Mr Keating, those who work in the media are a robust lot. Journalists who deal regularly with politicians and former politicians, including former prime ministers, are especially resilient. Most would probably prefer that I didn’t write what follows because they would recoil at the risk of being seen as victims or becoming the story.
To repeat then, they are not victims. This is not about them. This is about a man who has become increasingly bad-mannered to the point where, surely, the board of the National Press Club is discussing a public rebuke about your most recent personal invective.
In case they can’t reach agreement, here’s mine.
Mr Keating, there is a serious debate to be had about AUKUS, the cost, the time frame and capability of nuclear submarines, our relations with China, the nature of the China threat and how we position ourselves in the Asia-Pacific. On all of this, go your hardest.
Tell us again about “the Collins-class boat that I built with Kim Beazley” in the late ’80s and their superior capability over nuclear subs in 2023, according to you. Tell us again that there is no clarity around China’s treatment of the Uighurs, as if the reports to date of China’s behaviour towards this minority mean nothing.
Wax lyrical, again, about how prudent you were as prime minister, what a genius you were in drafting our foreign policy in Asia, as if that necessarily applies in 2023. Sledge the Americans again, take a swipe at the Brits too, again. Denounce your own party, if you must. That appears to be the height of post-political fashion among a certain group of former PMs who have far too much time on their hands.
But some of what you said was beyond the pale. You took a dismissive pot shot at senior journalist Andrew Probyn for questioning you about the nuanced nature of the threats posed by China: “You’re not that silly, are you?” you said.
Then you told a younger journalist, Sky News’s Olivia Caisley, who expanded that analysis, “the question is so dumb, it’s hardly worth an answer”. Both journalists did what good journalists do. They responded to your gratuitous personal jibes with substance, probing further on whether 2023 is different to your time in power.
Then you turned on the Sydney Morning Herald’s Matthew Knott with more venom. “You should hang your head in shame,” you sniped. “I’m surprised you even have the gall to stand up in public and ask such a question. Frankly, you ought to do the right thing and drum yourself out of Australian journalism.” Then you went all warm and cuddly, labelling Paul Karp “naive” and informing Jess Malcolm her question was “invalid”.
Mr Keating, some might say your policy positions are a relic of the past. Have that debate. But it is beyond debate that your snide personal attacks on people simply doing their job are not on. The substance of your arguments, and your legacy, are undermined by your defensive, abusive attacks on those who probe your analysis. Penny Wong summed you up neatly: “Paul Keating has his views but, in substance and in tone, they belong to another time.” Whereas once you were cleverly amusing, now you are entirely boorish.
It is one thing to be passionate about politics and foreign policy. Passion is not enhanced by personal attacks. This has nought to do with free speech either, and everything to do with decency and manners.
Frankly, I am sick of hearing from older men as they harangue people they disagree with, thinking they are so clever that they can freely, and without sanction, diminish people in vulgar ways. This was common in the late ’80s. We endured it quietly even if we knew it stank. In 2023, it is less common but still obnoxious.
People who think they are too clever, too important and too busy to bother with civility are rife in important policy debates in Australia right now.
Think of the voice debate. We know, and they know, who they are. Senior academics, long-in-the-tooth Indigenous leaders, elder-statesmen lawyers who seem to think those with different views are not simply wrong, but morally deficient, not worthy of making contributions to this important national debate. Their seniority doesn’t give them a free pass from decency. Neither should that excuse you, Mr Keating, just because you’re getting on and waving around your talking points to camera. If you’re smart enough to talk foreign policy, you can also glean that diminishing people is poor form. Would you like your son or daughter or partner to be spoken to in such a fashion? EQ is important too.
Mr Keating, you were fortunate Laura Tingle hosted that event last week. I would have told you to be polite and professional. Less Trump-like please. And I suspect Tingle would have done the same if John Howard or Tony Abbott or Scott Morrison had treated journalists with that degree of public contempt.
After all, personal attacks do little to advance serious debates the NPC says are at the core of its mission. It was a shame that a senior journalist and president of the National Press Club didn’t pull you up.
Sadly, years of fawning over you by some sections of the media has only emboldened your boorish behaviour. This shouldn’t be about politics. Grace is non-political. Grace is also rare. It’s especially rare among a select group of former prime ministers who seem to think their genius has not been sufficiently rewarded or recognised by Australian voters.
You blokes could learn a thing or two from Julia Gillard. Certainly, she was not our greatest prime minister. But she sure is a very fine former prime minister, getting on with what matters to her, speaking about important policies without a skerrick of bitterness, and never ever trying to make herself bigger by belittling others.
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This started out as a private letter to Paul Keating. But given his eagerness to be part of a public debate, he surely won’t mind this being a public response to his comments at the National Press Club last week.