I Want to Do You Slowly: The Line That Defined a Prime Minister
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Paul Keating didn't do soundbites by accident. Every line was a weapon, sharpened long before it left his mouth — and this one is the sharpest of them all.
The Setup
It was 15 September 1992. John Hewson, then Opposition Leader, was riding high on Fightback! — his 650-page economic manifesto that promised to remake the country, GST and all. Hewson stood up in Question Time and needled Keating: if the Prime Minister was so confident Fightback! was a loser for the Coalition, why wouldn't he just call an early election and get it over with?
Keating didn't blink. Mate, he said, it's because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us.
Not a Throwaway Line
That's the bit everyone remembers, but it wasn't the whole answer — and the rest is where the real Keating shows up. He kept going: he wanted to watch Hewson squirm for months, not have a quick, clean execution. He accused Hewson of trying to gut the social wage Labor had spent a century building. It wasn't just a burn. It was strategy, dressed as one.
That's the thing about Keating's insults — they were never just insults. Malcolm Fraser got compared to an Easter Island statue. John Hewson got called a shiver looking for a spine to run up. Peter Costello copped "all tip and no iceberg." Every line did double duty: it humiliated the target and made the argument in the same breath. Keating understood something most politicians never work out — that dominating the House first was what earned you the right to dominate the national conversation after.
Twelve Months Later, He Won the Unwinnable Election
Here's the part that makes the line more than just a good sledge. A year after "I want to do you slowly," Keating was staring down a twenty-point deficit in the polls against Fightback! and a GST that voters were meant to hate him for opposing. He won anyway — the 1993 "true believers" election, one of the great comebacks in Australian political history. The slow execution he promised Hewson in Question Time is, more or less, exactly what happened over the following twelve months.
Why It Still Lands
Australian politics has gone soft on theatre. Question Time today is scripted, focus-grouped, allergic to risk. Keating's parliament was blood sport — brutal, unscripted, and honestly funnier for it. This line has outlived the policy fight it came from, the man who lost that day, and most of the people who were in the chamber to hear it. It survives because it's got everything: menace, charm, and a total refusal to pretend politics is polite.
Wear the Line
The I Wanna Do You Slowly tee puts Keating's most quoted piece of parliamentary theatre on your chest, exactly where it belongs — worn loud, worn proud, worn by people who miss when politicians actually had a go at each other. Or you simply enjoy the innuendo.
It's not for everyone. That's rather the point.