Biographer delivers a big-picture view of former PM Paul Keating

A quarter of a century since he became prime minister, it’s time for a fresh look at Paul Keating, says Troy Bramston.

The cover of a new book on Paul Keating by The Australian’s writer Troy Bramston

A quarter of a century since he ­became prime minister, it was time for a fresh look at Paul Keating, says his new biographer.

It took The Australian’s Troy Bramston years to convince Mr Keating to co-operate with the project. Eventually, the ­famously feisty former prime minister gave 15 hours of interviews and access to previously unseen personal ­archives for the first biography he had co-operated with in two ­decades. Yet it is no authorised biography and Mr Keating had no control over the final manuscript.

Bramston says Mr Keating is “very frank” in his opinion of his successors as Labor leader and the standing of the party today.

Interviews with more than 100 people, and access to Labor Party archives, caucus records, cabinet papers and the private diaries of political figures such as Bob Carr and Neal Blewett produced new insights into the Keating relationships with Bob Hawke, John Howard, Bill Hayden and Gough Whitlam, among many others.

Bramston says Mr Keating saw political leadership as the combination of courage and imagin­ation but the ALP and the country remain reluctant to fully embrace his legacy. Paul Keating: The Big-Picture Leader will be published on November 14

Read an extract in The Weekend Australian next Saturday