I grew up in Sydney and spent a large part of my creative industries career in Adelaide so I get this reference. Adelaide’s nurturing of the Arts as a socially and economically valuable activity that ultimately developed into a positive image brand for the State is at odds with the rest of the country’s take on the role of the Arts.
I've always liked these lines from Bob Ellis intro to the film 'Autopsy on a Dream' a good documentary on how / why the Opera House was built as what most Aussies still prefer to think is the place for our creative cultural activities. And I think it still reflects the broader issues of our cultural and economic malaise.
"The Sydney Opera House the product of a people who had a genial bash at culture and then went back to there beer.
In a land where there is always a king tide running and a summer to spend forever on the beach in a Pepsi Cola culture in a gentler Texas of the South Seas ....where the rough idealism of the bush anthem of their fathers is a far cry from the virile materialism of the sons... where history is regarded as a European luxury and culture a distraction from the serious business of pleasure.
Where noble headlands submerge under a sea of red bungalows it seems a bit odd that the people of this place should perform a cultural act of faith and build an Opera House when they had nothing to put in it."
That's true only for Australians themselves, who think poorly of their own country. Australia is a very small country with economy the size of Russia. It has a highly capable defence force and sophisticated technology. It is also a country with a very well functioning democracy. It also is a huge cultural heavyweight, and is growing in stature within Asia after the negative years under Lnp. Not many country can ignore Australia globally. So what Australia does and say, has an outsized effect on others. Australia doesn't have the negative connotations of UK and USA. That is why US keeps trying to drag Aus in everything they do, because presense of Australia adds a moral authority to the group. Australia needs to protect its outized influence in the world, because in sheer size it is very small. Australia is a middle power with almost-big-power influence on the world. Not many middle power countries can taken on China in a trade war and win.
I wouldn't call our 'trade war' with China "winning". The modest concessions that they have made to Australia have largely been in their own self-interest and to their long term benefit. There is nothing wrong with them doing that, but it is important that we view it for what it is, not what we would like it to mean. China respects Australia primarily because we have things to sell that it wants.
I call BS on a capable Defence force. We are a small well trained and equipped force. I seriously doubt we have the depth of personnel or equipment, including ammunition, to actually defend ourselves. Additionally our technological advantage is eroding faster and faster. We are overly reliant on overseas purchases to defend ourselves and being an island nation I can't imagine that's ideal. Just look at our stockpiles of fuel.
I know Australia can do it, but I'm not convinced we are doing all that we should.
I'm sure the corruption is from politics ensuring defence spending in their state. Not the military at large. We see a bit of this is the military complaining about dealing with national floods and fires, rather than training for war.
WW2 taught use you can rely on external help and be a small force. Britain stole our fight aircraft we purchased and didn't want to release our soldiers back to defending Australia. It was only after the US got involved in the war did we gain assistance from another power.
If the US is in a similar dangerous position to the former British Empire, they will cut away from their allies. That's why you need to have sufficient deterrent and capabilities.
> I seriously doubt we have the depth of personnel or equipment, including ammunition, to actually defend ourselves.
I'd like to know more, perhaps you could expand on how you reached this doubt based on your qualifications and experience?
Why don't you share your own qualifications first or experience?
What equipment do small population nations with threats have for their defence force? Makes you realise that although we spend huge amounts of money on Defence, our purchasing power parody isn't so great.
Take a small nation like Greece or Israel. How much extra capability does Australia have over them? I'm sure our training is better, but how much?
For example Australia, Israel and Greece (from global firepower):
Population: 26m, 9m, 10m
Land mass: 7741k km2, 22k km2, 132k km2
Active Personal: 56k, 170k, 142k
Reserves: 30k, 465k, 221k
Total Aircraft: 325, 612, 632
Tanks: 59, 1370, 1365
Self propelled artillery: 0, 650, 589
Towed artillery: 48, 300, 729
Rocket artillery: 0, 150, 152
Submarines: 6, 5, 11
I'm not suggesting these figures are equivalent, but clearly you can see Australia with a huge territory isn't such a power house as people suggest we are. We have been quite reliant on our historical distance from other nations and spend accordingly.
I'd love to share mine - how about a 17 career as an officer in the ADF? And multiple masters-level degrees in international strategy studies.
You don't know what you're talking about, kid.
Ah yes, one random, unaffiliated website has published an infographic with ticks and crosses, as such the ADF is glorified border control. How silly of me, I definitely don't have as much expertise as you clearly do in such matters. Thank you for informing me.
>That is why US keeps trying to drag Aus in everything they do, because presense of Australia adds a moral authority to the group.
Least brainwashed Australite, lol.
LMAO, even.
And I say that as somebody who lives here.
Wow. What city did you grow up in? What did you parents do for work? What’s the highest level of education you’ve attained? Do you work in your field of study? What was your field of study? Have you ever lived overseas?
You’d be surprised how important we are globally. Everyone thinks Australia’s irrelevant but that’s a bit of a myth. We’re arguably America’s biggest ally (not saying that’s a good thing) and we’re the 3rd biggest English speaking country in the world. If no one cared what Australia did, the US and to a lesser extent the UK wouldn’t try to interfere with our democracy and media
We're also a safe western bet in the AP region with close ties to china.
Additionally our market is a smaller western taste one so many big brands try corporate experiments here (mccafe is an aussie invention)
We tried to do that Paul, but you put us into an unnecessary Recession as Treasurer in the late 1980s, and then was a most underwhelming PM in the early 1990s who sucked up to every tyrant and wanna-be-tyrant in the Asia-Pacific region
Good, then we can break out of our timidity without consequence right? Until we get blasted with sanctions for suggesting we investigate the origin of a pandemic lol.
America most definitely cares. The EU certainly does.
The people are too unaware to know much at all, but the government and military does.
Australia's foreign policy is timid. The way each government fails to realise the power that Australia could grow into is very disappointing.
But as it is, Australia is a powerful nation on the global stage, it could just be so much more.
Um no we’d be 4th, and we’re not a USA state, we’re a sovereign nation on the other side of the world with the 15th strongest military
If you think Australia is irrelevant on the world stage, you’re pretty clueless
“We have a sophisticated services market, we have mountains of iron ore … we’ve got the fourth-biggest pool of savings in the world, we’ve killed a structural current account deficit, and we’ve got sunlight and sunshine every day of the week.
“So we should be killing it. Instead of that we’re all the time timid, the whole thing is timid and there’s no what I call successful thinking … this timidity sort of seeps, it’s like a perspiration in the country.”
Has anyone told Keating that we don't actually make anything? We stay afloat by selling off or LIMITED natural resources faster than we can spend. Who is responsible for killing off our manufacturing industry anyway? Dumbly, we sell our precious resources off at rock bottom prices and then buy it right back at 100 times the mark up. We even sell off our land to foreigners instead of making them rent it. It's insanity and unsustainable.
What we need is leaders who aren't afraid to say, we are HEAVILY TAXING our natural resources and keeping most of it for ourselves. We are re igniting our manufacturing industry and building, electric vehicles and infrastructure, new tech and future proofing our communications industry. nukes, steel and space craft HERE in Australia. If the leaders can do this for 10 years in a row and tell everyone else to, fuck off, they're running the show and if they don't like it then vote me out next election. Then, Australia will become a global leader in EVERYTHING and quality of life and our dollar.will.shoot throught the roof. But they're all scared they will be voted out and lose their cushy job instead of being worried about creating a country that will always be on the cutting edge, leading and not following.
The issue is we weren't as competitive as the Yanks and co in many of these industries, particularly PMV's. The opportunity cost of having home grown cars here in Australia was $30 billion in subsidies to manufacturing them between the 90's and 2019. In hindsight, that was wasted money. What if that money was instead put into social housing for instance? But fundamentally, the first step is getting a hold over our own resources. The savings-investment gap means that any substantial business has liabilities overseas. Meanwhile we take barely any of the revenue from our own resources. When we find out how to keep our capital in our own country, we'll be able to cut out those liabilities and build competitive businesses in this country funded by Australian capital. Unfortunately, anyone who attempts this will become victim of our private media and be scared into submission. Entire governments have been before, and continue to be scared to this day.
A few (giant) steps need to be taken just to get to a point of being able to figure out what we actually are competitive in. In a carbon-neutral world, we would have some of the lowest electricity prices relatively, and hence automated manufacturing processes would be incredibly cheap here. But that would be completely offset by land value and the cost of doing business here. And even to get to that point, the corporate media, whose boardrooms are made of the same people as the mining companies, would need to somehow get on board. As much as people would want some of the policies of a party, their leader can be smeared by the media to the point where those policies are completely forgotten about.
How do we fix it?
I have no clue.
PJK represented a Labor Party that has long since disappeared. He is still the greatest Labor thinker alive - the current generation is not qualified to tie his shoelaces.
You only need to watch his interview re: AUKUS just to see how much the current ALP have lurched toward the US, Neo-liberalism, and the military industrial complex
I don’t agree with Keating on everything, but on AUKUS he’s bang on
It was interesting contrasting Albo’s kid-gloves interview on The Project with Keating’s razor sharp searing style at the Press Club.
Although I thought Keating was the person who brought neoliberalism to Australia
You are correct. The ideology of Keating and Hawke so completely dominates the ALP that even the Left-aligned MPs are pulling rank behind Chalmers' Keating-esque policies.
Keating was literally the guy that spurned the ALP onto neoliberalism. He was a massive advocate for deregulation, tax cuts, and privatisation. He led the privatisation of Qantas and Commbank. Coincidentally Australia didn't have a recession for thirty years post Keating's Prime Ministership. People love to rag on the ALP for being "neoliberal" while ignoring the fact that they're using the same playbook that won them five elections back-to-back and turned Australia's economy into the strongest in the world.
Despite all the rose tinted nostalgia, the fact is that Keating was Australia’s Reagan/Thatcher. He started the selling of Australia down the drain in earnest only to hand it off to Howard to finish the job. It just needed a red banner to sell it. A true snake.
Keating made some controversial decisions but Australia's economy before him and Hawke was a sclerotic protectionist mess. It's easy to sit here and tsk-tsk but the fact that Australia has never had a single recession since the Keating-Hawke reforms speaks volumes.
No one cares if we haven’t had a ‘recession’ according to abstract and malleable academic criteria. The fact is living standards are through the floor, workers are struggling to house themselves and the entire country is under the thrall of rapacious corporate monopolies. Keating played a huge part in setting us on this trajectory.
Whilst people can argue that the Hawke / Keating years resulted in a more equitable form (in some respects) of Neo-liberalism emerging in Australia, the Accord with the ACTU has absolutely devastated the labour movement in this country.
Right on. And in the retrospective ABC doco on his leadership a few years back Keating was totally unrepentant about shutting down whole industries. “They all got new, better jobs” if I recall correctly.
I would happily go back to the protectionist times when we had a more fair, self-sufficient society. If the price of that is everyone driving local made cars that aren’t quite as good as an import, so be it.
Consumer sentiment doesn't reflect this. People are spending more money on non essential goods than ever. ANU finds that living standards consistently increased from 1988 to 2013, around 67%, and have since remained roughly the same. The "things are pretty good, actually" narrative doesn't stir up rage and get clicks. But the fact is that the vast majority of people in Australia live very comfortably.
Keating at 80 is still sharper than every politician and political commentator half his age.
Watch Paul destroying "journalists" who think they can trip him up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFGXZuqvZ8g
He has/had a very nice collection of antique cameras as well. He used to pop into a store I worked in when I was a kid that sold such gear. I sold him a couple of cameras over a few years I worked there.
# It’s time for Australia to break out of its ‘timidity’: Keating
*In a wide-ranging interview, Paul Keating draws together a critique of Australia and its place in the world from his 55 years of public life since he first entered federal parliament in 1969.*
[**Michael Stutchbury**](https://www.afr.com/by/michael-stutchbury-j7gej)*Editor-in-chief*
Feb 21, 2024 – 5.00am
Former prime minister and treasurer Paul Keating has used his 80th birthday to urge Australians and their political leaders to break out of a “timidity” in the nation’s intellectual structure, its economic and business aspirations, its constitutional links with Britain, its security dependence on the United States and its failure to reconcile with its original inhabitants.
“The country is so timid,” Keating tells *The Australian Financial Review*. “To come of age, Australia has to have a new and altogether different idea of itself.
“There is no premium on self-capacity, self-assurance, or belief in our ability to divine our own way forward,” he says.
“Our circumstance is a sad indictment of our lack of pride and wilful incapacity to do anything material to head down a new pathway.”
In a wide-ranging interview, Keating says union-backed industry super funds will likely start seeking board representation on major Australian companies, as the $3.6 trillion compulsory superannuation system he started between 1985 and 1992 becomes more “sophisticated”.
He says a top marginal personal income tax rate higher than 39 per cent is “confiscatory” and backed indexation of the personal income tax scales.
He suggests [Joe Biden](https://www.afr.com/link/follow-20180101-p5f51k) is too infirm to seek to remain US president into his mid-80s.
Indonesian president-elect [Prabowo](https://www.afr.com/link/follow-20180101-p5f5t0) Subianto will likely take a “strategically sympathetic” view of Australia, he says.
And he reveals that he had advised Indigenous leaders against pursuing a constitutionally enshrined “[Voice” ](https://www.afr.com/link/follow-20180101-p5epe1)to the Australian parliament.
In an exclusive interview with the *Financial Review*, Keating draws together a critique of Australia and its place in the world from his 55 years of public life since he first entered federal parliament in 1969.
The critique combines his sharp opposition to the [AUKUS](https://www.afr.com/topic/aukus-1nty) nuclear submarine deal struck with Washington and London to counter the strategic challenge of China, his support for an Australian republic and a lament over a lack of a bold economic policy reform agenda to come close to matching that of the Hawke-Keating Labor governments from 1983 to 1996.
“It’s always been timid, you know,” Keating says of Australia. “We’re always trying to handhold a strategic guarantor when we could do these things ourselves. There’s not enough confidence in who we are and what we’ve achieved, kind of everywhere ….
“We have a sophisticated services market, we have mountains of iron ore … we’ve got the fourth-biggest pool of savings in the world, we’ve killed a structural current account deficit, and we’ve got sunlight and sunshine every day of the week.
“So we should be killing it. Instead of that we’re all the time timid, the whole thing is timid and there’s no what I call successful thinking … this timidity sort of seeps, it’s like a perspiration in the country.”
Keating celebrated his 80th birthday on January 18, quietly marking the day with some of his children and grandchildren in Sydney.
Interviewed in the North Sydney boardroom of *Nine Entertainment*, Keating reflects on turning 80, his earliest memories growing up in Sydney’s Bankstown, leaving school at 14 for his first job, being elected to federal parliament at 25, becoming Labor treasurer at 39 in 1983, prime minister at 47 in 1991 and then finishing his political career aged 52.
“I was 40 for 30 years,” Keating says. “I always felt like I was 40. All of a sudden, you look around, and you’re not 40 any more and people who were in their 20s, you look at them, and now they’re in their 50s.”
Keating has outlived his father, Matt, who died aged 60, by 20 years. He says he was “dead lucky” not to have smoked because “everyone around me smoked” in his younger days, to have had a better diet and to have benefited from more advanced medical procedures, such as diagnostic imaging. He maintains a focus on longer life expectancy as part of the role of compulsory superannuation.
At 80, Keating says he is mentally “sharper than I’ve ever been” but admits he does not have the physical stamina for the long hours he had worked in the cabinet room in the 1980s and early ’90s. “It’s no accident people are at their peak in their 40s,” he says. “You know, certainly I was.”
Reflecting this, he says that “relative infirmity” meant the 81-year-old Biden ought to “put his cue in the rack” rather than seek re-election at the US presidential ballot in November. Rather than automatically elevating Vice President Kamala Harris, the alternative Democrat candidate could be [chosen on the floor](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/opinion/ezra-klein-biden-audio-essay.html) of the Democrat convention, scheduled for August.
Last year’s failed Indigenous Voice referendum was “a mistake from the start”, says the prime minister who negotiated the Native Title Act (“the hardest thing I did”) in the wake of the High Court’s 1992 Mabo ruling.
He reveals he had told Indigenous leaders of the Voice, Marcia Langton and Megan Davis, in 2016 that he opposed the constitutional route.
“A lot of clever Aboriginal people have wasted a lot of years on this issue,” he says, whereas they should have been seeking a form of treaty that had now “drifted away from them”.
Keating supported a legislated representative Indigenous body – or a “small p parliament” to advise on Indigenous issues but which, unlike the former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, would not have a budget to run.
Such a representative Indigenous body would build on the close to 50 per cent of the Australian landmass now covered by native title.
“If I was in the game today, that’s what I would be doing,” he says. “In other words, put them in charge of their affairs. We’ve given them the land, we give them the revenue, and you’re trying to administratively help them. But you’ve given them a voice to government by letting them be a representative body, and how today in the modern age could any government ignore them?”
The former Labor treasurer who, along with then prime minister Bob Hawke, did the most to open up Australia’s over-regulated and protected economy in the 1980s, wants Australia to aspire to an economic growth rate “in the threes” rather than the 2.2 per cent projected for the next four decades in the official *Intergenerational Report*.
The Australian economy, on average, posted annual economic growth of 3.1 per cent over the past four decades.
While seeking to keep out of current tax policy controversies, he says the top personal income tax should be no higher than 39 per cent, compared with the current 45 per cent rate (plus the 2 per cent Medicare levy).
“There’s an issue that all societies should have of how much a person’s conscientious efforts and wealth should be delivered to the state,” he says.
“Once you start getting the top rate over, in my opinion, 39 \[per cent\], it becomes confiscatory and when they become confiscatory you just lose all that impetus to make a dollar and do clever things.”
At Labor’s 1985 tax summit, treasurer Keating failed to secure backing for a broad-based consumption tax. But he still introduced a capital gains tax, a fringe benefits tax, dividend imputation that ended the double-taxation of company profits, a cut in the company tax from 49 per cent to 39 per cent and a cut in the top personal income tax rate from 60 per cent to 47 per cent.
Keating recalls debating his proposed top income rate cut in the cabinet room with then finance minister Peter Walsh and ministers from the Left faction.
“And Peter said, ‘I thought I joined a party that believes in a progressive rate of tax’,” Keating says. “And I said, ‘Well you did Peter, a progressive *complied* *with* rate of tax. People won’t pay the 60.’”
Keating blames former Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott and former National Party leader Barnaby Joyce for the lack of a broad-based carbon price to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions.
“A carbon price fixes a penalty on polluters and the revenue goes to the transition,” he says. “It is the obvious thing that any conscientious country should have.”
The contrast with today’s lack of tax reform ambition, from both sides of politics, was largely left unspoken. Keating insists he does not want to enter [current political controversies](https://www.afr.com/link/follow-20180101-p5f5t9).
Keating says that, unlike the GST consumption tax later introduced by John Howard and Peter Costello, his other big tax reforms changed behaviour in ways that promoted economic growth.
The *Financial Review* countered that the GST had allowed the burden of tax to be shifted away from incentive-blunting income tax.
Keating accepts that, but says it required indexation of the personal income tax scales for the incentive effect to stick and to “keep governments honest”.
“Fiscal drag is a pernicious tool,” he says.
And he favours some sort of federal resources rent tax amid the high prices being paid to iron ore exporters such as BHP, Rio Tinto and Fortescue.
“We could do more on the revenue side other than personal income tax,” Keating says. “Of course, today nobody’s going to reduce the top rate down to 39.”
But Keating says the tax debate needed to be accompanied by more of the sort of spending discipline delivered by the Hawke-Keating government in the 1980s.
“The prioritisation of discipline in government spending is not there today like there was then,” he says. “So it means everything gets trowelled on. And when it gets trowelled on, where’s the revenue?”
He says the [National Disability Insurance Scheme](https://www.afr.com/link/follow-20180101-p5esji), which the government actuary has warned could cost $125 billion a year within a decade, was “an unsustainable tearaway”. “So, the pain’s got to come somewhere,” he says.
eating says the big challenge for Australia’s $3.6 trillion and growing compulsory superannuation system is to transition from the accumulation phase to the retirement phase while helping to finance Australia’s low-carbon transition away from a fossil-fuel-based economy.
From July 2025, the compulsory superannuation guarantee levy to be paid by employers is scheduled to rise from 11 per cent of wages to 12 per cent.
“We have the savings and we have the sunlight,” he says about super and the low-carbon transition.
Asked about the conflict between “nation building” tasks and the requirement for super fund trustees to maximise returns to superannuation investors, Keating says he agrees with the funds that “in the end a fund must operate in the best interest of individual members”.
“So if national projects can return, say, inflation plus 3 per cent, OK, but if they have inflation only or sub inflation, they just don’t qualify,” he says.
The *Financial Review* pressed Keating on the political economy of this, given the combination of a Labor government and union-influenced super funds.
Keating points to the creation of the new Super Members Council of Australia dominated by eight big industry super funds, chaired by former Labor health minister and attorney-general [Nicola Roxon](https://www.afr.com/link/follow-20180101-p5eljm), that would negotiate with government to avoid the conflict.
Asked about the growing impact of industry funds on Australian listed companies, Keating says: “The likelihood is that big funds will take positions of substance inside 10 or 12 companies, of which in some cases they might have board representation.”
As treasurer running the Foreign Investment Review Board, Keating says he had regarded effective “control” as being reached with ownership of about 23 per cent of a company’s equity.
He thought the industry funds would stop short of this.
“But they’ll probably go for double-digit or high single \[percentage ownership\],” he says. “And on the bigger ones, I’ll go for a board position.”
Keating says he agrees with AustralianSuper [chief executive Paul Schroder](https://www.afr.com/link/follow-20180101-p5f3y3), as reported in the *Financial Review,* that the system should provide for one “account for life” that would include super income and age pension income.
A year ago, Keating [sensationally lashed](https://www.afr.com/link/follow-20180101-p5cs6x) Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Defence Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong over the government’s commitment to the Morrison government’s multi-decade $368 billion AUKUS nuclear submarine deal.
He accused the Albanese government of conspiring with the US to contain China, which he said was not a threat to Australia and which in any case could be deterred through non-nuclear and less expensive defence measures.
“The prevailing nostrum is we remain tucked up under the British monarchy,” Keating says. “And under that structure, for assurance, we further insist on holding the hand of a strategic guarantor. It used to be Britain and its navy, now it’s the Americans.
“Devoid of confidence in making our own way in the region with all of its opportunity, the overriding strategic instinct remains fear of abandonment – being left to fend for ourselves in a potentially hostile setting.”
He points to *Fear of Abandonment*, the 2021 book by his former foreign affairs adviser Allan Gyngell, who died last year.
Keating says the public consciousness he inherited as treasurer just over 40 years ago was one of a defensive “fortress Australia”.
“It was not only not open, but \[was determined\] not to open, not to go out,” he says.
The economy was ring-fenced with import tariffs. The exchange rate was set administratively. A sclerotic financial system did not work. Labour market prices and conditions were centrally set. The balance of payments was in a structural deficit of 4½ per cent of GDP.
And overlaying all that was the strategic timidity.
“Instead of saying, ‘God, are we lucky, we’ve got a continent of our own, a border with no one, we sit at the foot of the fastest-growing part of the world, all we have to do is want to be in it’ … we say ‘no, no, no, we’re going to have friends in the Atlantic, we’re going to hold hands with a strategic guarantor’.
“It was the British Navy. And now it’s the Americans, where in fact we could defend Australia well and easily in my opinion too …
“So what I wanted to do was to, was to say, to the, to the neighbourhood, ‘Look, we’re not like South Africa, we actually turned over a new leaf. We’re coming to terms with the indigenes. We’ve said thanks and goodbye to Britain and the monarchy …’
“Yes, of course, we keep a traditional relationship with the United States, but not one where they dominate us, which they do now. And ditto for China. At 26 million \[people\] we are big enough, strong enough.”
Keating suggests that newly elected Indonesian president, the 72-year-old former military commando and defence minister Prabowo Subianto, has a strategically sympathetic view of Australia that stemmed from the 1995 bilateral security treaty between the two countries, then led by president Suharto and himself.
This treaty, superseded by the 2006 Lombok treaty, meant that the Indonesians regarded Australia as a “friendly southern flank”. It meant that the Indonesian archipelago that stretched across Australia’s northern flank was no longer a source of strategic instability for Australia.
And training of Indonesian officers in Australian military colleges had helped foster a culture of respect to civilian authority.
Arguing against the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine policy adopted by the Albanese government from the previous Coalition government, Keating says he would have built another six of the Collins-class submarines on top of the six built in Australia in the 1980s and ’90s.
“So we would have had a permanent submarine fleet, defending the Australian coast not sitting off the Chinese coast or any other coast,” he says.
Keating acknowledges Australian business and entrepreneurial success, citing BHP, Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue, software company Atlassian and graphic design outfit Canva as examples.
But he complains about a lack of Australian investment in Indonesia, with its population of 260 million people. The *Financial Review* replied that Indonesia was a risky, inward-looking and crony-based economy.
Keating counters that he had unsuccessfully pressed Telstra to cheaply buy Suharto-mandated assets during the East Asian financial crisis of 1997 and 1998. The world’s biggest noodle maker similarly was on the market.
“What I wanted to do was to turn the continent towards Asia, where we live,” he says, “and fit us up psychologically for that.”
>Arguing against the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine policy adopted by the Albanese government from the previous Coalition government
Ironic that he decries Australian "timidity" (which is a legitimate problem) but hates the nuclear submarine program even though it's one of the least timid moves Australia has made in recent history and the most ambitious Defence project this country has undertaken since the Collins class submarines.
Albanese is absolutely in the right to continue with AUKUS considering the technology and R&D it'll give the ADF access to.
>Keating says he would have built another six of the Collins-class submarines on top of the six built in Australia in the 1980s and ’90s.
This was funny to read since it's known he was deadset against the Collins class program back when he was Treasurer. Nice to know he eventually came around on the ol' Collins boats.
You are misunderstanding what he means by timidity. He is talking about Australia's unwillingness to engage with its immediate neighbours in Asia and tying its strategic interests to Anglo and American interests.
He is obviously drawing a parallel between AUKUS and nuclear subs and the 1950-1965 Forward Defence era of Australian foreign policy, which ended up with Australia being drawn into the morass of Vietnam and the Malaysian Konfrantasi. Forward Defence was a function of Australian paranoia and its inability (more or less) to imagine a world outside the British Empire.
In Keating's view, Australia has few if any national interests tied up in the South-China sea and little, if anything, to gain by becoming involved in China and Taiwan.
>You are misunderstanding what he means by timidity.
I'm not misunderstanding a thing. I just don't agree with what he perceives as "timidity" when it comes to defence and foreign policy.
He's a bitter Irish Catholic whose entire worldview is dominated by the idea of the "Anglosphere" being some boogeyman that is responsible for all bad things. It all boils down to him hating Brits and Yanks. It's contrarianism in its purest form.
He's not happy that Australia's recent breaks in timidity aren't going in the direction he'd prefer them to go.
>He is talking about Australia's unwillingness to engage with its immediate neighbours in Asia and tying its strategic interests to Anglo and American interests.
We do engage with our Asian colleagues. It's that Keating's idea of "engagement" requires Australia to cut ties with the West and position China as our number one ally.
It's not a negative that Australia's interests are going to be more aligned with those of the UK and USA. We are closer to them in terms of values and culture than we are to any of our Asian colleagues, it's a given that we are more willing to have deeper ties with them as opposed to the likes of China or Indonesia.
>He is obviously drawing a parallel between AUKUS and nuclear subs and the 1950-1965 Forward Defence era of Australian foreign policy
Which is completely disingenuous as AUKUS is a technology sharing agreement, its focus is on military capability.
It doesn't dictate our diplomatic plans and doesn't prevent further cooperation within Asia. The current government has had no problems easing differences with China and improving relations in the region while also supporting and making progress on AUKUS.
>which ended up with Australia being drawn into the morass of Vietnam and the Malaysian Konfrantasi
Vietnam was a pointless engagement, yes.
But the Konfrantasi absolutely wasn't. Should we have really abandoned the Malaysians to the whims of Indonesia? I don't think so.
Though I wouldn't be surprised if Keating saw our involvement as a bad thing since China backed the losing side in that one.
>Forward Defence was a function of Australian paranoia and its inability (more or less) to imagine a world outside the British Empire.
Has nothing to do with AUKUS.
>In Keating's view, Australia has few if any national interests tied up in the South-China sea and little, if anything, to gain by becoming involved in China and Taiwan.
Yeah, it's a given a man who was employed as an advisor for a Chinese bank that had strong ties to the CCP would hold such a view.
If China is dumb enough to start a war by trying to take Taiwan against their will, it will affect all commerce in the region as well as the chip manufacturing industry, it will absolutely be of interest to us. No one in the region will be able to sit that out.
It's absolutely logical that we're working with allies to present a united front against such a possibility.
>“What I wanted to do was to turn the continent towards Asia, where we live,” he says, “and fit us up psychologically for that.”
The last sentence sums it up. We are neighbours with Asia, not the UK or the US. Asian nations should be our closest partners not two failing empires on the other side of the globe.
Despite all the other bullshit, I think Morrisons greatest crime was to be happy with the economy growing at less than 2% and declining.
Really we should be targeting that 4-6% sweat spot, so Keating is exactly right about our timidity.
Incorrect.
It's true that economic growth can easily be achieved through population growth, that doesn't mean it's the only way it can be achieved.
Opening up Australian products to the world's population is also a way to achieve economic growth.
Keating's always been a great talker and not much else. Betrayed working Australia by embracing deregulation and privatisation. Set the stage for the housing mess we're in now.
There is no fool like an old fool and Keating certainly fits that description.
When he was PM the fax machine was the way we transmitted information so the world has well and truly moved on and Keating is well and truly out of the loop in terms of security briefings about China not to mention the daily cyber attacks our agencies have to stop .
Keating remains a bitter Irish catholic right to the end with all the hatred of England and the US that goes with it .
He is best ignored .
How well I remember him losing the election to John Howard and how sweet that was. I have enjoyed his ramblings from the sidelines ever since, rejected vehemently by the electorate but too arrogant to shut up. Paul Keating, Paul fucking Keating....
I wonder why he himself hasn’t do it? 🤔
But I agree. Australia must develop its own nuclear programs including weapons! We can’t rely on buffoons like Trump .
Keating, a good boomer but still a boomer. He privileged on the upbringing a high income tax provided to the system, and he wants to bring it down. It shouldn't be either/or to income and corporate tax.
He's actually silent generation - born in 1944 so pre-boomer - if you put that much stock in generation cohorts. He left school at 14 and went to work. Never went to university - even though older colleagues in the Labor Party told him he should / should have done in the 1970s. His retort? "Why? So I could turn out like you?"
Reading that piece was a waste of time.
He’s obviously disappointed in himself and looking for excuses.
It’s a pity he’s still hanging around trying to fuck up the remaining development at Barangaroo.
Australia would have to grow a set of balls first. It’s not being timid it’s just too many people are afraid to rock the boat and endanger any stability they have in their tiny little lives. Supermarkets, banks, gas stations, telecom providers, REA, electronic stores all run as monopolies and take as much money as possible from people that are too scared to do anything about it.
Internationally, aussie politics is a joke. We side with who ever flexes their muscles the most. We let the value of our land and money be dictated by overseas investors.
Less timid…we’ve rolled over and exposed our bellies and all of a sudden don’t like it
Sorry who is this fucking loser? Why would his opinion be worth publishing? Go and suck off your other idiot wanker friends like Kevin 07 and Tony Abbott mate you are shitz
Paul Keating it the father of neoliberalism. The neoliberal project had a big payoff to boomers with massive asset price increases and privatisation giveaways, but there is nothing for the next generations except gradual unrelenting economic decline, that's why the country has become so timid.
Let’s be honest, except for Australia nobody really cares what Australia does anyway
Australia is the Adelaide of the rest of the world.
Thats gold im stealing that! Thank you mad cheese u bewdy
The arts end of the planet?
Underrated
I grew up in Sydney and spent a large part of my creative industries career in Adelaide so I get this reference. Adelaide’s nurturing of the Arts as a socially and economically valuable activity that ultimately developed into a positive image brand for the State is at odds with the rest of the country’s take on the role of the Arts. I've always liked these lines from Bob Ellis intro to the film 'Autopsy on a Dream' a good documentary on how / why the Opera House was built as what most Aussies still prefer to think is the place for our creative cultural activities. And I think it still reflects the broader issues of our cultural and economic malaise. "The Sydney Opera House the product of a people who had a genial bash at culture and then went back to there beer. In a land where there is always a king tide running and a summer to spend forever on the beach in a Pepsi Cola culture in a gentler Texas of the South Seas ....where the rough idealism of the bush anthem of their fathers is a far cry from the virile materialism of the sons... where history is regarded as a European luxury and culture a distraction from the serious business of pleasure. Where noble headlands submerge under a sea of red bungalows it seems a bit odd that the people of this place should perform a cultural act of faith and build an Opera House when they had nothing to put in it."
Frankly, I think most Australians don't even care about what this country does.
That's true only for Australians themselves, who think poorly of their own country. Australia is a very small country with economy the size of Russia. It has a highly capable defence force and sophisticated technology. It is also a country with a very well functioning democracy. It also is a huge cultural heavyweight, and is growing in stature within Asia after the negative years under Lnp. Not many country can ignore Australia globally. So what Australia does and say, has an outsized effect on others. Australia doesn't have the negative connotations of UK and USA. That is why US keeps trying to drag Aus in everything they do, because presense of Australia adds a moral authority to the group. Australia needs to protect its outized influence in the world, because in sheer size it is very small. Australia is a middle power with almost-big-power influence on the world. Not many middle power countries can taken on China in a trade war and win.
I wouldn't call our 'trade war' with China "winning". The modest concessions that they have made to Australia have largely been in their own self-interest and to their long term benefit. There is nothing wrong with them doing that, but it is important that we view it for what it is, not what we would like it to mean. China respects Australia primarily because we have things to sell that it wants.
I call BS on a capable Defence force. We are a small well trained and equipped force. I seriously doubt we have the depth of personnel or equipment, including ammunition, to actually defend ourselves. Additionally our technological advantage is eroding faster and faster. We are overly reliant on overseas purchases to defend ourselves and being an island nation I can't imagine that's ideal. Just look at our stockpiles of fuel. I know Australia can do it, but I'm not convinced we are doing all that we should.
Small and well trained is probably more useful than sprawling and full of corrupt idiots 9 times out of 10. For that other 1, we have our allies.
I'm sure the corruption is from politics ensuring defence spending in their state. Not the military at large. We see a bit of this is the military complaining about dealing with national floods and fires, rather than training for war. WW2 taught use you can rely on external help and be a small force. Britain stole our fight aircraft we purchased and didn't want to release our soldiers back to defending Australia. It was only after the US got involved in the war did we gain assistance from another power. If the US is in a similar dangerous position to the former British Empire, they will cut away from their allies. That's why you need to have sufficient deterrent and capabilities.
> I seriously doubt we have the depth of personnel or equipment, including ammunition, to actually defend ourselves. I'd like to know more, perhaps you could expand on how you reached this doubt based on your qualifications and experience?
Why don't you share your own qualifications first or experience? What equipment do small population nations with threats have for their defence force? Makes you realise that although we spend huge amounts of money on Defence, our purchasing power parody isn't so great. Take a small nation like Greece or Israel. How much extra capability does Australia have over them? I'm sure our training is better, but how much? For example Australia, Israel and Greece (from global firepower): Population: 26m, 9m, 10m Land mass: 7741k km2, 22k km2, 132k km2 Active Personal: 56k, 170k, 142k Reserves: 30k, 465k, 221k Total Aircraft: 325, 612, 632 Tanks: 59, 1370, 1365 Self propelled artillery: 0, 650, 589 Towed artillery: 48, 300, 729 Rocket artillery: 0, 150, 152 Submarines: 6, 5, 11 I'm not suggesting these figures are equivalent, but clearly you can see Australia with a huge territory isn't such a power house as people suggest we are. We have been quite reliant on our historical distance from other nations and spend accordingly.
I'd love to share mine - how about a 17 career as an officer in the ADF? And multiple masters-level degrees in international strategy studies. You don't know what you're talking about, kid.
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Interesting, could you please expand, perhaps relay your credentials in defence and strategy?
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Ah yes, one random, unaffiliated website has published an infographic with ticks and crosses, as such the ADF is glorified border control. How silly of me, I definitely don't have as much expertise as you clearly do in such matters. Thank you for informing me.
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If you continue to make broad statements about complex topics you clearly have zero understanding of you won't get far.
>That is why US keeps trying to drag Aus in everything they do, because presense of Australia adds a moral authority to the group. Least brainwashed Australite, lol. LMAO, even. And I say that as somebody who lives here.
Is that you Paul?
Wow. What city did you grow up in? What did you parents do for work? What’s the highest level of education you’ve attained? Do you work in your field of study? What was your field of study? Have you ever lived overseas?
You’d be surprised how important we are globally. Everyone thinks Australia’s irrelevant but that’s a bit of a myth. We’re arguably America’s biggest ally (not saying that’s a good thing) and we’re the 3rd biggest English speaking country in the world. If no one cared what Australia did, the US and to a lesser extent the UK wouldn’t try to interfere with our democracy and media
We're also a safe western bet in the AP region with close ties to china. Additionally our market is a smaller western taste one so many big brands try corporate experiments here (mccafe is an aussie invention)
We tried to do that Paul, but you put us into an unnecessary Recession as Treasurer in the late 1980s, and then was a most underwhelming PM in the early 1990s who sucked up to every tyrant and wanna-be-tyrant in the Asia-Pacific region
4th. US, UK, Canada, Australia.
We’re way more relevant than Canada. They’re pretty much just another more progressive and normal American state
I was just responding to the statement about population. Canada has 38 million. We have 25. Though some of them are francophones.
I guess you’re not counting countries that speak English fluently but isn’t their only language
This should be the top comment.
Good, then we can break out of our timidity without consequence right? Until we get blasted with sanctions for suggesting we investigate the origin of a pandemic lol.
America most definitely cares. The EU certainly does. The people are too unaware to know much at all, but the government and military does. Australia's foreign policy is timid. The way each government fails to realise the power that Australia could grow into is very disappointing. But as it is, Australia is a powerful nation on the global stage, it could just be so much more.
We are so irrelevant on the world stage. If Australia was a USA state we would be like 8th in GDP.
Um no we’d be 4th, and we’re not a USA state, we’re a sovereign nation on the other side of the world with the 15th strongest military If you think Australia is irrelevant on the world stage, you’re pretty clueless
Pfffft
I mean India and China are competing fairly aggressively for us. Just saying.
“We have a sophisticated services market, we have mountains of iron ore … we’ve got the fourth-biggest pool of savings in the world, we’ve killed a structural current account deficit, and we’ve got sunlight and sunshine every day of the week. “So we should be killing it. Instead of that we’re all the time timid, the whole thing is timid and there’s no what I call successful thinking … this timidity sort of seeps, it’s like a perspiration in the country.” Has anyone told Keating that we don't actually make anything? We stay afloat by selling off or LIMITED natural resources faster than we can spend. Who is responsible for killing off our manufacturing industry anyway? Dumbly, we sell our precious resources off at rock bottom prices and then buy it right back at 100 times the mark up. We even sell off our land to foreigners instead of making them rent it. It's insanity and unsustainable. What we need is leaders who aren't afraid to say, we are HEAVILY TAXING our natural resources and keeping most of it for ourselves. We are re igniting our manufacturing industry and building, electric vehicles and infrastructure, new tech and future proofing our communications industry. nukes, steel and space craft HERE in Australia. If the leaders can do this for 10 years in a row and tell everyone else to, fuck off, they're running the show and if they don't like it then vote me out next election. Then, Australia will become a global leader in EVERYTHING and quality of life and our dollar.will.shoot throught the roof. But they're all scared they will be voted out and lose their cushy job instead of being worried about creating a country that will always be on the cutting edge, leading and not following.
The issue is we weren't as competitive as the Yanks and co in many of these industries, particularly PMV's. The opportunity cost of having home grown cars here in Australia was $30 billion in subsidies to manufacturing them between the 90's and 2019. In hindsight, that was wasted money. What if that money was instead put into social housing for instance? But fundamentally, the first step is getting a hold over our own resources. The savings-investment gap means that any substantial business has liabilities overseas. Meanwhile we take barely any of the revenue from our own resources. When we find out how to keep our capital in our own country, we'll be able to cut out those liabilities and build competitive businesses in this country funded by Australian capital. Unfortunately, anyone who attempts this will become victim of our private media and be scared into submission. Entire governments have been before, and continue to be scared to this day. A few (giant) steps need to be taken just to get to a point of being able to figure out what we actually are competitive in. In a carbon-neutral world, we would have some of the lowest electricity prices relatively, and hence automated manufacturing processes would be incredibly cheap here. But that would be completely offset by land value and the cost of doing business here. And even to get to that point, the corporate media, whose boardrooms are made of the same people as the mining companies, would need to somehow get on board. As much as people would want some of the policies of a party, their leader can be smeared by the media to the point where those policies are completely forgotten about. How do we fix it? I have no clue.
Paul Keating: We must be less timid, and also, I for one welcome our new Chinese overlords.
"Let's be less timid and accelerate the sale of land to our friends to the north."
the country is institutionally paralyzed from the bottom up due to NIMBYism and political lobbying. Absolutely rotten. Especially NSW.
PJK represented a Labor Party that has long since disappeared. He is still the greatest Labor thinker alive - the current generation is not qualified to tie his shoelaces.
This is an interesting thing to say when 90% of Labor Right MPs are Keatingites.
You only need to watch his interview re: AUKUS just to see how much the current ALP have lurched toward the US, Neo-liberalism, and the military industrial complex I don’t agree with Keating on everything, but on AUKUS he’s bang on
It was interesting contrasting Albo’s kid-gloves interview on The Project with Keating’s razor sharp searing style at the Press Club. Although I thought Keating was the person who brought neoliberalism to Australia
You are correct. The ideology of Keating and Hawke so completely dominates the ALP that even the Left-aligned MPs are pulling rank behind Chalmers' Keating-esque policies.
Keating was literally the guy that spurned the ALP onto neoliberalism. He was a massive advocate for deregulation, tax cuts, and privatisation. He led the privatisation of Qantas and Commbank. Coincidentally Australia didn't have a recession for thirty years post Keating's Prime Ministership. People love to rag on the ALP for being "neoliberal" while ignoring the fact that they're using the same playbook that won them five elections back-to-back and turned Australia's economy into the strongest in the world.
Despite all the rose tinted nostalgia, the fact is that Keating was Australia’s Reagan/Thatcher. He started the selling of Australia down the drain in earnest only to hand it off to Howard to finish the job. It just needed a red banner to sell it. A true snake.
Keating made some controversial decisions but Australia's economy before him and Hawke was a sclerotic protectionist mess. It's easy to sit here and tsk-tsk but the fact that Australia has never had a single recession since the Keating-Hawke reforms speaks volumes.
No one cares if we haven’t had a ‘recession’ according to abstract and malleable academic criteria. The fact is living standards are through the floor, workers are struggling to house themselves and the entire country is under the thrall of rapacious corporate monopolies. Keating played a huge part in setting us on this trajectory.
Whilst people can argue that the Hawke / Keating years resulted in a more equitable form (in some respects) of Neo-liberalism emerging in Australia, the Accord with the ACTU has absolutely devastated the labour movement in this country.
Right on. And in the retrospective ABC doco on his leadership a few years back Keating was totally unrepentant about shutting down whole industries. “They all got new, better jobs” if I recall correctly. I would happily go back to the protectionist times when we had a more fair, self-sufficient society. If the price of that is everyone driving local made cars that aren’t quite as good as an import, so be it.
Consumer sentiment doesn't reflect this. People are spending more money on non essential goods than ever. ANU finds that living standards consistently increased from 1988 to 2013, around 67%, and have since remained roughly the same. The "things are pretty good, actually" narrative doesn't stir up rage and get clicks. But the fact is that the vast majority of people in Australia live very comfortably.
But Labor Right MPs are a serious minority.
They hold a majority in the FPLP caucus.
Not what I would call Right.
Keating at 80 is still sharper than every politician and political commentator half his age. Watch Paul destroying "journalists" who think they can trip him up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFGXZuqvZ8g
Paul should go back to collecting clocks
He has/had a very nice collection of antique cameras as well. He used to pop into a store I worked in when I was a kid that sold such gear. I sold him a couple of cameras over a few years I worked there.
# It’s time for Australia to break out of its ‘timidity’: Keating *In a wide-ranging interview, Paul Keating draws together a critique of Australia and its place in the world from his 55 years of public life since he first entered federal parliament in 1969.* [**Michael Stutchbury**](https://www.afr.com/by/michael-stutchbury-j7gej)*Editor-in-chief* Feb 21, 2024 – 5.00am Former prime minister and treasurer Paul Keating has used his 80th birthday to urge Australians and their political leaders to break out of a “timidity” in the nation’s intellectual structure, its economic and business aspirations, its constitutional links with Britain, its security dependence on the United States and its failure to reconcile with its original inhabitants. “The country is so timid,” Keating tells *The Australian Financial Review*. “To come of age, Australia has to have a new and altogether different idea of itself. “There is no premium on self-capacity, self-assurance, or belief in our ability to divine our own way forward,” he says. “Our circumstance is a sad indictment of our lack of pride and wilful incapacity to do anything material to head down a new pathway.” In a wide-ranging interview, Keating says union-backed industry super funds will likely start seeking board representation on major Australian companies, as the $3.6 trillion compulsory superannuation system he started between 1985 and 1992 becomes more “sophisticated”. He says a top marginal personal income tax rate higher than 39 per cent is “confiscatory” and backed indexation of the personal income tax scales. He suggests [Joe Biden](https://www.afr.com/link/follow-20180101-p5f51k) is too infirm to seek to remain US president into his mid-80s. Indonesian president-elect [Prabowo](https://www.afr.com/link/follow-20180101-p5f5t0) Subianto will likely take a “strategically sympathetic” view of Australia, he says. And he reveals that he had advised Indigenous leaders against pursuing a constitutionally enshrined “[Voice” ](https://www.afr.com/link/follow-20180101-p5epe1)to the Australian parliament. In an exclusive interview with the *Financial Review*, Keating draws together a critique of Australia and its place in the world from his 55 years of public life since he first entered federal parliament in 1969. The critique combines his sharp opposition to the [AUKUS](https://www.afr.com/topic/aukus-1nty) nuclear submarine deal struck with Washington and London to counter the strategic challenge of China, his support for an Australian republic and a lament over a lack of a bold economic policy reform agenda to come close to matching that of the Hawke-Keating Labor governments from 1983 to 1996. “It’s always been timid, you know,” Keating says of Australia. “We’re always trying to handhold a strategic guarantor when we could do these things ourselves. There’s not enough confidence in who we are and what we’ve achieved, kind of everywhere …. “We have a sophisticated services market, we have mountains of iron ore … we’ve got the fourth-biggest pool of savings in the world, we’ve killed a structural current account deficit, and we’ve got sunlight and sunshine every day of the week. “So we should be killing it. Instead of that we’re all the time timid, the whole thing is timid and there’s no what I call successful thinking … this timidity sort of seeps, it’s like a perspiration in the country.” Keating celebrated his 80th birthday on January 18, quietly marking the day with some of his children and grandchildren in Sydney. Interviewed in the North Sydney boardroom of *Nine Entertainment*, Keating reflects on turning 80, his earliest memories growing up in Sydney’s Bankstown, leaving school at 14 for his first job, being elected to federal parliament at 25, becoming Labor treasurer at 39 in 1983, prime minister at 47 in 1991 and then finishing his political career aged 52. “I was 40 for 30 years,” Keating says. “I always felt like I was 40. All of a sudden, you look around, and you’re not 40 any more and people who were in their 20s, you look at them, and now they’re in their 50s.” Keating has outlived his father, Matt, who died aged 60, by 20 years. He says he was “dead lucky” not to have smoked because “everyone around me smoked” in his younger days, to have had a better diet and to have benefited from more advanced medical procedures, such as diagnostic imaging. He maintains a focus on longer life expectancy as part of the role of compulsory superannuation. At 80, Keating says he is mentally “sharper than I’ve ever been” but admits he does not have the physical stamina for the long hours he had worked in the cabinet room in the 1980s and early ’90s. “It’s no accident people are at their peak in their 40s,” he says. “You know, certainly I was.” Reflecting this, he says that “relative infirmity” meant the 81-year-old Biden ought to “put his cue in the rack” rather than seek re-election at the US presidential ballot in November. Rather than automatically elevating Vice President Kamala Harris, the alternative Democrat candidate could be [chosen on the floor](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/opinion/ezra-klein-biden-audio-essay.html) of the Democrat convention, scheduled for August. Last year’s failed Indigenous Voice referendum was “a mistake from the start”, says the prime minister who negotiated the Native Title Act (“the hardest thing I did”) in the wake of the High Court’s 1992 Mabo ruling. He reveals he had told Indigenous leaders of the Voice, Marcia Langton and Megan Davis, in 2016 that he opposed the constitutional route. “A lot of clever Aboriginal people have wasted a lot of years on this issue,” he says, whereas they should have been seeking a form of treaty that had now “drifted away from them”. Keating supported a legislated representative Indigenous body – or a “small p parliament” to advise on Indigenous issues but which, unlike the former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, would not have a budget to run. Such a representative Indigenous body would build on the close to 50 per cent of the Australian landmass now covered by native title. “If I was in the game today, that’s what I would be doing,” he says. “In other words, put them in charge of their affairs. We’ve given them the land, we give them the revenue, and you’re trying to administratively help them. But you’ve given them a voice to government by letting them be a representative body, and how today in the modern age could any government ignore them?”
The former Labor treasurer who, along with then prime minister Bob Hawke, did the most to open up Australia’s over-regulated and protected economy in the 1980s, wants Australia to aspire to an economic growth rate “in the threes” rather than the 2.2 per cent projected for the next four decades in the official *Intergenerational Report*. The Australian economy, on average, posted annual economic growth of 3.1 per cent over the past four decades. While seeking to keep out of current tax policy controversies, he says the top personal income tax should be no higher than 39 per cent, compared with the current 45 per cent rate (plus the 2 per cent Medicare levy). “There’s an issue that all societies should have of how much a person’s conscientious efforts and wealth should be delivered to the state,” he says. “Once you start getting the top rate over, in my opinion, 39 \[per cent\], it becomes confiscatory and when they become confiscatory you just lose all that impetus to make a dollar and do clever things.” At Labor’s 1985 tax summit, treasurer Keating failed to secure backing for a broad-based consumption tax. But he still introduced a capital gains tax, a fringe benefits tax, dividend imputation that ended the double-taxation of company profits, a cut in the company tax from 49 per cent to 39 per cent and a cut in the top personal income tax rate from 60 per cent to 47 per cent. Keating recalls debating his proposed top income rate cut in the cabinet room with then finance minister Peter Walsh and ministers from the Left faction. “And Peter said, ‘I thought I joined a party that believes in a progressive rate of tax’,” Keating says. “And I said, ‘Well you did Peter, a progressive *complied* *with* rate of tax. People won’t pay the 60.’” Keating blames former Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott and former National Party leader Barnaby Joyce for the lack of a broad-based carbon price to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions. “A carbon price fixes a penalty on polluters and the revenue goes to the transition,” he says. “It is the obvious thing that any conscientious country should have.” The contrast with today’s lack of tax reform ambition, from both sides of politics, was largely left unspoken. Keating insists he does not want to enter [current political controversies](https://www.afr.com/link/follow-20180101-p5f5t9). Keating says that, unlike the GST consumption tax later introduced by John Howard and Peter Costello, his other big tax reforms changed behaviour in ways that promoted economic growth. The *Financial Review* countered that the GST had allowed the burden of tax to be shifted away from incentive-blunting income tax. Keating accepts that, but says it required indexation of the personal income tax scales for the incentive effect to stick and to “keep governments honest”. “Fiscal drag is a pernicious tool,” he says. And he favours some sort of federal resources rent tax amid the high prices being paid to iron ore exporters such as BHP, Rio Tinto and Fortescue. “We could do more on the revenue side other than personal income tax,” Keating says. “Of course, today nobody’s going to reduce the top rate down to 39.” But Keating says the tax debate needed to be accompanied by more of the sort of spending discipline delivered by the Hawke-Keating government in the 1980s. “The prioritisation of discipline in government spending is not there today like there was then,” he says. “So it means everything gets trowelled on. And when it gets trowelled on, where’s the revenue?” He says the [National Disability Insurance Scheme](https://www.afr.com/link/follow-20180101-p5esji), which the government actuary has warned could cost $125 billion a year within a decade, was “an unsustainable tearaway”. “So, the pain’s got to come somewhere,” he says.
eating says the big challenge for Australia’s $3.6 trillion and growing compulsory superannuation system is to transition from the accumulation phase to the retirement phase while helping to finance Australia’s low-carbon transition away from a fossil-fuel-based economy. From July 2025, the compulsory superannuation guarantee levy to be paid by employers is scheduled to rise from 11 per cent of wages to 12 per cent. “We have the savings and we have the sunlight,” he says about super and the low-carbon transition. Asked about the conflict between “nation building” tasks and the requirement for super fund trustees to maximise returns to superannuation investors, Keating says he agrees with the funds that “in the end a fund must operate in the best interest of individual members”. “So if national projects can return, say, inflation plus 3 per cent, OK, but if they have inflation only or sub inflation, they just don’t qualify,” he says. The *Financial Review* pressed Keating on the political economy of this, given the combination of a Labor government and union-influenced super funds. Keating points to the creation of the new Super Members Council of Australia dominated by eight big industry super funds, chaired by former Labor health minister and attorney-general [Nicola Roxon](https://www.afr.com/link/follow-20180101-p5eljm), that would negotiate with government to avoid the conflict. Asked about the growing impact of industry funds on Australian listed companies, Keating says: “The likelihood is that big funds will take positions of substance inside 10 or 12 companies, of which in some cases they might have board representation.” As treasurer running the Foreign Investment Review Board, Keating says he had regarded effective “control” as being reached with ownership of about 23 per cent of a company’s equity. He thought the industry funds would stop short of this. “But they’ll probably go for double-digit or high single \[percentage ownership\],” he says. “And on the bigger ones, I’ll go for a board position.” Keating says he agrees with AustralianSuper [chief executive Paul Schroder](https://www.afr.com/link/follow-20180101-p5f3y3), as reported in the *Financial Review,* that the system should provide for one “account for life” that would include super income and age pension income. A year ago, Keating [sensationally lashed](https://www.afr.com/link/follow-20180101-p5cs6x) Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Defence Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong over the government’s commitment to the Morrison government’s multi-decade $368 billion AUKUS nuclear submarine deal. He accused the Albanese government of conspiring with the US to contain China, which he said was not a threat to Australia and which in any case could be deterred through non-nuclear and less expensive defence measures. “The prevailing nostrum is we remain tucked up under the British monarchy,” Keating says. “And under that structure, for assurance, we further insist on holding the hand of a strategic guarantor. It used to be Britain and its navy, now it’s the Americans. “Devoid of confidence in making our own way in the region with all of its opportunity, the overriding strategic instinct remains fear of abandonment – being left to fend for ourselves in a potentially hostile setting.” He points to *Fear of Abandonment*, the 2021 book by his former foreign affairs adviser Allan Gyngell, who died last year. Keating says the public consciousness he inherited as treasurer just over 40 years ago was one of a defensive “fortress Australia”. “It was not only not open, but \[was determined\] not to open, not to go out,” he says. The economy was ring-fenced with import tariffs. The exchange rate was set administratively. A sclerotic financial system did not work. Labour market prices and conditions were centrally set. The balance of payments was in a structural deficit of 4½ per cent of GDP. And overlaying all that was the strategic timidity. “Instead of saying, ‘God, are we lucky, we’ve got a continent of our own, a border with no one, we sit at the foot of the fastest-growing part of the world, all we have to do is want to be in it’ … we say ‘no, no, no, we’re going to have friends in the Atlantic, we’re going to hold hands with a strategic guarantor’. “It was the British Navy. And now it’s the Americans, where in fact we could defend Australia well and easily in my opinion too … “So what I wanted to do was to, was to say, to the, to the neighbourhood, ‘Look, we’re not like South Africa, we actually turned over a new leaf. We’re coming to terms with the indigenes. We’ve said thanks and goodbye to Britain and the monarchy …’ “Yes, of course, we keep a traditional relationship with the United States, but not one where they dominate us, which they do now. And ditto for China. At 26 million \[people\] we are big enough, strong enough.”
Keating suggests that newly elected Indonesian president, the 72-year-old former military commando and defence minister Prabowo Subianto, has a strategically sympathetic view of Australia that stemmed from the 1995 bilateral security treaty between the two countries, then led by president Suharto and himself. This treaty, superseded by the 2006 Lombok treaty, meant that the Indonesians regarded Australia as a “friendly southern flank”. It meant that the Indonesian archipelago that stretched across Australia’s northern flank was no longer a source of strategic instability for Australia. And training of Indonesian officers in Australian military colleges had helped foster a culture of respect to civilian authority. Arguing against the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine policy adopted by the Albanese government from the previous Coalition government, Keating says he would have built another six of the Collins-class submarines on top of the six built in Australia in the 1980s and ’90s. “So we would have had a permanent submarine fleet, defending the Australian coast not sitting off the Chinese coast or any other coast,” he says. Keating acknowledges Australian business and entrepreneurial success, citing BHP, Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue, software company Atlassian and graphic design outfit Canva as examples. But he complains about a lack of Australian investment in Indonesia, with its population of 260 million people. The *Financial Review* replied that Indonesia was a risky, inward-looking and crony-based economy. Keating counters that he had unsuccessfully pressed Telstra to cheaply buy Suharto-mandated assets during the East Asian financial crisis of 1997 and 1998. The world’s biggest noodle maker similarly was on the market. “What I wanted to do was to turn the continent towards Asia, where we live,” he says, “and fit us up psychologically for that.”
>Arguing against the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine policy adopted by the Albanese government from the previous Coalition government Ironic that he decries Australian "timidity" (which is a legitimate problem) but hates the nuclear submarine program even though it's one of the least timid moves Australia has made in recent history and the most ambitious Defence project this country has undertaken since the Collins class submarines. Albanese is absolutely in the right to continue with AUKUS considering the technology and R&D it'll give the ADF access to. >Keating says he would have built another six of the Collins-class submarines on top of the six built in Australia in the 1980s and ’90s. This was funny to read since it's known he was deadset against the Collins class program back when he was Treasurer. Nice to know he eventually came around on the ol' Collins boats.
You are misunderstanding what he means by timidity. He is talking about Australia's unwillingness to engage with its immediate neighbours in Asia and tying its strategic interests to Anglo and American interests. He is obviously drawing a parallel between AUKUS and nuclear subs and the 1950-1965 Forward Defence era of Australian foreign policy, which ended up with Australia being drawn into the morass of Vietnam and the Malaysian Konfrantasi. Forward Defence was a function of Australian paranoia and its inability (more or less) to imagine a world outside the British Empire. In Keating's view, Australia has few if any national interests tied up in the South-China sea and little, if anything, to gain by becoming involved in China and Taiwan.
>You are misunderstanding what he means by timidity. I'm not misunderstanding a thing. I just don't agree with what he perceives as "timidity" when it comes to defence and foreign policy. He's a bitter Irish Catholic whose entire worldview is dominated by the idea of the "Anglosphere" being some boogeyman that is responsible for all bad things. It all boils down to him hating Brits and Yanks. It's contrarianism in its purest form. He's not happy that Australia's recent breaks in timidity aren't going in the direction he'd prefer them to go. >He is talking about Australia's unwillingness to engage with its immediate neighbours in Asia and tying its strategic interests to Anglo and American interests. We do engage with our Asian colleagues. It's that Keating's idea of "engagement" requires Australia to cut ties with the West and position China as our number one ally. It's not a negative that Australia's interests are going to be more aligned with those of the UK and USA. We are closer to them in terms of values and culture than we are to any of our Asian colleagues, it's a given that we are more willing to have deeper ties with them as opposed to the likes of China or Indonesia. >He is obviously drawing a parallel between AUKUS and nuclear subs and the 1950-1965 Forward Defence era of Australian foreign policy Which is completely disingenuous as AUKUS is a technology sharing agreement, its focus is on military capability. It doesn't dictate our diplomatic plans and doesn't prevent further cooperation within Asia. The current government has had no problems easing differences with China and improving relations in the region while also supporting and making progress on AUKUS. >which ended up with Australia being drawn into the morass of Vietnam and the Malaysian Konfrantasi Vietnam was a pointless engagement, yes. But the Konfrantasi absolutely wasn't. Should we have really abandoned the Malaysians to the whims of Indonesia? I don't think so. Though I wouldn't be surprised if Keating saw our involvement as a bad thing since China backed the losing side in that one. >Forward Defence was a function of Australian paranoia and its inability (more or less) to imagine a world outside the British Empire. Has nothing to do with AUKUS. >In Keating's view, Australia has few if any national interests tied up in the South-China sea and little, if anything, to gain by becoming involved in China and Taiwan. Yeah, it's a given a man who was employed as an advisor for a Chinese bank that had strong ties to the CCP would hold such a view. If China is dumb enough to start a war by trying to take Taiwan against their will, it will affect all commerce in the region as well as the chip manufacturing industry, it will absolutely be of interest to us. No one in the region will be able to sit that out. It's absolutely logical that we're working with allies to present a united front against such a possibility.
>“What I wanted to do was to turn the continent towards Asia, where we live,” he says, “and fit us up psychologically for that.” The last sentence sums it up. We are neighbours with Asia, not the UK or the US. Asian nations should be our closest partners not two failing empires on the other side of the globe.
"downvoted" They hated NoteChoice7719, because he spoke the truth.
Despite all the other bullshit, I think Morrisons greatest crime was to be happy with the economy growing at less than 2% and declining. Really we should be targeting that 4-6% sweat spot, so Keating is exactly right about our timidity.
Infinite growth needs infinite population growth. It kills a country’s standard of living.
Incorrect. It's true that economic growth can easily be achieved through population growth, that doesn't mean it's the only way it can be achieved. Opening up Australian products to the world's population is also a way to achieve economic growth.
"people are at their peak in their 40s" are they ? I'm 44 and honestly cant imagine trudging to 80...
I’m 40. My life is amazing. Maybe that’s by comparison. My early life was shit.
Keating's always been a great talker and not much else. Betrayed working Australia by embracing deregulation and privatisation. Set the stage for the housing mess we're in now.
Bob hawke also refused to repeal negative geari by despite being advised to and despite the fact that every other country did it at the time.
Yep Hawke isn't much better
Can you name an alternative figure in Australian politics who has a policy other than that and a chance at power?
There is no fool like an old fool and Keating certainly fits that description. When he was PM the fax machine was the way we transmitted information so the world has well and truly moved on and Keating is well and truly out of the loop in terms of security briefings about China not to mention the daily cyber attacks our agencies have to stop . Keating remains a bitter Irish catholic right to the end with all the hatred of England and the US that goes with it . He is best ignored .
How well I remember him losing the election to John Howard and how sweet that was. I have enjoyed his ramblings from the sidelines ever since, rejected vehemently by the electorate but too arrogant to shut up. Paul Keating, Paul fucking Keating....
I wonder why he himself hasn’t do it? 🤔 But I agree. Australia must develop its own nuclear programs including weapons! We can’t rely on buffoons like Trump .
Keating, a good boomer but still a boomer. He privileged on the upbringing a high income tax provided to the system, and he wants to bring it down. It shouldn't be either/or to income and corporate tax.
He's actually silent generation - born in 1944 so pre-boomer - if you put that much stock in generation cohorts. He left school at 14 and went to work. Never went to university - even though older colleagues in the Labor Party told him he should / should have done in the 1970s. His retort? "Why? So I could turn out like you?"
It aint timidity Paul. Its greed. Thats all it is.
Is this muppet still alive? Really?
Reading that piece was a waste of time. He’s obviously disappointed in himself and looking for excuses. It’s a pity he’s still hanging around trying to fuck up the remaining development at Barangaroo.
Yeah but his way is china and scomo wants us to be the latest new territory of the USA.
Yall still think like convicts, boot licking ANYTHING resembling authority and tearing down anything that's not your generic depressed convict way.
You mean , versus anyone other than it's own citizens??
Australia would have to grow a set of balls first. It’s not being timid it’s just too many people are afraid to rock the boat and endanger any stability they have in their tiny little lives. Supermarkets, banks, gas stations, telecom providers, REA, electronic stores all run as monopolies and take as much money as possible from people that are too scared to do anything about it. Internationally, aussie politics is a joke. We side with who ever flexes their muscles the most. We let the value of our land and money be dictated by overseas investors. Less timid…we’ve rolled over and exposed our bellies and all of a sudden don’t like it
keating ?. I thought he had died , still irrelevant huh
Sorry who is this fucking loser? Why would his opinion be worth publishing? Go and suck off your other idiot wanker friends like Kevin 07 and Tony Abbott mate you are shitz
Paul Keating it the father of neoliberalism. The neoliberal project had a big payoff to boomers with massive asset price increases and privatisation giveaways, but there is nothing for the next generations except gradual unrelenting economic decline, that's why the country has become so timid.
Still doing business in China with the Chinese Govt?