All the quotes that are fit to LOL at, collated for you while my flight was delayed 1.5 hours today:
On what can loosely be described as his sense of humour:
“In my later years as Treasurer, YouTube was also emerging as a powerful medium. Bloggers pick up parliamentary broadcasts carried on television and post them on YouTube. Some of my attempts at humour can be viewed there.” p76
Moving in to the Treasurer’s office:
“The office was empty except for an old CD player, left there by Keating several years before. It was said that he used to play music composed by Gustav Mahler as he composed his Budgets. Since there were no CDs from his collection left in the office, I brought in a few of my own. I used to play Marvin Gaye’s ‘I Heard It on the Grapevine’ for mood music at Budget time.” p89
Thigh slapping risque gay jokes with his friend and budget-designing colleague John Fahey:
“At the end of the process, after months away from home, John said to me one night, “i haven’t seen much of Colleen [his wife] lately. And I guess you haven’t seen much of Tanya. In fact we now spend more time with each other than we spend with our wives…’ I cut him off. ‘I’m getting a little uncomfortable about where this conversation is heading, John!’” p98
On Alan Greenspan
“We met many times. I alway enjoyed these occasions. He apparently enjoyed them too, judging from the reference he made to our meetings in his memoirs.” p109
A rare, somewhat odd, use of an exclamation mark
“I have always been fascinated by tax policy. I studied taxation law as part of my degree at Law School. It was the one course for which I won a prize!” p119
Putting the final touches on the GST in 1997
“The next stage was to to construct a model of the income tax system and of family benefits… The was the first time I had ever used PowerPoint.” p130
On the racist and divisive One Nation leader
“Pauline Hanson revelled in the role. She also seemed to have a lot of sex appeal for older men.” p150
