The Telegraph's Tim Blair provides a list of "best quotations" heard or read in Australia over the past twelve months:
The Telegraph
Tim Blair
December 17, 2014Presenting this year’s collection of notable quotables:
JANUARY
“Ah, well, ah, it, you know, it’s, ah, not, not for me, ah, to, ah, you know, determine how, ah, countries and individuals determine these issues.” – Having previously promised to “call out misogyny and sexism wherever I see it”, ex-PM Julia Gillard takes a different stance when asked about female representation in Middle Eastern politics.
“Do you believe Australian naval personnel or do you believe people who were attempting to break Australian law? I believe Australian naval personnel.” – PM Tony Abbott deals with claims that navy personnel deliberately burned asylum seekers.
FEBRUARY
“We regret if our reporting led anyone to mistakenly assume that the ABC supported the asylum seekers’ claims.” – ABC bosses Mark Scott and Kate Torney try to weasel out of their own network’s torture allegations.
“I love ABC.” – A letter from Melbourne girl Isabelle to Mark Scott after the six-year-old’s bake sale raised $40 for the billion-dollar broadcaster.
“I fully expect the ABC to be destroyed in all but name within a few years.” – A prediction from Fairfax’s Martin Flanagan.
“It’s not a betrayal of Islam. You don’t know what Islam is.” – Michael Adebowale, killer of British soldier Lee Rigby, after being told by a judge that he had betrayed his faith.
MARCH
“Here at The Drum website we are aware that, despite our best efforts, we have failed to achieve gender parity in our own editorial line-up.” – An editor’s note at the ABC’s Drum site.
“A gathering of the randomly but deeply aggrieved to give voice to the anger of people increasingly feeling themselves to be utterly powerless in the face of the social and political re-engineering of their country to serve the interests of powerful corporations and the true elites.” – Fairfax columnist John Birmingham supports the March in March movement.
“A suspect contacted an FGM helpline to request the procedure for his two daughters after misunderstanding the purpose of the service for victims.” – The BBC reports confusion over a female genital mutilation helpline.
“There’s a problem with my wife.” – Sydney man Yassir Ibrahim Mohamed Hassan’s emergency call after stabbing wife Mariam to death.
APRIL
“Did Nick give you a bottle of Grange when you became Premier?” – A question from the Daily Telegraph to Barry O’Farrell that led to the Premier’s resignation.
“This country is going to cook and people are going to die.” – Greens senator Scott Ludlam.
“World is fukt.” – A headline on the front page of the Australian Financial Review’s Anzac Day edition.
MAY
“The ABC gives life to those who care.” – Sign at a pro-ABC rally.
“The next time a woman dies at the hands of a violent partner and we read with trembling hearts that she could not get any legal help to stop that partner, we will be able to sheet the cause of death to Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey.” – Fairfax’s Jenna Price.
“When we do do those stories, there does tend to be a tremendous amount of lack of interest on the audience’s part.” – CNN president Jeff Zucker discovers that nobody cares about climate change.
JUNE
“China’s shift towards capitalism creates inequality and anger.” – The ABC’s unique analysis of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
“There’s a feeling of joy.” – Wissam Haddad, head of Sydney’s al-Risalah Islamic Centre, following reports of mass murder carried out in Iraq by Islamic State extremists.
“Who is Australia’s craziest left-wing frightbat?” – An innocent poll question posted at your columnist’s website.
“Hi Tim. You will be excited to know that this survey has successfully moved you to the top of the list of people I’d like to see floating in a river, wrapped in plastic.” – One reader did not appreciate the poll.
“We can’t wait for governments to make this call. It’s time to act. A people’s revolution is required. Democracy is failing us.” – Fairfax columnist Elizabeth Farrelly.
“Honour killings are morally justified.” – Islamic extremist Uthman Badar’s planned speech for Sydney’s Festival of Dangerous Ideas, later cancelled because, as organisers put it, “the title has given the wrong impression of what Mr Badar intended to discuss.”
JULY
“So apparently the Australian Federal Police are looking for me – let’s see how well they can hunt. Have fun finding me.” – Australian jihadi fan Musa Cerantonio, shortly before he was arrested in the Philippines.
“We’re going to fight to raise the respect level for celebrities.” – Rapper Kanye West, better known as Mr Kim Kardashian.
“It will be remembered as one of the most ignoble moments in our history: On July 17, Australia became the first country to repeal a carbon tax.” – ABC host Julia Baird.
AUGUST
“I have become aware that Mike Carlton has corresponded with some Herald readers and letter writers using inappropriate and offensive language.” – Sydney Morning Herald editor-in-chief Darren Goodsir. Carlton later quit rather than be suspended.
“Thats my boy!” – Australian jihadist Khaled Sharrouf rejoices over a photograph of his young son holding the head of a dead Syrian soldier.
“Keep them heads rolling.” – Sharrouf’s friend Mohamed Elomar joins in the fun.
“Our best defence is of course our cultured reason. Our tolerance. Our audacious confidence in the fundamental goodness of others.” – The ABC’s Jonathan Green solves terrorism.
“Beheadings occur routinely in Game of Thrones. And no complaint has been laid. Why then all the fuss?” – ABC favourite Bob Ellis following the taped slaughter of journalist James Foley.
“In NZ we are very worried about a potential influx of Australians, you know, escaping heat waves and lack of water and infectious diseases.” – University of Otago climate scientist Simon Hales.
“There was a culture of not wanting to rock the multicultural community boat, if I may put it like that. Perhaps, yes, as a true Guardian reader and liberal Leftie, I suppose I didn’t want to raise that too hard.” – Former Rotherham MP Denis MacShane following revelations of 1400 sexual torture cases in his electorate.
SEPTEMBER
“It demonises people.” – Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson would prefer that we do not refer to terrorists as terrorists.
“Vale Mungo Macallum. Journalist and gentleman. His words and wit will outlive him.” – Feminist author Anne Summers sends Macallum to his grave, despite the author being very much alive.
“The police have come out very clearly and almost have said it’s all the young man’s fault.” – Islamic Council of Victoria secretary Graith Krayem after Numan Haider stabbed two policemen and was then shot.
“The beheadings, it’s an abhorrent act, don’t misunderstand me. But what about the British in Malaya in the 1950s?” – Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jama’ah Association of Australia spokesman Mustafa Abu Yusuf.
“A strong ABC is the centurion that guards this country.” – The ABC’s Peter Lloyd.
OCTOBER
“Clover Moore’s Sydney sits in Abbott’s Australia like an oasis of spring growth in a slag-heap.” – Fairfax columnist Elizabeth Farrelly.
“He transformed Australia and we are in his debt.” – Julia Gillard farewells ex-PM Gough Whitlam.
“As a woman coming into my eighteenth year, the fact that women were able to get the vote during Gough Whitlam’s reign …” – A North Sydney Girls High student on the ABC.
NOVEMBER
“Do you want death or do you want coal?” – Greens leader Christine Milne.
“My family has a poncho and it is really important to us.” – Sydney University’s Eden Caceda, whose opposition to a Mexican-themed staff party led to its cancellation.
“They planned their work day around their afternoon yoga class. They wore thongs and shorts to work, occasionally had a snooze on the couch after lunch.” – Louise Evans recalls her time at the ABC.
“People knew cuts were coming but we had no idea how bad it would be or that managers would be this sociopathic.” – An unnamed ABC staffer complains about cutbacks.
DECEMBER
“I’m fed up. My iPod doesn’t work any more here. I have to come back.” – War is hell for one French jihadist in Syria.
“There’s nothing planned or intended but we’re not ruling out industrial action.” – MEAA national secretary Christopher Warren warns of possible ABC strikes.
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