As an Australian Prime Minister, I hold Paul Keating in reasonably high regard. He was a treasurer who prepared Australia for the 90s and 00s by deregulating vast swathes of the economy and floating the dollar inter alia. He was also highly eloquent, and was not afraid to trade barbs in Parliament and out, dressed in his Zegna suits.
"All tip and no iceberg", "desiccated coconut araldyted to the seat", "I want to do you slowly" are all phrases that have entered the public consciousness thanks to him. Keating's failing, and there's a little bit of it in each of us, is to think himself invincible. His prompt exit from public life after his defeat to Howard in 1996 has made him bitter, and the only time Keating seems to appear is when his own legacy is attacked, or he is attacking someone else's: even if they are on his side of politics. The pithy soundbite became his tool, and he cannot point to any great achievements on his own behalf, or in assisting Australia and Australians since leaving. I always wondered whether he would be proud being remembered, post-politics, as a walking soundbite.
Keating has served up a septic cocktail of old age, vitriol and grudge in flaming Padraic McGuinness. Padraic was certainly an eccentric character, who is difficult to tag with any specific political tag. He's edited the AFR and Quadrant as well as being an economist for a Soviet Bank. Peter Coleman, a former editor of The Bulletin remembers:
You would find him at the anarchist meetings in Whitechapel, probably heckling the speakers, or in Hampstead giving blood for the Vietcong while getting stuck into the communists, or in the pages of Oz magazine ridiculing prohibitionist drug laws and moronic druggies.
I've met 'Paddy' on a couple of occasions, and despite his penchant for black dressing, which I recall had something to do with combining the roles of priest, satanist and confessor, as well as not showing dirt (according to him), found him fascinating. I have to confess that some of the subject matter flew right over my head, and I was forced into the awkward 'smiling and nodding' routine hoping the line of conversation would progress no further.
With some of Quadrant now being online, and widely distributed, it's growing as a literary journal of note. Padraic made sure that there were no sacred cows, whether they were the sacred belief of the left or right, as long as the debate was cooly academic. The material is often inaccessible, and the subject matter obscure. Keith Windshuttle truly came to prominence when he was published by McGuinness, on an alternate interpretation of early Australian settlement and the 'Stolen Generation'. So despite being labeled 'right-wing' like its editor, it was more difficult to classify, as it promoted debate on topics important to the Nation.
Keating of course is a master of timing, and has waited to have the last say before Padraic's funeral. He rants:
In a long public life I have made it a rule never to speak ill of the dead; to not criticise someone who can no longer respond to the criticism.I am going to break that rule in the case of Paddy McGuinness.
I do so for this reason: in the last two decades of his life, McGuinness heaped more vitriol and contumely on me than anyone in public life."Working on the notion that 'the dogs may bark but the caravan moves on', I rarely responded to his unreasonable and unceasing tirades.
So, in that piggy bank of reasonableness, I have a massive store of credits that, in all fairness, I am in a moral position to draw on."
Paul, how childish. Just because you can't defame the dead, doesn't mean you should. You have had the chance to resolve your differences with him for the last two decades of his life, and you've never complained or expressed concern about Padraic's actions in the public domain. Could it be that the complaints you make are unreasonable, and that bravado exterior is concealing a cowardly runt? You've just admitted that your own moral are lacking, by confessing you made an exception in his case.
It's ironic he should talk about banking and pigs. Does he not forget how his personal bank account was allegedly credited from a Darling Downs piggery?
Vale Padraic.
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