Kim Beazley Quotes (34 Quotes)

The good thing about how the party responded is there's a very considerable sense of unity and purpose about it and determination not to keep being involved in navel gazing, we've done enough of that.

Then there's what John Howard didn't tell them. That he was planning an all-out attack on their wages, penalty rates and job security.

Politics calls for robust debate and criticism, but this should never descend to personal and demeaning slurs.

This is an appropriate commitment and a significant one.

We'll have a decent debate in the Labor Party on the mines policy.

This is not about choice -- it's about cutting wages.

These cables place John Howard at the very heart of our very worst national scandal. We believe that they are culpably negligent and we accuse them of turning a blind eye and these cables prove conclusively that that is exactly what they did.

And it has to be dealt with - albeit within the framework of what sustains Australian values while we do it,

This is a shameless, shameful moment ... as the government bulldozes through the sale of Telstra legislation And it's a sad moment for the Australian people who are overwhelmingly opposed to the sale We witnessed both in this chamber and over in the other chamber an almost obscene dancing by our political opponents when this legislation passed through,

I would rely in such circumstances on the common sense and restraint of the Australian police forces, in much the same way, as in the years gone by, I've relied on the commonsense and intelligence of people like the SAS who find themselves in Afghanistan,

What any country now knows is that they've got a prime minister they can sit on, and that he will, if they've got some part of Australian law that they object to, there's a very good chance that when they sit on the prime minister, they will get a result.

What we have to be careful about - and I think the premiers do really try very hard to be careful about this - is that we don't as we go down the process of protecting our society from terrorists, loose essential values in our society,

While I will admit to a personal bias in Beazley's favor -- he has been a friend for more than three decades -- the fact is that his comments seized the attention of all the Americans in the room. Here was someone willing to lay out an alternative strategy aimed at freeing the United States from an all-consuming mess in a way that could leave its influence intact. You have to win, you know, ... You cannot lose the war on terror.

As I recollect those times and they were a long time ago my office and myself were consistently in touch with people, including members of the Caucus, who were helping him. It was a tragedy but we must reflect on the fact that there is a wife and children left from this and respect their privacy and therefore, beyond what I have just said, I don't intend to continue comment.

This will bring the Howard government down unless they back off. But they probably won't and (these reforms) will take them out.

a sad moment for the Australian people, who are overwhelmingly opposed to the sale.

A deliberate blind eye has been turned here and culpable neglect is what the prime minister here is guilty of. He cannot wash his hands like Pontius Pilate and say it was somebody else's responsibility.

He is being entrusted with a powerful position which is particularly important for Labor as we contemplate reconciliation. His contribution to political life engages all the issues of state as well as reconciliation and issues across the Aboriginal agenda.

We actually have good resources there, of people with consular skills and logistic skills,

It's a decision of theirs that they took on their own and I express my gratitude to them. They're lovely girls.

I think he's quite wrong. I think we will win the next election if we're fit for government and we've got the right policies,

If you actually had a coast guard, you would have effective enforcement in our northern waters. Good fences make good neighbors. As far as maritime issues are concerned, a good fence is a coast guard.

If there were gold medals for biting the hand that feeds you, Mark Latham would be standing on top of the dais.

I've seen John Howard's government do some pretty low things over the years, but hiding behind the Melbourne Cup to introduce these shoot-to-kill laws into parliament and pass them through, well that's the lowest of the low.

Immediately a choir began to sing Food, glorious food. ... The tension the conflict reputations at stake thank goodness Barry Hall was cleared.

Our reform legacy by then had not produced a substantial rise in wages and job opportunities. People saw the hard side of reform but not the gains. Many ... traditional Labor supporters carried the brunt of the change and sheeted home the blame to him.

The prime minister, the foreign minister and the trade minister were the three wise monkeys they saw no evil, they spoke no evil, they heard no evil but they knew all about it. It's a sorry story of a government in a mode of reckless negligence.

Two or three big, all-embracing ideas, presented confidently, could have won him the 1998 election. But there seemed something within Beazley that shied away from big, all-embracing ideas, or even speaking directly. Appropriately, he began presenting himself as the nice guy - Snugglepot with brains. When the actual election campaign began he could have arisen in a blaze of illumination as the statesman with answers, presenting a big picture of an Australia that had a place in its own future. He went on talking, but the only transformation was that Snugglepot became Cuddlepie.

We oppose this legislation in its entirety and we have done consistently since the government first brought this forward.

The unfortunate thing is that it brings this in to play at a time when there is regional disagreement with our endorsing of national missiles defenses.

The threat of a terrorist attack in Australia is real.

The prime minister is not telling the truth about this because this has got nothing to do with anything good for the Australian economy,

We have seen repeated sightings of people wandering around the airport(s) unauthorized, people that have not gone through the proper security check and the fact that at regional airports there are no security checks at all, ... The government should have acted much earlier.

Australian soldiers were sent to fight in Iraq. The Howard government's neglect and turning of a blind eye meant that we funded their enemies.