Anthony Albanese embracing Paul Keating during last year’s election campaign.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Another journalist from this masthead,Matthew Knott,got the full Keating treatment when he wondered whether Keating would be prepared to use his skill at skewering journalists and his own party against China over its treatment of Uighurs or pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong.
“I’m surprised you even have the gall to stand up in public and ask such a question,frankly. You ought to do the right thing and drum yourself out of Australian journalism,” declaimed Keating,seething over Knott’s part in a recent series on the potential for war with China.
The language would seem almost tame to those who have been on the receiving end,over the years,of a truly furious blast from the former prime minister. A private phone call from an angry PM Paul Keating could very nearly melt a telephone wire,and afterwards often became amusing fodder for dinner table conversation.
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But this was relentless and in the glare of national television cameras and viewers. No quarter,nor attempt at leavening the blast with humour,was offered.
Journalists might be fair game at the press club,obviously.
But a lot of Wednesday’s denunciation was aimed at those who now lead the party that Keating served for the best years of his life,and which made him one of the nation’s most consequential treasurers and,eventually,prime minister.