Former leader Paul Keating in Labor Party wilderness on policy

Former PM Paul Keating. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nikki Short

There was a time that demanded if Paul Keating spoke, members of the parliamentary Labor Party stood up and listened.

On matters of strategic policy, that time has passed.

The fact Anthony Albanese has elected not to engage Keating publicly, or most recently on a personal level, is revealing.

While the elder statesman of the party is still held up in lights for economic reform, feared and revered in equal measure, Keating is now in the Labor wilderness on AUKUS.

His character assessments of the Prime Minister, Richard Marles and Penny Wong on Wednesday may have been unflattering but are not without precedent, of course.

Illustration: John Spooner

But in accusing Albanese of breaking faith with Labor tradition on the nuclear submarine deal, Keating has demonstrated just how far removed the former prime minister is from the party he once ruled.

Keating will, of course, claim that he is right, and that it is the party that is now wrong.

But his hyperbolic performance confirms two fundamental historical shifts; just how much Labor thinking has changed in the space of a few years and how sharply the strategic situation in the region has deteriorated at the same time.

The two are interlinked.

There is no doubt that Keating’s views, founded on his loathing of the Australian intelligence community, will have some sectoral appeal within the party.

But the judgment that Albanese has made a fatal error ­ignores the fact that the Prime Minister has the backing of his cabinet and command of his caucus on this issue.

Bill Shorten’s retort spoke to the changing world and the changes within the party that Keating now critiques.

Shorten, a former Labor leader himself, suggested Keating had failed to grasp what was occurring both within the party and strategically. He essentially accused Keating of being dead wrong on China.

“He [Keating] is entitled to have his point of view and one thing he does is leave you no doubt of what he thinks,” Shorten said on Wednesday.

“I think the strategic nature of China has changed in the last year. They’re not the same China they were in the ’90s.”

Kim Beazley, a former Labor deputy prime minister, former defence minister and Labor leader in opposition, was also a staunch supporter of AUKUS.

Keating is by no means a lone voice on this issue. He is just the most outspoken among the Labor tribe that might agree with him. Yet even some of his supporters believe he went over the top.

Albanese won’t be losing any sleep over it.