Right behind you, mate
"We're a pretty good combination and I believe Paul will be there with me." — Bob Hawke explaining that he intends to lead the Labor Party into the next elections.
What are secretaries for?
"I know that it is completely and utterly untrue that I received money or services or gifts from Thiess or gave him other things in return." — Joh Bjelke-Petersen after a Brisbane jury said it believed evidence that Sir Leslie Thiess had systematically bribed the Bjelke-Petersen government.
Superior trough
"In 1983 and 1986 we, if you like, developed and defined the leader's account to a stage that had never previously been attained." — Brian Burke discussing the account through which donations from big business were channelled while he was WA premier.
And that's just exercises
"The army has recently begun trials on a program to ensure its tanks, shells and trucks cause minimum environmental damage during exercises ... the idea sprang from the army's rather horrified discovery that military exercises had so damaged parts of its big range at Puckapunyal in Victoria as to make them unusable for future manoeuvres." — Australian, April 27-28
Tasteful
"The proposal does not involve exposed neon lighting and is not an advertising sign." — Coca Cola Amatil corporate manager Bill Clarke on the company's controversial proposal for a 27.4 metre by 4.7 metre corporate logo for the top of its building at Sydney's Circular Quay.
Money for nothing
"Burke is very firm that he doesn't do fundraising for favours. He believes that fundraising had to get professional in order to establish a modern political party." — A senior Labor figure, Sydney Morning Herald, April 27.