27-08-2014 04:17 PM - edited 27-08-2014 04:22 PM
PAUL Keating today revealed the delicate etiquette involved in a Treasurer conducting business with a naked Prime Minister.
And for the first time he gave a public evaluation of what might have been called the honourable member involved.
The former Prime Minister was launching the diaries of Gareth Evans, “Inside the Hawke Keating Government” (MUP), an account of the years 1984-86.
Mr Keating used the book to talk about his own place in that period, and to continue his insistence it was him and not then Prime Minister Bob Hawke who kept the Government going.
There were his difficulties with Bob, not least talking to him when he was nude.
“I’d arrive at The Lodge at 10.30 and find Bob sunning himself by the pool,” Mr Keating told a launch audience at the Australian National University where Mr Evans is chancellor.
“He often used to do this nude.
“I did have a few things to say about midgets ... on the occasion, but this is not the occasion for elaborating”.
But that’s what he did, revealing a story which long had been in circulation to illustrate the Hawke/Keating divide, but which he had never before used in public.
“Gareth and I went out there in suits one day, sweating, and there’s Bob in the nude,” he recalled.
“I said, Don’t worry, midgets ...” and gave a hand gestures involving his thumb and index finger extended parallel and close together.
Riffling off the diary’s less strident recollections, Mr Keating argued Mr Hawke was ineffective as Prime Minister between 1984 and 1989, a five-year period in which he said he drove the government’s agenda.
And he was unsparing with his predecessor.
“Bob could cry for Aborigines but he wouldn’t do anything for them,” he said at one point.
Another target was for minister Graham Richardson, with whom he said he clashed over the issue of fixed mortgage rates.
“These people have to realise there is number one and a number two in this place. And Richardson was a number two,” he said.
But he praised Mr Evans’ book, saying there was “an immediacy and an authenticity about it”.
Mr Evans compared the rigorous cabinet meetings of these days with what he knew of meetings in the Abbott government executive.
He said the Prime Minister was first among equals, “but only just”.
“The concept of a captain’s pick or captain’s call, “ he said, referring to Prime Minister Tony Abbott, “just didn’t exist in those days.”
on 27-08-2014 05:17 PM
27-08-2014 05:23 PM - edited 27-08-2014 05:25 PM
not sure............... maybe to have us have nightmares about seeing an old man in brief swimmers? or to make us recall the PM's swimmers??
Neither are welcome, wish there had been some warning.... or a spoiler box?
woops, I know!!!
It is blackmail! or is it a threat?
27-08-2014 05:28 PM - edited 27-08-2014 05:30 PM
@lurker172602 wrote:
What exactly is the point of this thread?
I dunno. Can't imagine anyone would be interested in old, 50+ yo, male, pollies sunning themselves in the nude or stutting around in budgie smugglers.
on 27-08-2014 05:29 PM
I think it's awful.
but I also think TA looks awful in his budgie smugglers too.
I hate seeing politicians dressed ( or should i sday undressed like that)
TA doesnt sit around NUDE either unlike a past Labor hero and PM
you know this Nero?? how??
on 27-08-2014 05:29 PM
All that picture proves is that Bob was a bigger boy then Tone
on 27-08-2014 05:30 PM
Freddie
on 27-08-2014 05:36 PM
on 27-08-2014 05:44 PM
Blerk!!
not a good look is it?? either of them
same colour budgie smugglers though Is TA trying to copy hawke do you think?
they do say that copying is the best form of flattery
on 27-08-2014 05:46 PM
on 27-08-2014 05:50 PM
But Freddie, it's c-o-l-d-e-r for Tony.
It's not only his polls that are shrinking in this cooler climate in which he finds himself.
DEB