it from everywhere they can, and China will want its space too.
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You see, psychologically, Australia must understand it has to live in the region around it. Australia must find its security in Asia it cannot find its security from Asia.
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Nobody wants to have in their CV in the upper echelons of the American economic family that they nationalised major banks.
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In the end it's the big picture which changes nations and whatever our opponents may say, Australia's changed inexorably for good, for the better.
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Politicians come in three varieties: straight men, fixers, and maddies.
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If this Government cannot get the adjustment, get manufacturing going again, and keep moderate wage outcomes and a sensible economic policy, then Australia is basically done for. We will end up being a third rate economy... a banana republic.
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John Howard turned the prime ministership into something like a state police minister. He's at the scene of every crime, twice a day on radio, the guy did no thinking.
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In the end, rational policy is always good.
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You just can't have a position where some pumped up bunyip potentate dismisses an elected government.
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The great curse of modern political life is incrementalism.
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You know, in the WikiLeaks cables, the Chinese discovered that Kevin Rudd was urging the Americans to keep the military option open against them. This is hardly a friendly gesture.
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You see, before I became prime minister, the Australian prime minister only attended ever two meetings in the world: the British Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and the South Pacific Forum.
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The great changes in civilisation and society have been wrought by deeply held beliefs and passion rather than by a process of rational deduction.
Paul Keating
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If you are sitting on the title of any block of land in New South Wales you can bet an Aboriginal person at some stage was dispossessed of it.
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Well, Australians should speak for the national interests of Australia, and whatever role former Australian prime ministers may have, one of the things you do is speak frankly about the country as you see the country's best interests, you know?
Paul Keating
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When the Berlin Wall came down the Americans cried, 'Victory,' and walked off the field.
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Think of one structural change in 11 years he made, other than being just doling out money in the annual Budget? And don't say the GST because Howard did that and it wasn't a structural change anyway, just a change in the tax system. This is a low flying person.
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No choice we can make as a nation lies between our history and our geography. We can hardly change either of them. They are immutable. The only choice we can make as a nation is the choice about our future.
Paul Keating
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We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the diseases and the alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine that these things could be done to us.
Paul Keating