Writer
Paul Keating
Paul Keating was the prime minister of Australia from 1991 to 1996.
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Unconscionable profits
The Canadian private equity fund Brookfield’s bid for Origin Energy has the sole aim of delivering unconscionable profits to investors. But the rest of us have to know we are in the company of the masters of the universe and click our heels whenever we are given the cue from their obedient investment banks. Continue reading »
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The death of Henry Kissinger: Statement by Paul Keating
Henry Kissinger’s death draws to a close the epoch of intellectualism in foreign policy to which he was committed following his early study of and belief in a system of organised strategic balance and restraint of the kind that emerged from the Treaty of Westphalia in the 17th century. Continue reading »
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Bill Hayden warned that becoming a US supplicant carried unacceptable risks
Bill Hayden rescued and resuscitated the Labor Party as a national force as certainly as I am standing before you today. We may see the likes of Bill Hayden again, but I doubt it. At Bill’s initiative, in 1983 he put into place a review of ANZUS, suggesting that Australia presenting as a sycophant or Continue reading »
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Herald Sun report on support for Zionist Federation letter “untrue”
Today’s Melbourne Herald Sun carries a story that, along with other former Australian Prime Ministers, I will be a signature to a statement drafted by The Zionist Federation of Australia, condemning the attack by Hamas on Israel. This report is without foundation and is untrue. Continue reading »
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The Hayden Oration – 29 September 2017
Australia’s relationship with the United States is fine. What is not fine is the Austral-Americans in this country conducting themselves as though Australia is some branch office of the United States or worse than that, its lickspittle. Continue reading »
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Death of Bill Hayden – A statement from Paul Keating
A modernising Treasurer, the author and founder of Medicare, the re-shaper and builder of the post-War Labor Party, Foreign Minister and finally, in high office, Governor General. Continue reading »
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Leadership from Paul Keating on recognition of Aboriginal dispossession -1992
“Nowhere in the world, I would venture, is the message more stark than it is in Australia. We simply cannot sweep injustice aside. … the starting point might be to recognise that the problem starts with us non-Aboriginal Australians. It begins, I think, with that act of recognition. … Down the years, there has been Continue reading »
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NATO’s provocative lurch eastward and the ‘supreme fool’ Jens Stoltenberg
President Macron of France is right to warn NATO away from any expansion into Asia, reminding all and sundry of NATO’s Atlantic design and focus. Continue reading »
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AUKUS, Australia and China
Australia’s capacity to protect its sovereignty lies not in accession to US interests but in a broad diplomatic and security effort with our Asian neighbours, writes Paul Keating in a letter delivered to Prime Minister Albanese on 24 January, seven weeks before the San Diego AUKUS announcement and obtained by the Guardian Australia under FOI Continue reading »
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Never before has a Labor Government been so bereft of policy ambition
In facing the great challenge of our time, a super-state resident in continental Asia and an itinerant naval power seeking to maintain primacy – the foreign minister was unable to nominate a single piece of strategic statecraft by Australia that would attempt a solution for both powers. Paul Keating’s response to Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s Continue reading »
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Paul Keating – Australia locks in Asian Century as subordinate to the US
The Albanese Government’s complicity in joining with Britain and the United States in a tripartite build of a nuclear submarine for Australia under the AUKUS arrangements represents the worst international decision by an Australian Labor government since the former Labor leader, Billy Hughes, sought to introduce conscription to augment Australian forces in World War One. Continue reading »
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Capital city newspapers urge nuclear war by Australia against China: God help us
The Sydney Morning Herald’s prominent series of provocations, urging Australia into a war with China, concluded its third instalment today. Continue reading »
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If only our current PM said this…
Today’s Sydney Morning Herald and The Age front page stories on Australia’s supposed war risk with China represents the most egregious and provocative news presentation of any newspaper I have witnessed in over fifty years of active public life. Continue reading »
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The “little Americans” that populate Australia
Greg Sheridan, in his opinion piece of Tuesday 21 February, provides yet another display of his spiteful, vacuous journalism – his erroneous claims that I am not the progenitor of the APEC Leaders’ Meeting, and that my views on Australian strategic policy are eccentric and at odds with the US alliance. Continue reading »
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The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, the Bourbons of the Pacific
The Japanese are hanging out for some Quad which has us, the Americans and the Indians in it. I mean, this is the kind of hopeless environment we’re in. China is simply too big and too central to be ostracised. Continue reading »
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Australia and Asia in 2022: knowing who we are
In the eighties, we took hold of the rudder and set about an essential economic transformation which left us able to hold our own in Asia. The key to our success then rested with ourselves. What was needed was cultural reform, reform of our outlook. Success at home depended on that change. Success in Asia Continue reading »
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Best of 2022: 25 Years ago, I warned expanding NATO ranked with the errors that led to WWI and II
Expanding NATO’s military demarcation point to the very borders of the former Soviet Union was an error which may rank with the strategic miscalculations which prevented Germany from taking its full place in the international system at the beginning of this century. Continue reading »
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25 Years ago, I warned expanding NATO ranked with the errors that led to WWI and II
Expanding NATO’s military demarcation point to the very borders of the former Soviet Union was an error which may rank with the strategic miscalculations which prevented Germany from taking its full place in the international system at the beginning of this century. Continue reading »
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US ring-fencing of Russia weakened those prepared to give liberal democratic principles a go
When the Russians surrendered their empire in 1990, wouldn’t it have been better to have Russia as part of an enlightened framework of intelligent co-existence, to invite their people, battered by the twentieth century, into the comity and wealth of nations? Continue reading »
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Taiwan “is not a vital Australian interest — we do not recognise it as a sovereign state”. A repost from November 17, 2021
Peter Hartcher has a lot to answer for, writes Paul Keating in a response to the Nine columnist that did not make it to print. Continue reading »
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A reckless and provocative visit by Pelosi to Taiwan
When the United States has a divided foreign policy on an issue of such grave importance, the world begins a slide onto very thin ice. Continue reading »
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NATO creeping towards Russia’s borders is dangerous-(I told you so twenty five years ago)
A great security mistake is being made in Europe with the decision to expand NATO.(An extract from a speech in 1997) Continue reading »
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Herald indulges UK Foreign Secretary’s demented remarks on China
Australia’s foreign and defence ministers are giving respectability to Britain’s lunge for old-time glory. Continue reading »
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Paul Keating responds to Peter Hartcher’s ‘King Canute’ column
Peter Hartcher has a lot to answer for, writes Paul Keating in a response to the Nine columnist that did not make it to print. Continue reading »
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Paul Keating: I am not a defeatist who would sell the country out to another power
The Coalition is not only turning over control of our defence forces to the US, but shopping our foreign policy too. Continue reading »
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Paul Keating: Morrison is making an enemy of China and Labor is helping him
The Liberals, having no faith in the capacity of Australians and all we have created here, could not resist falling back, yet again, to do the bidding of another great power, the United States of America. Continue reading »
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Provoking China to please the US.
The Morrison government is pushing Australia towards a confrontation with Beijing, mainly to be seen as a fawning acolyte in Washington. Continue reading »
