Social Democrats

"In an age when immense technological advances have created lethal weapons which could be, and are, used by the powerful and the unprincipled to dominate the weak and the helpless, there is a compelling need for a closer relationship between politics and ethics at both the national and international levels. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations proclaims that 'every individual and every organ of society' should strive to promote the basic rights and freedoms to which all human beings regardless of race, nationality or religion are entitled. But as long as there are governments whose authority is founded on coercion rather than on the mandate of the people, and interest groups which place short-term profits above long-term peace and prosperity, concerted international action to protect and promote human rights will remain at best a partially realized struggle."

"The effort necessary to remain uncorrupted in an environment where fear is an integral part of everyday existence is not immediately apparent to those fortunate enough to live in states governed by the rule of law. Just laws do not merely prevent corruption by meting out impartial punishment to offenders. They also help to create a society in which people can fulfil the basic requirements necessary for the preservation of human dignity without recourse to corrupt practices. Where there are no such laws, the burden of upholding the principles of justice and common decency falls on the ordinary people. It is the cumulative effect on their sustained effort and steady endurance which will change a nation where reason and conscience are warped by fear into one where legal rules exist to promote man's desire for harmony and justice while restraining the less desirable destructive traits in his nature."

"It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it. Most Burmese are familiar with the four a-gati, the four kinds of corruption. Chanda-gati, corruption induced by desire, is deviation from the right path in pursuit of bribes or for the sake of those one loves. Dosa-gati is taking the wrong path to spite those against whom one bears ill will, and moga-gati is aberration due to ignorance. But perhaps the worst of the four is bhaya-gati, for not only does bhaya, fear, stifle and slowly destroy all sense of right and wrong, it so often lies at the root of the other three kinds of corruption. Just as chanda-gati, when not the result of sheer avarice, can be caused by fear of want or fear of losing the goodwill of those one loves, so fear of being surpassed, humiliated or injured in some way can provide the impetus for ill will. And it would be difficult to dispel ignorance unless there is freedom to pursue the truth unfettered by fear. With so close a relationship between fear and corruption it is little wonder that in any society where fear is rife corruption in all forms becomes deeply entrenched."

"There is an instinctive understanding that the cultural, social and political development of a nation is a dynamic process which has to be given purpose and direction by drawing on tradition as well as by experiment, innovation and a willingness to evaluate both old and new ideas objectively."

"Weak logic, inconsistencies and alienation from the people are common features of authoritarianism. The relentless attempts of totalitarian regimes to prevent free thought and new ideas and the persistent assertion of their own rightness bring on them an intellectual stasis which they project on to the nation at large. Intimidation and propaganda work in a duet of oppression, while the people, lapped in fear and distrust, learn to dissemble and to keep silent. And all the time the desire grows for a system which will lift them from the position of 'rice-eating robots' to the status of human beings who can think and speak freely and hold their heads high in the security of their rights."

"But despotic governments do not recognize the precious human component of the state, seeing its citizens only as a faceless, mindless - and helpless - mass to be manipulated at will. It is as though people were incidental to a nation rather than its very life-blood. Patriotism, which should be the vital love and care of a people for their land, is debased into a smokescreen of hysteria to hide the injustices of authoritarian rulers who define the interests of the state in terms of their own limited interests."

"Each man has in him the potential to realize the truth through his own will and endeavour and to help others to realize it. Human life therefore is infinitely precious."

"It is a strong argument for democracy that governments regulated by principles of accountability, respect for public opinion and the supremacy of just laws are more likely than an all-powerful ruler or ruling class, uninhibited by the need to honour the will of the people, to observe the traditional duties of Buddhist kingship. Traditional values serve both to justify and to decipher popular expectations of democratic government."

"The royal duty of non-opposition is a reminder that the legitimacy of government is founded on the consent of the people, who may withdraw their mandate at any time if they lose confidence in the ability of the ruler to serve their best interests."

"It is undeniably easier to ignore the hardships of those who are too weak to demand their rights than to respond sensitively to their needs. To care is to accept responsibility, to dare to act in accordance with the dictum that the ruler is the strength of the helpless."

"While a private individual may be bound only by the formal vows that he makes, those who govern should be wholly bound by the truth in thought, word and deed."

"The good ruler sublimates his needs as an individual to the service of the nation."

"The root of a nation's misfortunes has to be sought in the moral failings of the government."

"Our struggle for democracy has been carried out with a strong grasp on the principle of nonviolence. And also, we believe in the rule of law. So if you ask how do we propose to resolve all of these problems of violence between communities, between different ethnic groups, we've got to start with rule of law. People have to feel secure before they can start talking to one another. We cannot achieve harmony without security. People who feel threatened are not going to sit down and sort out their problems. So I would like to recommend, as the chair of the Rule of Law and Tranquility Committee -- don't forget that tranquility is also included -- that the government should look to rule of law. It is the duty of the government to make all our people feel secure, and it is the duty of our people to learn to live in harmony with one another."

"Democracy allows people to have different views, and democracy makes it also -- makes us also responsible for negotiating an answer for those views. [...] So we would like to -- it’s not just a matter of debating the case in parliament and winning Brownie points or Boy Scout points, or whatever they’re called. But it’s just a case of standing up for what we think our country needs. And we would like to talk to those who disagree with us. That, again, is what democracy is about. You talk to those who disagree with you; you don’t beat them down. You exchange views. And you come to a compromise, a settlement that would be best for the country. I’ve always said that dialogues and debates are not aimed at achieving victory for one particular party or the other, but victory for our people as a whole. [...] We want to build up a strong foundation for national reconciliation, which means reconciliation not just between the different ethnic groups and between different religious groups, but between different ideas -- for example, between the idea of military supremacy and the idea of civilian authority over the military, which is the foundation of democracy."

"Revered monks and people. This public rally is aimed at informing the whole world of the will of the people... Our purpose is to show that the entire people entertain the keenest desire for a multiparty democratic system of government."

"In a revolutionary movement there is always the danger that political exigencies might obscure, or even nullify, essential spiritual aims. A firm insistence on the inviolability and primacy of such aims is not mere idealism but a necessary safeguard against an Animal Farm syndrome where the new order after its first flush of enthusiastic reforms takes on the murky colours of the very system it has replaced."

"The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes that 'if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression', human rights should be protected by the rule of law. That just laws which uphold human rights are the necessary foundation of peace and security would be denied only by closed minds which interpret peace as the silence of all opposition and security as the assurance of their own power."

"Where there is no justice there can be no secure peace."

"The true measure of the justice of a system is the amount of protection it guarantees to the weakest."

"The words 'law and order' have so frequently been misused as an excuse for oppression that the very phrase has become suspect in countries which have known authoritarian rule. [...] There is no intrinsic virtue to law and order unless 'law' is equated with justice and 'order' with the discipline of a people satisfied that justice has been done. Law as an instrument of state oppression is a familiar feature of totalitarianism. Without a popularly elected legislature and an independent judiciary to ensure due process, the authorities can enforce as 'law' arbitrary decrees that are in fact flagrant negations of all acceptable norms of justice. There can be no security for citizens in a state where new 'laws' can be made and old ones changed to suit the convenience of the powers that be. The iniquity of such practices is traditionally recognized by the precept that existing laws should not be set aside at will."

"Revolutions generally reflect the irresistible impulse for necessary changes which have been held back by official policies or retarded by social apathy. The institutions and practices of democracy provide ways and means by which such changes could be effected without recourse to violence. But change is anathema to authoritarianism, which will tolerate no deviation from rigid policies. Democracy acknowledges the right to differ as well as the duty to settle differences peacefully. Authoritarian governments see criticism of their actions and doctrines as a challenge to combat. Opposition is equated with 'confrontation', which is interpreted as violent conflict. Regimented minds cannot grasp the concept of confrontation as an open exchange of major differences with a view to settlement through genuine dialogue. The insecurity of power based on coercion translates into a need to crush all dissent. Within the framework of liberal democracy, protest and dissent can exist in healthy counterpart with orthodoxy and conservatism, contained by a general recognition of the need to balance respect for individual rights with respect for law and order."

"Hope and optimism are irrepressible but there is a deep underlying premonition that the opposition to change is likely to be vicious. Often the anxious question is asked: will such an oppressive regime really give us democracy? And the answer has to be: democracy, like liberty, justice and other social and political rights, is not 'given', it is earned through courage, resolution and sacrifice."

"The unhappy legacies of authoritarianism can be removed only if the concept of absolute power as the basis of government is replaced by the concept of confidence as the mainspring of political authority: the confidence of the people in their right and ability to decide the destiny of their nation, mutual confidence between the people and their leaders and, most important of all, confidence in the principles of justice, liberty and human rights."

"Yet, alongside Western weaknesses, there were also serious problems for the Soviet system, while the American position was less bleak, in both absolute and relative terms, than the successive electoral defeats of presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter in presidential elections in 1976 and 1980 might suggest. Moreover, the failure of the Communists to benefit substantially from the changes in Portugal, Spain and Greece was matched by Communist weakness elsewhere in Western Europe. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, French President from 1974 to 1981, and Helmut Schmidt, German Chancellor from 1974 to 1982, combined to act as a very strong stabilising force and to relaunch the EEC project. Within the Socialist International, the so-called Socialist Triangle of Willy Brandt, Olof Palme, Swedish Prime Minister, and Bruno Kreisky, Austrian Chancellor, was dominant. In Italy, the Communist Party, the most powerful in Western Europe, adopted a ‘Euro-Communism’ that was opposed to Soviet direction. Enrico Berlinguer, who became Party Secretary in 1973, a key figure, was committed to the existing democratic system and pursued what was termed the ‘historic compromise’ with the established Christian Democrat-dominated political system. A pact was negotiated in 1976, with the Communist Party agreeing not to try to overthrow the Christian Democratic government. Euro-Communism was a term coined in 1975 by Western European Communist leaders keen to demonstrate their democratic credentials. More generally in Western Europe, the declining position of heavy industries was a challenge to the trade unions that were central to left-wing political parties, and notably to the Communists."

"The bourgeoisie seemed to live in the illusion that an effort for peace presupposed an almost unreserved support for the American position. The hallmark of a balanced bourgeois critique seems to be that it should be heard as little as possible. Preferably be almost silent. That it is surrounded by so many reservations that it loses every meaning and that it is guaranteed not to affect any business."

"They build their democratic institutions with pedantic conscientiousness."

"Human beings will find a balanced situation when they do good things not because God says it, but because they feel like doing them."

"Apartheid cannot be reformed. It has to be eliminated."

"Former Prime minister Tage Erlander spoke on radio a year ago about the people's home and about how he visited his senile mother at a residential hospital outside of Karlstad. When he came to visit her she told him; I'm so happy here. Everyone is so nice to me and I get good care and nice food. But who is paying for all this? Is it you Tage? And Erlander said; no I'm not paying, you're paying for this yourself mother. You have paid for this your entire life. You have grown up in this society, you have taken care of the family all these years, you have been a good citizen. And you have the right to be taken care of when you get old and infirm, not because of charity, not because you have a thick wallet, but because you are a Swedish citizen. This is your society, our society. You have the same right to this as anyone else. That is the welfare state and it is our greatest pride!"

"For us, democracy is a question of human dignity. This includes the political liberties, the right to freely express our views, the right to criticize and to influence opinion. It embraces the right to health and work, to education and social security."

"Between 1999 and 2004 there was no investment in Australia, it all went into housing and consumption all borrowed on the current account. When Peter Costello runs around saying, 'Oh we've paid off the debt,' it's like the pea and thimble trick. The Government debt or the massive private debt abroad? It's continuing to grow."

"[Australian Reserve Bank] Governor MacFarlane said recently when Paul Volcker broke the back of American inflation it's regarded as the policy triumph of the Western world. When I broke the back of Australian inflation they say, "Oh, you're the fellow that put the interest rates up." Am I not the same fellow that gave them the 15 years of good growth and high wealth that came from it?"

"You just can't have a position where some pumped up bunyip potentate dismisses an elected government."

"I mean (blowing lips), I mean he's going Mr Speaker, Mr Speaker, he's going troppo, he's going troppo, he's more to be pitied than despised, he's simply going troppo."

"We have heard often since the last election the mantra that Australia doesn’t have to choose between our history and our geography. It appears again in the Howard government’s recently released White Paper on foreign policy. But just think about that assertion for a minute. What could it possibly mean? No choice we can make as a nation lies between our history and our geography. We can hardly change either of them. They are immutable. The only choice we can make as a nation is the choice about our future."

"Paul Keating ‘liked to say’, Professor Huntington asserts confidently, that I was going to change Australia from being ‘“the odd man out to the odd man in” in Asia’. Despite Professor Huntington’s authoritative quotation marks, I liked to say no such thing, and I never did. What I did say, and many times, was that Australia was not Asian or European or American or anything except Australian. This is what history and geography have delivered us. It is the only option we have and one which we have every reason to celebrate."

"In the end it's the big picture which changes nations and whatever our opponents may say, Australia's changed inexorably for good, for the better."

"By the year 2000 we should be able to say that we have learned to live securely, in peace and mutual prosperity among our Asian and Pacific neighbours. We will not be cut off from our British and European cultures and traditions or from those economies. On the contrary, the more engaged we are economically and politically with the region around us, the more value and relevance we bring to those old relationships. Far from putting our identity at risk, our relationships with the region will energise it."

"A familiar question for Australians is how much we are a product of our circumstances, and how much we are what we have made ourselves to be. In truth, by the act of migration the country was made: by that voluntary act and by the emigrants' ambitions it was built."

"We will not adopt the fantastic hypocrisy of modern conservatism which preaches the values of families and communities, while conducting a direct assault on them through reduced wages and conditions and job security."

"Monday will be the 25th anniversary of one of the most prophetic speeches in Australian political history. Then prime minister Paul Keating told the National Press Club: "When the government changes, the country changes ... but what we've built in these years is, I think, so valuable - to change it and to lose it, is just a straight appalling loss for Australia." He was dead right. The legacy of John Howard's government is the opposite of the picture he painted on election night in 1996..."

"Former Australian prime ministers tend to be less conspicuous in public life than their counterparts in other countries... But there are a few radiant surprises...The Labor side of politics has Paul Keating, the last, dare one use the word, visionary, in the prime ministerial pack... Not a day goes by that does not see Australian politicians sign themselves up to the next suicidal conflict that might take place over Taiwan or over the South China Sea. On November 10, Keating, at the Australian National Press Club, was bursting to speak to the audience about his taking of the geopolitical temperature. It was his modest effort to try to arrest this seemingly imminent move... The reaction to such sober edged analysis was never going to go down well in the lunatic, zombie establishment gearing, and oiling, for war. There are invisible submarines to build, a regional arms race to encourage, false promises to make... There have been some defenders of the former prime minister, insisting that he has something sensible to say. ABC host and commentator Stan Grant tells his audience that Keating “is not an apologist for Chinese authoritarianism but a cold-eyed realist about Chinese power and how it can be incorporated into a global political order.” But realism, for the moment at least, has been anathemised. The Anglophone alliance that is AUKUS is testament to that fact. Blood-thirsty nostalgia, and the ning-nongs, are intent on running the show."

"The arse-end of the world [said to have been referring to Australia]."

"(China debate ‘informed by the spooks’) Australian public debate is informed by the spooks. Our foreign policy debate now in Canberra is informed by the security agencies, so you are not getting a macro view of China as it really is. China wants its front doorstep and its front porch, that is Taiwan, its sea, it doesn’t want American naval forces influencing that. It wants access out of its coast into the deeper waters of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific. That’s what it’s about fundamentally."

"In October 2020, the IMF in its annual report nominated China as the world’s largest economy. It says China’s economy is now 20% larger than the United States, 24tn versus 20tn – a report which was endorsed by the CIA. So you have the IMF and the CIA out there saying China is 20% bigger than the United States now. These are the key numbers. American GDP per capita is $60,000. China’s GDP per capita is $10,000. But as China is moving out of its old model of cheap manufactured goods, their income is going to rise. But at 10,000 US dollars per capita, China is 20% bigger than the US. How many years is it going to take China to get to 20,000? Not 60 … but with the highly urbanised economy of theirs, it will take a decade, perhaps. If it gets to $20,000 US per capita, it will be 2.5 times bigger than the United States. To which the United States says: “That is all very interesting but, look, if you behave yourselves, you Chinese, you can be a stakeholder in our system.” And you would not have to be Xi Jinping to take the view, if you are a Chinese nationalist, “let me get this right, we are already 1.25 times bigger than you, we will soon be twice as big as you and we may be 2.5 times as big as you, but we can be a stakeholder in your system, is that it?” It would make a cat laugh."

"(On Xi as president for life: ‘A belief in harmony’) Well, it’s a good way to stay in power, I guess. It’s not my way. I actually believe in a community’s right to dismiss the government. But you’ve got to remember that China is broadly a Confucian society that believes in harmony, in authority, and it is with this background that it accepts, I think broadly, the role of the Chinese Communist party. I mean, the idea that we have that if you don’t vote at the local ballot box, that is, if you are not a Jeffersonian liberal, then you are a savage, belies the fact that China has a 4,000-year history which has these characteristics about it."

"(On rebuilding relationships with Beijing) At least give it respect. What the Chinese want, I think, is respect for what they’ve created. Our central proposition should be that the rise of China is entirely valid. What the Chinese want is acknowledgement of the validity of what they have done and what they have created: the legitimacy of the rise of China from its colonial past and from poverty."

"Taiwan is not a vital Australian interest. We have no alliance with Taipei. There is no piece of paper sitting in Canberra which has an alliance with Taipei. We do not recognise it as a sovereign state – we’ve always seen it as a part of China... My view is Australia should not be drawn into a military engagement over Taiwan, US-sponsored or otherwise..."

"Never get between a Premier and a bucket of money."