Paul Keating a hypocrite for criticising Penny Wong for wearing leis

Paul Keating was quick to get stuck into Penny Wong for travelling around the Pacific with ‘a lei around her neck’, but photos reveal the former PM was guilty of much the same thing.

Paul Keating may have slammed Foreign Minister Penny Wong for “running around the Pacific Islands with a lei around (her) neck” but it turns out the former prime minister never minded a bit of ceremonial dress-up in his time.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal pictures of the ex-leader in a variety of get-ups, just a day after delivering a bizarre rant at the National Press Club that sought to all but excuse China’s behaviour as a natural response to American imperialism.

During the address he also slammed the Albanese government for following through on AUKUS, and attacked the foreign minister saying: “Let me just make this point. Running around the Pacific Islands with a lei around your neck handing out money, which is what Penny does, is not foreign policy.”

Yet despite his present stance, historical records show that far from seeing China as a peaceful nation during time in government, Mr Keating was well aware of the potential for the rising Asian power to become a security threat.

As prime minister, Keating signed a 1995 security pact with Indonesia in no small part to counter Beijing’s ambitions.

Then-PM Paul Keating (right) on a tour of Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, PNG and Singapore, in 1992.

In a mid-1990s interview, Keating said that while there was nothing to fear from China, he qualified the statement saying, “Do we want to be in the Chinese orbit … and feel the pull of gravity of China? No, of course we don’t.”

These days, however, Keating has changed his tune.

Keating at the APEC summit 1994 in Indonesia …

… and being made a chief of the Oro people in Kokoda in 2002.

Michael Shoebridge, director and chief executive of Strategic Analysis Australia, said “there’s a deep, visceral anti-Americanism to his thinking which seems as much personal as intellectual … he has said previously that Americans weren’t grateful enough to him for creating APEC, which seems to contrast for him with the welcome and hospitality he experiences from powerful people in China”.

“(But) it also involves what looks like wilful blindness — given the evidence of the Uighurs, Hong Kong, the South China Sea, etc — giving a free pass to the CCP.”

Despite putting on his fashion police cap at the Press Club, the photographic record shows that Keating was an enthusiastic traveller who was also happy to wear local garb for a photo op.

Multiple images can be revealed of Keating in a variety of costumes meeting with regional leaders from Indonesia’s Suharto to Japan’s then-PM Tomiichi Muruyama.

Keating was also a keen attendee at APEC summits, which are known for their “class photos” of attending leaders in ceremonial garb of the day.

One of the oddest images shows Keating in Papua New Guinea in 2002, after he had left office in Australia.

There, in a ceremony that saw him garlanded with leis and flowers, he became a Paramount Chief of the Oro people during a ceremony in Kokoda.

Got a news tip? Email [e-mail]

Originally published as Paul Keating a hypocrite for criticising Penny Wong for wearing leis