Paul Keating pays tribute to Barbara Bush

Paul Keating pays tribute to Barbara Bush as a woman of judgment and decorum who played an often unheralded role in public life.

Annita Keating and Prime Minister Paul Keating host former George H.W. Bush and his wife Barbara at Kirribilli House in 1994.

Paul Keating has paid a warm tribute to former US first lady Barbara Bush as woman of judgment and decorum, who played an important and often unheralded role in public life and was a friend to Australia.

The former prime minister hosted George and Barbara Bush when they visited Australia in 1991-92.

“It was with great sadness that I learned of the death of Barbara Bush,” Mr Keating said in a statement provided to The Australian. “She was, personally, a very well put together figure; a person of judgment and decorum.

“She was, as it turned out, a pillar of the American political establishment — helping her husband George navigate his way to the presidency while obviously having an important bearing on the career of her son George W. Bush. One suspects she represented a solid place in an often turning world for the Bush family.”

The visit by the Bushes in 1991-92 was the first to Australia by a US president since Lyndon B. Johnson attended the memorial service for Harold Holt in 1967.

“Barbara Bush was very pleasant to meet and was particularly nice to my children, who, amongst other things, accompanied her and President Bush on Air Force One,” Mr Keating said.

“I had a very warm personal relationship with her and her husband, George, a relationship I continued with them after George had left the presidency.”

When Mr Keating and Mr Bush formally met at Kirribilli House on January 1, 1992, the prime minister presented the president with a grand plan to elevate the APEC meeting of trade ministers into a regular gathering of regional leaders.

After that meeting, Mr Bush invited Mr Keating’s four children to join him on Air Force One to fly to Canberra that afternoon. Mr Bush addressed the Australian parliament the following day.

Paul Keating's children on-board Air Force One with George Bush, who thanked the Keatings for making their Australian visit “so much fun’’.

Mr Keating’s friendship with the Bushes continued after Mr Bush lost the 1992 presidential election. When the former president and first lady visited Australia in 1994, Mr Keating allowed them to use Kirribilli House for the duration of their stay.

“I turned Kirribilli House over to them when later, the former president and his wife were visiting Sydney on an extended social and business visit,” he said. “I did not think, given their friendship to Australia, they should be left to accommodate themselves in a Sydney hotel.”

Mr Keating had a long association with the Bushes. Mr Keating first met Mr Bush when he visited the US in 1971 as part of a tour hosted by the State Department. Mr Bush was then Ambassador to the United Nations.

In 1983, Mr Keating accompanied Bob Hawke on his first visit to the US as prime minister and met with President Ronald Reagan and Mr Bush, who was then vice president. He had dinner with the Bushes at his vice presidential residence. And Mr Keating met Mr Bush in Moscow the following year.

Mr Keating, who served as prime minister from 1991 to 1996, offered his sympathies to the Bush family. “I express my condolences and that of my family to Barbara’s husband George and to her children and extended family,” he said.

John Howard remembers Barbara Bush as a forthright and humorous first lady.

“I was privileged to meet her in the early 1980s. She was forthright, humorous and intensely personable,” Mr Howard said, expressing his sympathy to the Bush family.