Paul Keating

Paul John Keating was born on 18 January 1944 at St Margaret’s Hospital in Darlinghurst, Sydney.

He grew up in Bankstown, a working-class suburb in western Sydney, and left school at 14. He joined the Australian Labor Party at the same age, serving a term as NSW president of Young Labor and working as a research assistant for a trade union.

During the 1960s, Keating also managed a rock band named The Ramrods.

He was elected to the Australian House of Representatives at 25, winning the division of Blaxland at the 1969 election.

Keating was briefly minister for Northern Australia from October to November 1975, in the final weeks of the Whitlam government. After the Dismissal removed Labor from power, he held senior portfolios in the Shadow Cabinets of Gough Whitlam and Bill Hayden.

During this time, Keating became known as the leader of the Labor Right faction and developed a reputation as a talented and fierce parliamentary performer famed for his sardonic rhetoric.

He served under Bob Hawke as treasurer (1983 – 1991) and Deputy Prime Minister (1990 – 1991), and the two men developed an extremely powerful partnership that proved essential to Labor’s success in government.

At the end of 1988, Keating – who had long believed that he would succeed Hawke as prime minister – began to pressure Hawke to retire in the new year.

Hawke rejected this advice but reached a secret agreement with Keating that he would remain as leader through to the 1990 election and that he would resign in Keating’s favour shortly after winning the election.

Hawke subsequently won the election and appointed Keating his deputy prime minister. Frustrated at Hawke’s lack of indication of when he might retire, Keating eventually resigned from the Cabinet in June 1991 and challenged for the leadership.

Hawke won the ballot by 66 votes to 44, but Keating challenged a second time in December, emerging victorious by 56 votes to 51. He became the 24th prime minister of Australia in the aftermath of an economic downturn, which he famously described as “the recession we had to have”.

In its second term, the Keating government enacted the landmark Native Title Act to enshrine Indigenous land rights, introduced compulsory superannuation and enterprise bargaining, created a national infrastructure development program, privatised Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank, and promoted republicanism by establishing the Republic Advisory Committee.

His government suffered a landslide defeat in 1996 to the Liberal–National Coalition, led by John Howard. Keating resigned as leader of the Labor Party and retired from Parliament shortly after the election, with his deputy Kim Beazley being elected unopposed to replace him.

Keating remained active as a political commentator while maintaining a broad range of business interests, including serving on the international board of the China Development Bank from 2005 to 2018.

Since leaving office, Keating has received broad praise from historians and commentators for his role in modernising the Australian economy as treasurer, although ratings of his premiership have been mixed.