Greg Combet > Quotes

“I would get under Abbott’s skin in question time if I recited some Latin words and phrases denoting Abbott’s hypocrisy, assuming that Abbott’s religious training would enable him to understand. I was sceptical, but at the same time enthusiastic. I never got around to it, but I kept my little list of Latin words and phrases in my question time folder for the whole of the period of the Gillard Government. My favourite was actually derived from Greek, the obscure word pseudologue, which means ‘compulsive liar’—an accurate description of Abbott’s behaviour in his scare campaign on carbon.”
― Greg Combet, The Fights of My Life

“I was astonished how often I heard the phrase, ‘We don’t want subsidies, but …’ Without government support, they would explain, their existing facilities could be forced to close, with the workers losing their jobs. Sometimes they were quite overt in pointing out that the business was located in a marginal electorate. There were meetings where the pitch from businesses verged on half-baked standover tactics—threats I wouldn’t have had the audacity to make to an employer in my days as a union official.”
― Greg Combet, The Fights of My Life