“To positively discriminate in favour of groups that have been negatively discriminated against in the past.”
“Age measures life in years, but it’s the life in those years that contributes most..”
“I am not pro-this people or that. I am pro-justice, pro-freedom. I am anti-injustice, anti-oppression.”
“If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the US does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.”
“A little bit of mercy makes the world less cold and more just.”
“When Janine Haines was elected Leader of the Democrats in 1986, she became the first woman to lead a national political party. The Democrats have had 5 female leaders. When Janine Haines, became the first Australian Democrat to enter the Senate in 1977, she joined seven other women. At that time, of the 177 Members of the House of Representatives, there was not one female member. A higher proportion of women has consistently been elected to the Upper House compared to the Lower house, which begs the question, “Which House is more representative? It is also worth noting that in 101 years there have only been two Indigenous members of the federal parliament and both were elected to the Senate: Senators Neville Bonner and Aden Ridgeway.”
“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”
“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
“So I grew up feeling that I wasn’t good enough, and that no-one would love me unless I was perfect. But no-one’s perfect, we’re not meant to be perfect. We’re meant to be complete. But it’s hard to be complete if you’re trying to be perfect, so you kind of become disembodied. And I spent a lot of my life that way.” ” And if you don’t own your strength… Women like me tend to always look over their shoulder to see who… “Who’s the leader? Who’s the smart one?” Never thinking it might be ME. Took a long time for me to get over that.”
“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we had when we created them.”
