Business Quotes

Remarks such as ‘great Australian’, ‘larger than life’ are sometimes used where they are not appropriate. But in the case of Kerry Packer both of those descriptions are entirely appropriate. He was a great Australian, he was a larger than life character and in so many ways he left his mark on the Australian community over a very long career in business, particularly in the media and also that other great passion of his, Australian sport

They might be a good friend, but they are also a bitter commercial rival. Let’s not kid ourselves.. The American wheat industry has done everything it possibly can to criticize the Australian wheat industry in order to take the Iraqi wheat market from us.

The concept of social inclusion in essence means replacing a welfarist approach to helping the underprivileged with one of investing in them and their communities to bring them into the mainstream market economy. It’s a modern and fresh approach that views everyone as a potential wealth creator and invests in their human capital. My reason for adopting such an approach is simple: at a time when Australia needs more skilled people and has an ageing population, we simply can’t afford to have one in ten or more of our people out of the workforce due to unemployment, low skills or the effects of chronic poverty. Social inclusion is an economic imperative.

As our economy faces up to potential labour shortages due to our ageing population and as it moves to a new level of sophistication to compete with the rest of the world, we’re going to need every Australian on board pulling their weight, rejoining the workforce, gaining new skills. Writing off individuals and communities suffering from poverty just creates a dead weight for our economy to drag along.

Including everyone in the economic, wealth-creating life of the nation is today the best way for Labor (Australian Labor Party) to meet its twin goals of raising national prosperity and creating a fair and decent society.

The Prime Minister seems now to be basing his re-election campaign on this plot line. He is saying to the Australian people, look out, the baddies behind you - hiss, boo and whatever you do, don’t vote Labor. This political parody of pantomime is looking and sounding desperate

This is not the kind of country where you would feel comfortable if you were opposed to democracy, parliamentary law, independent courts and so I would say to people who don’t feel comfortable with those values there might be other countries where they’d feel more comfortable with their own values or beliefs

I think Australians are rightly suspicious of people who will try and use religion for another end. I don’t think that’s right and I don’t think it should be done, but I think it should inform values, and it does.

The prudential regulation that I have put in place has been absolutely critical. The fiscal policy which we have put in place has been absolutely critical and if people looked at Australia now turn its back on economic reform, which of course industrial relations rollback or throwback would be, let me tell you, that would really start affecting confidence.