An interesting twilight years (post prime ministerial) interview of Paul Keating by Kerry O'Brien at last year's Sydney Writers Festival - Sunday October 30, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAOPX5A6GXY
(75 minutes)
Though I found I disagreed with Paul Keating's comments on his government's reason for 'Mandatory Detention' (1992) of our Asylum Seekers as introduced by Gerry Hand I found the interview revealing on many issues including his synoptic views on power within government and the rise to it, his comments on his view that it is a prime minister's role to protect a nation from prejudice, his views on the Tampa deceit, his comments surrounding 'what is good, what is right', his criticisms of the contemporary Australian Labor Party, the apparatchik and apparatus of modern Australian political machinery, the demise of the Australian political narrative and its debate, the mishandling of the increasing news cycle and news coverage by politicians, his views on wage rises and the disbursement of capital through wage accords and the comparison of wage accords between Australia and USA, his criticisms of American political structures, the failure of the international scene to invite Russia into a coalescing of humanity at the inter-governmental level following the surprising removal of the Iron Curtain circa 1989, his views on Australia's place geopolitically, and his revealing commentary on the environment and environmental heritage and his role on securing a moratorium in protecting Antarctica and taking on the USA to do so... and more.
I'm no fan of anyone however it is interesting and educative for our own form and content to learn from what others have to say, when they are prepared to do so in depth, about what they have done, gone about and how and why.