Paul Keating: The Big Picture Leader

Troy Bramston is a senior writer and columnist with The Australian and the author of Paul Keating: The Big-Picture Leader, [2016]. That there is yet more to examine and tell about one of Australia’s most fascinating prime ministers says a lot about both  Paul Keating and Troy Bramston. Joining Stephen Walmsley SC for a night of retrospective discussion on two or Labor’s heroes, Troy Bramston addressed The Sydney Institute on Wednesday 15 February 2017.

PAUL KEATING: THE BIG-PICTURE LEADER

TROY BRAMSTON

I want to begin by thanking Gerard and Anne Henderson for inviting me back to The Sydney Institute. This is the fifth time that I have spoken here. I also want to pay tribute the important role that The Sydney Institute has in encouraging debate and discussion in this great city.

It is a privilege to share this platform tonight with Stephen Walmsley.

My book on Paul Keating tells the story of a truly remarkable life – a great Australian life – and a legacy which changed Australia forever. There’s never been a politician quite like Paul Keating. He left school at the age 14, was in parliament at 25, a minister at 31, treasurer at 39 and prime minster at 47.

Keating was a political leader who dreamed big dreams and took great risks. He told me: “To be any good at this game, you must (have) the crazy gene.” Above all, he believed that “good policy is good politics”. Although he was loved by some and loathed by others, even his opponents recognise that he blazed a trail of reform and deserves our respect. Keating had a vision and he could develop, articulate and implement policy change.

When you survey politics today, this could not be more relevant.

It took me a long time to get Paul Keating to cooperate with this project. He has not cooperated with a biographer in more than 20 years. Frankly, he dislikes biographies. And he is unlikely to write a memoir. He said: “If you are any good, other people will write about you.” Well, I guess that’s true.

After Keating launched my book of essays about Neville Wran in 2006, I said I would like to do a book about him next. “I don’t think so, mate,” he replied, and walked off. He brushed-off my pleas for years. Finally, he agreed to interviews and gave me access to his papers. But it is an unauthorised biography – which is how we both wanted it to be. I want to stress this point … Keating only reluctantly cooperated with this book, even though in the end he was generous with his time. But he had no control over the final manuscript, or the research or interviews.

Ian Hancock – a historian I greatly admire – urged me to show Keating the manuscript before publication. I gave it to Keating one week before it went to print. Every day he rang me to complain about the limited time I gave him to respond. He identified some minor errors and provided some new information. But I did not accept many of the changes he suggested.

For example, Alastair Campbell told me that Keating said to him that when he left politics, that he planned to have an answering machine with the message: “You have reached the office of ex–prime minister Paul Keating. Now fuck off and leave me alone.” Keating wanted me to take this out. I refused to do so but I added a sentence noting that he disputes saying this. I believed Campbell.

In this biography, there are new insights into Keating’s parents, grandparents, childhood and schooling; his early career at the Sydney County Council, the Wheelock Marden trading company and the Municipal Employees Union; his navigation through Labor ranks and election to parliament, and the turmoil of the Whitlam years. His complex relationships with Gough Whitlam, Bill Hayden, Bob Hawke and John Howard.

I chronicle Keating’s years as Treasurer, when along with Bob Hawke and a talented cabinet, he turned Labor orthodoxy on its head, smashed the policy foundations of the Federation era and remade Australia. It is recognised that, as Treasurer, Keating was the architect of Australia’s most important post-war economic reforms – floating the dollar; major tax changes – including slashing company (from 49 to 39%) and personal (from 60 to 47%) tax rates; financial sector deregulation; the Accord; asset sales; and four budget surpluses – the first since the 1950s.

I believe “the big-picture” Keating prime ministership warrants a reassessment. The economic reforms are often overlooked: superannuation, enterprise bargaining, competition policy, trade liberalisation and welfare reform. His shuttle diplomacy created the APEC leaders’ meeting and took relationships in Asia to another level. He put the republic on the agenda, sought to redefine our history and initiated the first national cultural policy.

And as lead minister, Keating secured the Native Title Act, when it often looked doomed to fail. And, in the book, there are glimpses into Keating’s personal life, including his marriage to Annita. He told me that being prime minister put a strain on the marriage and contributed to their separation in 1998. Anne Keating – Paul’s sister – told me that they had a happy marriage until he became prime minister.

Researching and writing this book has been exhaustive – but also enthralling. I believe it is more extensive than anything previously undertaken on Keating – fifteen hours of new interviews with Keating plus access to his personal archive; more than 100 interviews with other people. And thousands of pages of new archival documents.

For weeks, I sat at desks in the National Archives, the Reserve Bank, the National Library and the State Library in Sydney surrounded by piles of dusty files. But, for me, it’s like hopping inside HG Wells’ time machine and being transported to the past. And that is how these stories about Paul Keating’s stormy time in Young Labor, his controversial 1968 Blaxland preselection and his contribution to caucus and cabinet debates are discovered.

It has been a thrill to interview Keating’s family, friends, former staff and parliamentary colleagues … alongside party officials, union leaders, public servants, journalists … and even his high school principal and members of The Ramrods band. It was an honour to speak to Tony Abbott, Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd and John Howard about their predecessor. I also used my interviews with Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke. And I spoke to Bill Hayden, Doug Anthony, Andrew Peacock, John Hewson, Alexander Downer, Kim Beazley, Simon Crean and others.

Many of these interviews were very frank and revealing.

This book offers a broadly favourable – but certainly not uncritical – account of Paul Keating’s life and legacy. The mistakes and misjudgments, which every politician makes, are candidly discussed – and some are even acknowledged by the subject. I am critical of economic policymaking going into and coming out of the 1990 recession and Keating’s “recession we had to have” comment. He did not sufficiently nurse the economic narrative while prime minister.

And he made two key political mistakes as prime minister. He reduced his question time appearances – which led to the suggestion he was “a part-time PM” – and he was seen to be dismissing parliament and it denied the government his skills as a political combatant. He also ignored much of the media after winning the 1993 “unwinnable” election because most journalists did not believe he could win. This was understandable, but it denied him an opportunity to argue his case to voters.

Power is a key theme in this book – how power it is earned, how it is used, and – inevitably – how it is lost. How Paul Keating learnt about power is instructive. The Catholic nuns and brothers taught Keating what was in his soul, but it was the nonagenarian former premier Jack Lang who instructed him in his politics.

He read books about Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and the Kennedys.

In Canberra, he was mindful of Lang’s advice: “People will say you have plenty of time – but the truth is you haven’t got a second to lose.” He understood that politics is a learning profession. He got to know Arthur Calwell. He ate breakfast with Labor men twice his age at the Kurrajong Hotel. He befriended Rex Connor. He studied John Gorton and Billy McMahon. He was an astute judge of Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser. He met business leaders, developed relationships with journalists like Max Walsh, Laurie Oakes, Alan Ramsey and Paul Kelly, and he built contacts in the public service.

Paul Keating often saw party conferences like a boxer saw the ring – defeat by Labor’s Left faction was untenable. Only Robert Menzies and Gough Whitlam would rival him for top honours in parliament. And, although he encountered resistance in the Labor caucus when he arrived in 1969, he was soon working the numbers like and old pro.

In many ways, the book is a primer on political power. For example, Keating told me that everything he’d learnt, including chairing meetings of Young Labor, was essential in delivering the Native Title Act in 1993 against entrenched and seemingly intractable opposition.

To many Australians, Paul Keating remains an enigma: a statesman and a brawler, a political animal and a collector of fine antiques, a factional numbers-man and a policy intellect. I try to unpack this bundle of paradoxes.

Keating satisfied his restless energy by becoming an expert on antiques and classical musical. He was also a car enthusiast, earned a pilot’s license and bred budgerigars. He saw parliament as “the central cockpit of politics” where “intellectual hegemony had to be mastered and kept”. He had a tongue that could “clip a hedge”. He described John Howard as “a dead carcass, swinging in the breeze”. He asked Andrew Peacock, after returning as Liberal leader, “Can a soufflé rise twice?” He compared Malcolm Fraser to an “Easter Island statue with an arse full of razor blades” He called Alexander Downer “the Christmas turkey”. Peter Costello was “a low-altitude flyer’. He said John Hewson was “a shiver looking for a spine to run up”. And he explained to Hewson that he wouldn’t call an early election because: “I want to do you slowly,” he said. Parliament was psychological warfare.

Yet Keating reached the heights of oratorical brilliance with the Redfern speech on reconciliation and his eulogy for the Unknown Soldier. Then again, the warrior was evident when Parliament House was blockaded with logging trucks in 1995. Keating wanted army trucks to drag the logging trucks away – or crush them if necessary. He was furious with the CFMEU. I said to Paul, “Are you serious?” He said, “Yes.” I asked, “Why?” He replied: “Because you can’t let scum run the government.”

And yet there is another side. I asked Kim Beazley what is the one thing that people should know about Keating – “kindness” towards others, he replied. Paul’s adviser, Mary Ann O’Loughlin recalled a meeting with carers. There were no media present and he took little notice of the briefing. “The work you do is invaluable,” he told them. “You will all go straight to heaven — bypass limbo and bypass purgatory.” Their hearts swelled.

Keating guarded his privacy and never showed his emotions publicly. He paid a price for not allowing the public to see this side of him, and as a devoted family man. He told me: “I gave them my heart and brain; I was not going to give them my soul”.

Like all prime ministers, Keating has wrestled with history. Every prime minister since Robert Menzies has been “taken out in a box”, Keating said, and he was no exception. He told me that he has gotten over the 1996 election defeat and that he doesn’t “hate” John Howard, but he does believe the country made a mistake at that election. This is typical Keating – but it is an unexceptional statement. John Howard believes the voters were wrong to turf his government out in 2007.

Was there a Keating factor in the 1996 election defeat? In truth, Keating was both a positive and negative factor for Labor in 1996 – the party’s research shows this. It is worth recalling that Keating was preferred PM over Howard until election day … and he was seen as leader of strength/vision but not personally liked by many.

While I argue that Keating was driven by pride rather than vanity, voters saw him as arrogant. Polls showed voters were weary after so much economic reform. And the government was lucky to survive in 1990 and 1993. Asking for a fifth election victory in a row – well, only Menzies has achieved that.

I agree with Howard, who told me that overwhelmingly the reason the Keating government was dispatched with brutal efficiency was the “it’s time” factor.

On election night 1996, I stood in the auditorium of the Bankstown Sports Club and saw Paul Keating concede defeat but defend his “big picture” agenda. “In the end, it’s the big picture which changes nations,” he said.

He does not want honours or applause. He wants recognition for the nation-changing reforms. “The reward for public life,” he said, “is public progress.” When Keating says that Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten lack the “vision” and “ambition” that Australia needs – and the political authority to deliver major change – who could disagree?

Now Gerard Henderson believes “the Keating fan club is broad and prevailing”. But it is not only Labor’s true believers who have embraced Keating. Tony Abbott, for example, told me that in some ways Keating is “the best politician of his generation”.

That’s some fan club.

As is often the case with books, there was a mad rush to the finish line. I pressed Paul Keating to set dates for the final interviews. One day Keating rang me. “Listen, mate,” he said. “Just tell that publisher to bugger off. We’ll do the interviews in good time.”

“You’ve got to get this right,” he said. “You only get one shot. This book will last forever. You can’t go back once it’s done.” I had heard about the “Keating treatment”. Clearly, I was not immune. He was putting me on notice. But then Paul gave me a message that has ringed in my ears ever since. “Troy,” he said, “don’t fuck it up.”

In truth, I didn’t need him to tell me this – I know how important this story is. It is why I wanted to write this book. I hope that readers – without fear or favour – will have a better understanding of who Paul Keating really is, what he stood for and what his legacy is today.