It’s a strange circumstance when it’s a former Prime Minister who needs to lead the news media to do its job - critically analyse the most significant change in Australia’s defence policy in decades and the expenditure of some $370b on new and used submarines. Before Paul Keating appeared at the National Press Club (he was in Sydney and the journalist victims of his wrath were largely in Canberra), the Australian news media was high fiving the Albanese government for bedding down Scott Morrison’s AUKUS deal.
The glow of an appearance in San Diego with the US President Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak didn’t last too long for Prime Minister Albanese. Paul Keating saw to that, with his scathing assessment of AUKUS as the worst deal in Australian history - one that showed aggression towards our biggest trading partner and was dumping Australia back into the belly of its colonial past, with a reliance on UK technology.
As political reporter after political reporter bowled up to the microphone to question the former PM about his assessment of AUKUS and his very unflattering scorecard on the foreign minister and the defence minister, Paul Keating bowled them down as though he were in a bowling alley and the journalists were the pinballs.
As the ABC’s chief political reporter Laura Tingle, who chaired the Press Club appearance, says Mr Keating’s attacks on individual journalists might come as a surprise for some of the younger members of the Canberra gallery, but not those who’ve been around for a few decades. And his invective might have been offensive, but he has managed to do what journalists had failed to do – critically discuss AUKUS.
Watch the full interview here.
Monica Attard
CMT Co-Director