The Reform Boldness of Paul Keating Contrasts Poorly with the Timidity of Kevin Rudd, Writes Greg Barns
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The reform boldness of Paul Keating contrasts poorly with the timidity of Kevin Rudd, writes Greg Barns. evin Rudd stood on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin on a fresh Canberra morning in early September and told popular breakfast presenter Melissa Doyle Kof Channel 7’s Sunrise program how chuffed he was that Quentin Bryce would be sworn in as Australia’s first female Governor-General that day. Doyle then asked Rudd about the prospects for an Australian Republic. It was as though Rudd froze. Oh yes, it was ALP policy that there be an Australian head of state but when Doyle pressed Rudd for a timeframe on when Australia might become a republic, Rudd simply muttered, ‘next question.’ Now what if Paul Keating was Prime Minister and Melissa Doyle asked him the same question? He would have painted a canvas in which a republic was the centrepiece of a strategy to redefine Australia as an independent, confident Asia-Pacific nation. To put the contrast in cricketing terms, where Rudd shuffled at his crease and fended the ball off, Keating would have dashed out of wicket, planted the front foot down and smashed the ball through the offside field for four. 10 IPA Review | November 2008 www.ipa.org.au Paul Keating speaks at book launch in Sydney on May 8, 2006 . Tracey Neamy | AAPImage Why Keating makes Kevin look bad www.ipa.org.au IPA Review | November 2008 11 aul Keating may not like this retreat in Queensland in August this year he language of Keating as Trea- analogy, but he has much more that Australians are ‘practical and a bit surer, and as Prime Minister for in common with former British cautious’ about economic reform. that matter, was urgent and un- PPrime Minister Margaret Thatcher than No wonder Mr Keating is so cranky Tcompromising. It did not flinch—there he does with Kevin Rudd. Both Keating about the Rudd Government’s lack of was no self-doubt. Perhaps only former and Thatcher are iconoclastic individu- policy cohesion and capacity to think Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett, with als who reshaped their parties, the body seriously about the long term. whom not unnaturally Keating got on politic around them and left an indelible Where Mr Rudd and his cabinet puff well, has spoken with such a sense of self- mark on the economy and society they out their collective chest about working certainty and force in modern Australian reshaped. And both are individuals who on Saturdays, and pushing public ser- politics. today are like Banquo’s ghost, as they vants to stay at their desks long into the For Keating, politics and policy- loom over their successors. night all in aid of creating an impression making was a high wire act, first, second The Labor Party of Kevin Rudd of general busyness, Mr Keating always and third. ‘There are a lot of people in does its best these days to ignore its for- gave the impression that he had time to this country who are content to sit back mer leader—and Mr Rudd’s ambivalent reflect and step outside the stultifying and do nothing, to take the easy way. But attitude towards the Keating dream of confines of Capital Hill, yet continue to it’s all about risk and those who risk and a Republic is emblematic of this. The be serious about the business of reform. win deserve everything they get,’ Keating ALP spent a decade after Mr Keating We can put it another way. Mr told a group of bankers back in 1987. lost office in a landslide to John How- Rudd probably clocks up twice as many What needs to be appreciated about ard in 1996 running a million miles hours as Mr Keating did, but this does Keating is that he single handedly turned from the legacy and achievements of not equate with being a committed and the ALP inside out. As journalist David the government that had gone before genuine long term reformer. McKenzie wrote in December 1991, them. Similarly, the British Conserva- What Mr Keating showed was that just after Keating replaced Bob Hawke tive Party today under its wunderkind reformers needed to balance their lives as Prime Minister, ‘for many traditional leader David Cameron is unashamedly by polishing antique clocks, delving into Labor supporters, Keating is the Trojan breaking with the radical conservatism the emotional rollercoaster of a Mahler horse that ripped the philosophical heart of Mrs Thatcher. symphony or fossicking around antique out of the party by embracing free mar- What a pity in both cases. stores in Queen Street Woollahra or kets, cutting back on government spend- And it is even more so in the con- Paris. ing and selling off the “crown jewels” of text of the Australian Labor Party which, One gets a sense that where Kevin the public sector,’ McKenzie said. This while in office federally today, could be Rudd, Wayne Swan and their cohorts was an historic victory for those advo- said to not actually be in government. think that practicing politics is about cates of free markets in and out of par- One does not get the sense that Mr taking small steps, and watching the me- liament. Rudd and his cabinet have any of the dia and the polls in an almost fetishist The record of Paul Keating as eco- zeal, intellectual inquiry and sense of manner, Paul Keating was the embodi- nomic reformer is well documented, adventure about them that character- ment of John Coltrane’s ‘Giant Steps.’ much commented upon, and debated. ised Keating when he became Treasurer Could one imagine Paul Keating Much of that reform agenda was ex- in the Hawke government in 1983, and doing what Wayne Swan did this year, ecuted in his first four years as Treasurer. which hallmarks stayed with him until underwhelming an audience of corpo- Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald the end in 1996. rate high flyers at Hayman Island by on July 1 1987, Steve Burrell observed Where Keating defined the issue, telling them that Australians are ‘practi- that since he became Treasurer in March the debate and the parameters around it, cal and a bit cautious’, about economic 1983 Keating had Rudd plays on the same turf as his po- reform, and not to expect the earth to brought the budget deficit back litical opponents both inside and outside move while he is in office? from an unsustainable 5 per the parliament. Not a bit of it. The Keating rhetoric cent of national income to less The man who wears the Treasurer’s and practice was to lecture, cajole and than 1 per cent in four years. mantle today, Wayne Swan, is the antith- drag you along the reform road whether He has rammed through reduc- esis of Keating. Mr Swan is a manager of you liked it or not. Where the Rudd tions in real wages which very the economy and nothing more. Accord- Government has a penchant for inqui- few thought possible, largely ing to The Australian’s economics editor, ries, subcommittees and reviews, with retaining the extra competitive- Michael Stutchbury, Swan is wary of Keating there was no such navel gazing. ness flowing from the fall in the reform agendas. Stutchbury quoted the He knew what the Australian economy dollar. He has floated the dollar, Treasurer as saying at a corporate leaders needed in the short, medium and long deregulated the financial mar- term and he set about doing it. kets, reformed the tax system Greg Barns is a barrister specialising and freed up access for foreign in criminal law and human rights. He investment, to set the scene for writes regularly for Crikey. a fundamental restructuring of 12 IPA Review | November 2008 www.ipa.org.au Paul Keating’s election night speech after his win in 1993. National Archives of Australia, A6135 the economy. He has demol- as Margaret Thatcher when it came to economic reform agenda, wrote in 2001 ished the shibboleths of the past micro-economic reform, in particular in that the former Treasurer ‘has claim to and transformed Labor into a the area of industrial relations. being the central figure in Australian party of economic rationalists The University of Melbourne’s Les politico-economics in the past quarter of capable of confronting the real- Coleman concluded in an analysis pub- a century.’ ity of being a small trading na- lished last year that And as Paul Kelly noted in The End tion in a big world. comparison of the economic of Certainty, his chronicle of the Hawke- Keating of course was no demi-god. performance of the Hawke- Keating years, after Paul Keating used his There were certain ‘no-go’ areas—sub- Keating and Howard Govern- famous 1986 ‘Banana Republic’ remark stantial deregulation of the labour mar- ments relative to other econo- to describe where the Australian econ- ket and the privatisation of Telstra. His mies at the same time shows omy might head if serious economic economic management credentials were that the Howard Government reform was interrupted, he became the severely undermined by events leading delivered: lower inflation, inter- ‘dominant figure’ within the Hawke up to, and during the recession of 1990- est rates, and unemployment, Government, much to the Prime Minis- 1991, the deepest economic malaise in and stronger exchange rates; ter’s frustration and incredulity. The way Australia since the Great Depression of but weaker economic growth. it worked, according to Kelly, was that the 1930s. The boast that he controlled The [Howard] government has Keating saw himself as the driving force the Reserve Bank and that his hands outperformed its predecessor of the government and Hawke the front firmly gripped the levers of the nation- on three criteria and underper- man.