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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.

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
Must
Regions
Australia
Security
Understand
Cannot
Around
Psychologically
Find
Region
Live
Asia

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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.
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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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The United States being in Asia is unambiguously a good thing for the region.
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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.
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The fact is Burke is smarter than two thirds of the Western Australian Labor Party rolled together.
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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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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?
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Politicians come in three varieties: straight men, fixers, and maddies.
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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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I try to use the Australian idiom to its maximum advantage.
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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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When the Berlin Wall came down the Americans cried, 'Victory,' and walked off the field.
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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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In the end, rational policy is always good.
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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.
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