PM Transcripts

11/ 02 ' 94 18: 30 The Talk Show 35: 30: 14 MARY KOSTAKIDIS Hello, I'm Mary Kostakidis, welcome to the very first talk show. Tonight, we're chatting to Prime Minister Paul Keating, who's just had a birthday arnd accepted our invitation to share his reflections on turning 50. Prime Minister, thank you for joining Me. The man on my left knows something about turning 50 and more than a little about Prime Ministers. Phillip Adams, welcome. PHILLIP ADAMS The PeterPan of Australian politics, the big 5-0. Intimations of mortality? PA UL KEATING When one is young, particularly in public life you see, I was in the House of Representatives when I was 25, just on 25 years -ago. And one's looking at a big open opportunity, blue skies it'Is called. it'Is all upside and you tend to keep doing that and you think this is the natural order of things, and yet you never quite you never seem to age much. And then all of a sudden your're 40 but you're still not bad, you're still plugging away but then all of a sudden things change. When I f irst went to Canberra with Lionel Bowen in 1969, he said to me he and I shared this little box of a room and I was 25 and he was 48 and he said, " I'll tell you this, champ," he said, " When you get to my age you end up concentrating more on the end of your life than the beginning of it." And I think that's probably right, when you're young it's all all the future is there and it gives you that tremendous energy and you do have that Peter Pan quality too, you know, but I think later you can't delude yourself. By the time you'Ire 50 the great bulk of it is behind you unless you're going to do the ton, and not many of us do that. PHILLIP ADAMS Are you talking about personal mortality or political mortality? PAUL KEATING Personal mortality. I mean, political mortality, in a sense doesn't matter. It's just... MARY KOSTAKIDIS Doesn't it? PAUL KEATING It does and it doesn't. I don't think it does. 1e1 / 2 9 026 3u0 38 59 SRSTELEVISION 11/ UZ ' V4 1U: JU% Q'Dl UZ 440 ñ U 37: 39: 18 PHILLIP ADAMS So you don't fear either death? Personal or political? PAUL KEATING Personal, I probably do. No, I don'It f ear death, no, I don'It think. I think probably probably this is true of my generation, the post-war baby boom crowd, who were a sort of generation of Peter Pans, who will resist ageing as no generation before them I think. But I suppose there's the another friend of mine said to me recently, he said, " You know the thing about growing old?" I said, " No, what?" He said, " There's not a good thing about it." I think that's probably right, so it's only the it's not really fear of dying I don't think, that worries me, and political death, I mean, I just couldn't that I just regard as part of the thrills and spills of life. MARY KOSTAKIDIS It's interesting that you say that because becoming Prime Minister-was very important to you. Do you -feel Comfo-tabI16 being Pyrime Minister? PAUL KEATING No one, I don't think, is entirely comfortable with it. Megalomaniacs are. We've had a couple of megalos over the time but anyone who's got normal levels of sensitivity can never be comfortable with what is required. It is, in a sense, the one has to not just govern a government, run a government but, at the same time it's the semi -embodiment of what people think the country's about. It'Is very hard to f it all that into one personality. PHILLIP ADAMS You've used the term megalo, and I know you're familiar with the Tony Benn analysis of politics, or politicians, which transcends country, ideology, fation and he says there are three, only three types. There are straight men, fixers and crazies. Straight men Nick Greiner. Fixers Neville Wran, Hawkie. Crazies Margaret Thatcher. You use the term megalo as a pejorative but you like the crazies, don't you? PAUL KEATING Yes, I think that in his pecking order the crazies were the one where he handed out the compliments, you see. Everyone has a role, I think he said, but when you think about those categories they're pretty right. And he had Churchill in the crazies. He was a principal crazy of his lifetime and of Benn's lifetime. Because I think the crazies do charge in and get things done. ODOñ. uu i~ 4iu:~ TWUU1 11/ 02 ' 94 18: 31 Ia81 02 438 1590 ig~ yUJUJV. IiI 40: 08: 14 PHILLIP ADAMS You weren't at all offended when I suggested that you were in that category. PAUL KEATING Oh no, I thought it was a I took it as a high compliment. MARY KOSTARIDIS So it's the crazies then who achieve greatness. PAUL KEATING It's not greatness, it's to go where others fear to tread. You know, to go and do things and I if you look at my life I've always been drawn to those sort of people. The first person I was, I suppose, really interested in public life was Churchill. For all of those characteristics. I used to think, when I -was a kid, if that's the business he's in, that's the business I should be in. The other one was Roosevelt, who again, used to tread all over the gentry at Hyde Park and insist that there were other notions of fairness and equity and a greater glory for America. People like that. In Australia, Jack Lang, who I was friendly with, just because he was a big doer, he'd get in there and push his way around and get it done. PHILLIP ADAMS. But his grasp wasn't as long as his reach, was it, so you acknowledge that greatness can, in fact, be an aspiration rather than an achievement. PAUL KEATING Oh, yes, I think it'Is a very dif ficult thing to quantify in these people but if you look at them there was just a little thing I saw a f ilm. clip of Churchill in Europe after the war, in I) Amsterdam, and it had a banner across the street, " Welcome Mr Churchill, Saviour of Europe." But it was true. He was. Now, technically, it was Dwight Eisenhower and the American armed forces, but really, the person who stuck it out, who Identified Hitler as a criminal, when it was unpopular to do so, and all the 0rest of it, and I don't think those things can be said of people without they really make the big gestures. And take all the risks. Now, look at his risks, after his problems in Turkey in the First World War... PHILLIP ADAMS The Dardanelles embarrassment. PAUL KEATING The Dardanelles campaign, all these other things, yet it didn't hold him down and it was the same with Roosevelt and his time, and the same with people we know here, with the likes of John 11/ 02 ' 94 18: 32 Curtin and Lang and people like that. 42: 44: 12 PHILLIP ADAMS But you've been a bit misanthropic about the quality of leadership in this country, historically. The famous leaked speech, and I put it to you a couple of weeks ago, that I'Ive noticed over the years that you're pretty good at denigration but I've never known you, apart from references to Churchill and Lincoln and Roosevelt, to be that generous about people. Who do you unequivocally admire? PAUL KEATING I am a star lover. I love stars. You often get asked, who'Is your favourite sports person. That's the easiest question in the world for me to answer. It was Mohammed Ali, by a mile, not a yard but a mile, or a metre but a mile. I like people who are good at what they do. They may not necessarily have position, so there ' s a lot of people I like, there ' s a lot of people I like, but they are mostly people that your audience wouldn ' t know, you know what I mean? That's not to say I don't like a-rot of prominent people, I do, like I admire people, people who I think... PHILLIP ADAMS I know you like Tom Jones, which many people f ind a bit of a laugh but you like him because he's a stayer, don't you, 300 concerts a year. PAUL KEATING That's right. It's one of the great voices in the world. And you say to him he said to me, " I've been playing Las Vegas and Reno and Lake Tahoe every year since 1962." PHILLIP ADAMS A bit like question time. PAUL KEATING And you say, Is that right? How many nights a year do you sing?" Because he sings for two-and-a-half hours and it's with such force. And he said, " I average 240." You know, who does that? People talk about Al Jolson, and all these great stars, but is there anyone doing that anywhere? And, of course, there's that big throaty basso sound rolls out of him, all these years later, and you've got to say, this character is a massively unusual joker. So I turn up to the concerts and I, you know, I patronise him whenever he turns up. Not because I like the songs. In fact, last time he sang all the songs he sang a lot of black gospel songs last time. One impressed me, called Thank Ye Lord. Now he is expected to hop into some hot bubble number which he'd 11/ 022 9641 1 80322 438 1590 LBS TELEVISION IU 0004 11/ 02 ' 94 18: 32 V51 02 438 1590 5B5 iIZEi1IUN normally do, but he sang this thing which was so moving. 45: 15: 04 PHILLIP ADAMS Hey, Mary, isn't it great that he's raised the Lord because we want to talk to him about the Lord, don't we? . PAUL KEATING Let me answer this, Phillip. There's lots of people I like, you know. I mean, I like you two, that's why I'm here basically. I do things for people I like and I like to be with people I like and I and I don ' t patronise people I don't like because I can'It be two-faced about them. So, there's a lot of people I like. MARY KOSTAKIDIS Let's talk about the Lord, do you ever turn to her? PAUL KEATING To her? PHILLIP ADAMS I think that'Is the wrong member of the trinity, actually. You'Ire a Roman Catholic, are you a seriousRoman Catholic or are you a Jack Kennedy Roman Catholid&?-PAUL KEATING Oh, no, I'm a more serious one than Jack oh, I don't know, who can say, I don't want to diminish his beliefs either. I think that where does humanitarianism leave of f and where does religious charity take up, religious commitments. The one thing I think that I picked up as a kid in a Catholic school was the Church would never have a bar of racism out. Absolutely out. We all arrived equally, we're all children of Christ, that's their view. And that's always been part of my belief, that everyone has an innate dignity, every person, so you can't say my life's more important than yours because I'm the Prime Minister, I'm a better person because that's not true. There's a lot of tremendously good people doing very ordinary things and it's immaterial whether they're doing ordinary or important things. Now, that's the point. I really do think that life is a great leveller. And that we arrive equally. I mean, when you're born, even if it's into a great household with the cutlery... PHILLIP ADAMS Not the silver spoon... PAUL KEATING The silver cutlery in your mouth, or the cutlery service in your mouth. You're not aware of it as you're born and you're certainly not aware of it as you die. So, I think these people 11/ 02 ' 94 16:. 33 eei, 02 438J1 520 SA viil_ 006 who parade themselves, who look f or the adulation of other people, who regard it as important to be feted and to be basically admired, well, we like to be liked, but needing that is something that I don't think a balanced person needs. 47: 54: 00 NARY KOSTJIKIDIS What about love? You went down to the Mahler concert in Melbourne the other day and you said great works of art are inspired by love. What do you mean by love? PAUL KEATING I was quoting Mahler about his wife, Alma, who he was saying it was the dediddtion on the cover sheet of his great chorale work, the 8th Symphony, and he was saying, I dedicate it to you, and my love for you is the inspiration of it, what a pity you can't return it. She was then having an affair with somebody else. It had that sort of melancholy to it, but there'Is no doubt that these, that the two things though a Jew, he became a Catholic, Mahler, the notions of Christianity and the meaning of life and love were the things that inspired the music and, of course, it came with such force, with such an absolute outpouring of this massive symphonies, choral symphonies, not all choral but massive symphonies. I think that you've got to have that feeling to do anything like that. Anything that borders on the epic. PHILLIP ADAMS Politics is epic. Does love have a place in politics? PAUL KEATING I think so. I think it does in the work. I think that unless, if you're not really warmly warm-spirited and warmly tied up with the community, say in my case, warm towards the community about what it is... PHILLIP ADAMS Do people perceive that you have a warm relationship with them? PAUL KEATING I don't know but without that inner feeling, you can't do the work. What's the point of running, I mean, what are you running for all the time. It's certainly not to make page one lead on the Sydney Morning Herald or The Age, I mean, once we've all been through that particular barrier, we all like to forget it, not to be reminded about it so why are you doing it? MARY KOSTAKIDIS Why are you doing it? Because you cop an awful lot of abuse. Don't you? On the other hand, people say that you dish a lot of it out, as well. 11/ UZ ' V4 15: 43 50: 19: 03 PAUL KEATING But I dish it out in the professional running of the job. The me of the parliamentary chamber and the me of this kind of conversation, or me of the doorstop interview, or me of the cabinet room discussion or me of at home, is a completely different me. I do what I do in there because it's the cockpit of Australian politics, it's the clearing-house of Australian political pressures, it's where the ideas are contested... PHILLIP ADAMS. True. PAUL KEATING So you get in there and you argue for your idea but... PHILLIP ADAMS You're subjected to the CATSCAN of media every day of your life. PAUL KEATING Yes. PHILLIP ADAMS You are analysed, dissected arnd you feel misrepresented. You feel very often that the real you, whichever one that is, isn't getting through. Here's your big chance. Tell us something we don't know about you. Tell us something we should know about you. PAUL KEATING I think I am the stereotype would have me as arrogant, in some respects. The antithesis is true. I mean, the antithesis is true. I don't think I'm any special person on the pavement. I mean, I'Im there. I' 11l f ight someone else f or the job or a policy thing but I don'It go around saying here I am, here I am. I'Im not into that sort of stuff. So basically, I think I'm humble in a genuine sense humble. I'm not self-deprecating to the point of deprecation, where I'm ineffective but I think I'm humble. The other thing is that I'm always motivated by good works and deeds and other people'Is good works and deeds. I meanI I get very turned on by someone who does something well. It might be in an institution, it could be just in life or people who do things well. Or do things for other people, kind and charitable things. Or just do what their profession is well, or whatever it might be. I get great warmth towards them. MARY KOSTAKIDIS Okay, this is how you see yourself, Phillip, is that how you see Paul? % 7831 U243T = Z9 Aj-J L V13UI1 11/ 02 ' 94 18: 34 #& 61 02 438 1590 SILSTLYISIUN 1 UUO 52: 55: 00 PHILLIP ADAMS There's also a very funny Keating who tells a great story but there's also a very angry one and one of my f irst impressions of Paul was him throwing a wobbly during the tax summit at Yarralumla and it was a gold medal wobbly. I mean, this was a fantastic performance, and I often wonder where the anger comes from. It'Is not j ust you, it'Is your faction. The New South Wales right, which you correctly say is the most effective faction in political history in Australia and probably the world, I think you said once, are such good haters. PAUL KEATING It's now 50 years old. PHILLIP ADAMS Where does the anger come from whence? PAUL KEATING It's indignation. I think if it I don't think it's anger so much as indignation. Because, you see, the New South Wales Labor Party, the right of the New South Wales Labor Pafty-id-Ehe -centre of the it's the point of equilibrium of Australian politics. It's not really over to t -he right of the Liberal Party, . and f-t's not over the left. The centre point is basically where we are. But the Labor Party in the fifties and sixties was attempted to be hijacked by people who saw it running command economies and policies of the left, which we always knew would deny us government and deny the public of Australia the things it ought to have, like it'Is had from this government. That is, the notion of a social democracy, which we've given Australia in the last ten years. PHI LLIP ADAMS No policy speech. PAUL KEATING I'm just saying, okay. Therefore, to be maligned, say, as a Tammany Hall group down at Sussex Street, makes one very indignant and somewhat angry. PHILLIP ADAMS So it's righteous indignation rather than anger. PAUL KEATING It's righteous. PHILLIP ADAMS This comes back to the Catholicism. 54: 45: 24 PAUL KEATING It'Is righteous indignation because, you see, the motivations are all very high-grade motivations, I think, and therefore they're not all, no one can say all the time they're high-grade but the general motivations are a very high grade, as a group, and therefore, being rebuked or put down or worse, mocked for something is, one gets very, very peeved about. The other thing is, I get very indignant about the rights of other people. I mean, what's made me run in social policy, you sea, what makes me indignant about the Liberals, is that they are straighteners, they di' t sed-the good-i-n-pople. There' s not enlargement, they're straighteners and punishers, they always want to straighten someone up. What's wrong? People are paid too much, knock their wages of f. They really, we can fix the place up by punishing them with a set of arrangements whether in health or tax, or whatever it might be. There's no bigness and generosity in them. PHILLIP ADAMS Let's talk about bigness, for a second. It seems to me that your predecessor was very much poll-driven. If there wasn't a good support happening in the polls, he wouldn't shift. In fact, I remember having a discussion with him at SBS, saying why didn't you look at the nonsense of drug policy, for instance, one of the calamities of the century, which doesn ' t work, you can'It do that, the public aren't ready. Now I would have thought greatness in politics, or even potential greatness, means you don't wait for that. How will you know if you're a great prime minister, how will you know when that happens? PAUL KEATING I'm not here to be a great prime minister. I mean, I'm here to get the policy changes through, to make the place a kind of social democracy I think it ought to be, to give it a real place if the-zld7fc,_ new basis to our wealth, a new basis to employment, a nice social policy wrapped around it, a place which is complete, inclusive, kind, and gentle. A nice place. PHILLIP ADAMS it's a big ask, isn't it? PAUL KEATING No, but we're getting there. PHILLIP ADAMS It's a big ambit claim. PAUL KEATING But we're a long way down the road, aren't we? We are a long, long, long way down that road. Now, that's what I'm about and when I go, someone will write an assessment of me and other Nuut 11/ 02 ' 94 18: 35 people but in the end, once you'Ive been on the stage and you go, so what? I mean, all these characters are out there, I mean, everyone's written a book. I don't know whether Malcolm Fraser has written a book, Gough wrote a book, Bob's now writing a book, Menzies wrote a book... 57: 13: 00 PHILLIP ADAMS Crook book. PAUL KEATING These books, they all end up being self-serving, and they're invariably not worth writing, I think. But the point is, it's not to say that they don't have truths to them or they're not of value from an historical perspective but, in a sense, why bother? If you're any good, someone else will write a book about you. But even if they don't like you, so what? It's all about one's inner satisfaction. You've got to say to yourself, did I do as well as I could do while I was there? Did I make every post a winner? PHILLIP ADAMS That's a good answer. PAUL KEATING Did I make every post a winner? MARY KOSTAXIDIS How long do you see yourself being there? PAUL KEATING Not an inordinate length of time. Not an inordinate length of time. I don't... PHILLIP ADAMS Peter Pan's looking a bit frayed around the edges now. PAUL KEATING That's right. You see, the Labor Party is in an unusual historical, in historical terms, in an unusual position. We're now in office for 11 years going to 13. Now, in the next election it will be 13 going to 16. The days when the lif e-cycle of a government was the life-cycle of one leader is, I think, for the country, over and for the Labor Party it ought to be over too. This is one of the points I used to make to Bob, and the point I used to make to others. Part of it's ego, oh, look, they couldn't-do without me. You know, up we came and down we went and that was it. You can see it with Menzies. The life-cycle of the Menzies government was really Menzies, because everyone who followed him after it Holt, McMahon, Gorton the government just disintegrated and finally expired. It only 11& 8 1' 4 10623 4318 1506-_ jiAMZT~ jL15iSID ULU 11/ 02 ' 94 16: 36 1& 6i 02 438 1590SBTEVSINiuñ really had life-force with him. The trick is to have a life-force in it with constant changes. In the leadership, in the ministries, in the personnel, to get that rejuvenation in office. And the way to kill off the rejuvenation is to sit in a pool of Araldite, stuck to the seat. 59: 07: 00 PHILLIP ADAMS Okay, when it'Is over, you'Ive then got to f ill in the rest of your life. Fifty is not that old these days. PAUL KEATING I'm not quite going at 50 either. I've got a few years yet. PHILLIP ADAMS* But you know there's nothing sadder than an ex-national leader. Generally, we don't know what to do with them, do we? PAUL KEATING They are a reasonably I wouldn't say yes, they are a reasonably sad lot, I suppose. PHILLIP ADAMS Tragic, most of them. What are you going to do for the next years? PAUL KEATING I don't want to be one of them. If the Commonwealth can leave me off the invitation lists and forget about me. PHILLIP ADAMS We'll fix it up with the protocol office, it's easy. PAUL KEATING I would be delighted, you see. So one can just fade away to being a person who is allowed to do normal things again. That's what I'd like to do, and all the things I like. I love I've got my wife and family, which are my principal interest in life, and all the other things I like. I like music, I like supporting people in music, I like supporting people in the arts, I like architecture, decoration, all the things I'm into. You know all the things I'm into, you're into them yourself. And you can go about people say what are you going to do after public life? And I say, because they expect you to line up : for thisfcharity or that charity, and I say, well what I'm going to do is indulge my senses, that' s what I'm going to do. They say what do you mean by that and I say, exactly what I've said. That's what I'm going to do. 11/ 12 1i6: 3b -U1~ UZ 445 IZUU Q~ ñ ZLXVLaUvi1 00: 26: 06 PHILLIP ADAMS It sounds a bit voluptuous, doesn't it? PAUL KEATING It is, but basically, I've been run by my eyes and ears, and I'm going to let my eyes and my ears run me when I got out of here. When I slip the noose on the game, to put it in western suburbs parlance, I will then be run by my eyes and my ears. MARY ROSTARIDIS When do you hope that that will be? PAUL KEATING It'll be, there'll be some natural point. There's a naturalness about public life, there's a natural order to things, it's very hard to beat it, very hard to beet it. PHILLIP ADAMS You mean you'Ire not going to cling to the cabinet table with f ingernails in the varnish. We won'It have to drag you out of the Lodge. PAUL KEATING No, there'Ill never have to be group come round and say, we think you have to before they come I'll be long gone. MARY KOSTAXIDIS You talked about the importance of f amily and Anita, a moment ago, you pursued her for a ~ bil fyears, what was it that attracted you to her? PAUL KEATING Just the sense of the likeness of the personalities, I think, not that we are exactly, no two people are exactly alike, but the commonality of interests and personality and that indefinable thing, that you know when you'Ive met the person you want to marry. You know, I always say to my younger friends, on my staff, look, never roll into a marriage. You know, you've lived with somebody, and you think oh, god, I'd better get married. I say, if that's what you think, forget it, unless you get that big hit in the chest, the big thud, don't bother. MARY KOSTAKIDIS How did you convince a woman who's cosmopolitan and a jet-setter to give it all away... PHILLIP ADAMS And shack up with a bloke from the western suburbs. 4w AS 11/ 02 ' 94 16: 37 02: 13: 00 MARY KOSTAXIDIS Downtown Hankstown Australia. PAUL KEATING She was living in Rome, so it was a big shift from Rome to Bankstown, it was quite a cultural change. PHILLIP ADAMS Well, at least you were Catholic, it wasnl't that far of a shift from Rome. PAUL KEATING Oh no, that was a great sacrifice on her part and I hope I could only recompense that by giving her a happy life, and we've got four children which we're both very happy with and proud of and one of the things that pleases me now is that in this position Anita's got much more freedom to do things herself. And to indulge some of her ' own interests, which she really wasn't able to do while I was Treasurer. When I was Treasurer, we spent nine years in three rented houses in Canberra, and she looked after a young family alone, basically alone. MARY KOSTAKIDIS When you became Treasurer, you moved your family down to Canberra, and there was a lot of you copped a lot of f lack over that, didn't you? PAUL KEATING Yes, but it was worth it. It was worth it. My last daughter was born there, my second youngest was one when we went there and Patrick my son was seven. So I had three children, seven, three and one and that was the right time to go there. PHILLIP ADAMS It's the International Year of the Family, which is having a big run at the moment, and around the world, conservative parties have appropriated the notion of the family, along with the flag, now Clinton is making a grab for both. You've got pretty good credentials in the family area, but the Labor Party has almost been embarrassed by the word in recent years. PAUL KEATING I don't think so, Phillip, I don't think that's right actually. If you look at the a lot of the income support and the things we've done have been about supporting families, children in families, the family allowance supplement which is probably one of the best income support systems in the world, has been about supporting families, even the child support agency which an outfit for chasing maintenance dodgers. 11/ 4Z1 160: 72 433 IDBU ZU L= VloluiN tww UU . L.) 11/ 02 ' 94 16: 37 04: 24: 07 PHILLIP ADAMS I can see that, but you know there's been an intellectual embarrassment with the notion of the nuclear family for instance and the notion of families being redefined, constantly, the goal posts are being shifted, as society changes. PAUL KEATING Earlier on, the Labor Party was in that debate, you know, the nuclear family is no longer just the family and there's the one, there's the sole parent family and all of that. That's all past, I think. My view is the family is the basic unit of society, it's where the love is, it's where the nurturing is, it's where the binding is, and whether it's a sole parent or it's a nuclear family, or a two-income family is beside the point. It is beside the point. And the other thing, I think, in families, we've got to get to the stage where parents continue to care about their kids. I think, probably, in the last 20 years, we ' ye got to the stage where there's less caring by parents for the kids. That's not to say they don't dress them or feed them, I don't mean that kind of caring, but the values they have, the principles they have, the things they see, the things they are permitted to go to, the functions, the venues, the associations, I mean there's a lot of flick the kids off and let them do their own thing. PHILLIP ADAMS That's one of the reasons you intervened in the issue of television violence, isn't it? That didn ' t come out of an upsurge ~ fp-arW -attitudes or party policy, you just did that. You and the Pope. PAUL KEATING I think it's a terrible affront to children or families, a family with their kids, to turn on the television and be hit by a stack of violence, which you don't see in your normal life. I mean, I'Ive never seen anybody shot in the street in my life. You probably haven't Phillip and I doubt if Mary has. Yet you see it all the time on television. There's this sort of, if you like, dulling of the sensitivities about human values which I think is being Imparted to us from this culture of violence which has come out of movies and television. If someone in my position doesn't say we've had enough of this and we're not having any more of it, at these hours anyway, then who does? Are we going to wait for a welling up? We'Ire seeing some of that in the United States now, the violent pictures are not making the money, and now the producers are starting to go back to the sof ter stories. Maybe there is a natural cycle in all these things. But, at any rate, I took the view then that if adults want to watch the stuff, then okay, it's available a bit later but not during the hours when the kids are up. Now, that does spring from my view about children having the right to be young. Children having the right to be innocent. PHILLIP ADAMS Spike Milligan talks about us destroying the notion of childhood 11V/ 06 1'~ 94 0182: 438 1590 bb IP-zvñ ibUNiIiui4M Ui4 LU: Z5 WU1 115 gas 153 iWuN and he's pretty right, isn't he? 07: 16: 00 PAUL KEATING It's pretty right. I mean, we've kept our kids young. They are all young for their age. Some may say that'Is not much of an objective, but they've lived lives which have always at least reached out to the boundaries of what we've all known childhood to be. Now, as they grow up and get a bit smart, they might be a bit street smart later than their friends, but so what?, I mean, they'll end up, I think, more balanced and take with them, you see, I think you do take through life that which is invested in you in your family, all that nurturing and binding does stick with you, it gives you conf idence, so that when you'Ire up against the hard things in life later, it sticks to you. Now, I think that if they leave with that sort of sense of affection which is invested in them, the confidence, the binding, they leave more complete. It may be an old-fashioned view but it's certainly my view. PHILLIP ADAMS It's coming back into fashion again. MARY KOSTAKIDIS One of the things I f ind surprising is that polls seem to say that you're not that popular with women voters and yet, I think the one thing that is important to women voters is integrity and as we're speaking of the family, I mean, unlike many of your contemporaries, you haven't done things like chuck in your job or trade in your wife for a new model. I mean, what's been the key to the rock-solid marriage? PAUL KEATING I think that's I mean, I don't want to overuse the word, but the word love, that's basically the key. I think that if one is not getting, emitting those images of affection and love, then I don't think you can... MARY KOSTPAKIDIS Are you an affectionate man? PAUL KEATING Oh, yes, I'Im a romantic, you can'It be a Mahierite and not be a romantic, I mean, I'm an absolute romantic. PHILLIP ADAMS Can I change the agenda a bit? You and I share a passion for nationalism, in its healthiest manifestations, short of jingoism and xenophobia, but I have a feeling that we're rather old fashioned in this, that the notion of nationalism isn't going to last much longer in the world, in a funny sort of way, because of the winds of globalism, the all-at-onceness of the global b0b MLLVIOLUA 14/ UZ UJ4 1654 * U'U1 UZ 4J8-J-9-u 5U iBLrl~. l~ Uineconomy, media and so on. But Australia, surely, has a chance to be a new sort of nation, a nation without pomposity, a very complicated nation in terms of its ethnic diversity. 09: 56: 00 PAUL KEATING That's right, and therefore strong. PHILLIP ADAMS But people can't see that, can they? They tend to think that a nation of complexity is fragile. PAUL KEATING I can't see how they can't see it. It's quite true, as you say, a lot of people can't see it but it's difficult to see how they can't. And I think it's also true, as you say, Phillip, there is an internationalism coming from the global village and the media and mobility, and the 747 and everything else, there is an internationalism. PHILLIP ADAMS And Gates' information highway... PAUL KEATING Superhighway and all the rest of it, there is an internationalism and be an internationalist by all means but be one from the strength of knowing what your own national position is, what your own national family means. Engage the world the world, again, from the strength of your own family. The problem we've had in this debate in Australia about these things is people have seen our family as being the family of a country it's not international... PHILLIP ADAMS The Windsor knot. PAUL KEATING The Windsor knot. It's not internationalism of the kind where one confidently goes out into the world but it's been a derivative, a derivative kind which has said that Australia has not the confidence to go and do things itself and it can't represent itself, it's not totally confident about its own management. MARY KOSTAKIDIS should we not be as worried about the American influence as we are about the Windsor knot? PAUL KEATING I think you've got to be very worried about the American stands... 11: 46: 00 PHILLIP ADAMS And energy. PAUL KEATING And energy. And it stands there, as it did in the GATT, and has a go. But that doesn't mean to say you throw your film industry over into the hands of Jack Valenti, or somebody like that. It doesn't mean to say that Australians are not entitled to their own cultural property, their own cultural diversity, therefore we said and the French said the same thing. So, I think you have to be worried about those areas. This place is not America and it's not going to be like America and I don't want it to be like America. This is a better place than America, a much better place than America. It's a fairer place, a more decent place and it doesn't have the extremes of wealth, it's more tolerant and it needs to be what it is, it needs to be Australia. That's the point Phillip makes continually, and the point I make as well, and you've made, Mary, and your service on the committee on the republic just gives evidence to that. In other words, we're all about the notion of the place having its own intrinsic value. PHILLIP ADAMS Even though that changes, it's fluid, isn't it. PAUL KEATING It's fluid but the strength is in the fluidity, the strength is in the it-may be plastic in the mobile sense but the plasticity gives it strength. PHILLIP ADAMS As opposed to the rigid, which snaps. PAUL KEATING Snaps, that's right. It's got malleability, it's malleable. MARY KOSTAKIDIS We're running out of time. Phillip, one more question? PHILLIP ADAMS I haven't got any more questions. MARY KOSTAKIDIS I'd like to turn it back to turning 50 now... PHILLIP ADAMS Happy birthday... L11UZ V4 16: 4U 13: 1g: 14 MARY KOSTAKIDIS and ask you of what life has dealt you and what you, perhaps have dealt to others, is there anything you regret? PAUL KEATING No, no, I think I'Ive been very lucky. I could never complain about the hand dealt to me and I've tried to give back as much as I'Ive got out of it, I mean, I think Australia today is, in the true sense of the word, a much more modern, modern in a contemporary sense, inclusive society, than it was ten years ago. It's much more confident in its position. Eighteen months ago, if you said look, we'Ire part of Asia, you'Id get a fight f rom many people here. You don't get it today. Just in eighteen months, that's changed. You know, or a couple of years, that's changed. PHILLIP ADAMS And Mabo was reasonably painless finally, wasn't it, despite all the noise and the sound and the fury. PHILLIP ADAMS That's right but Mabo, again, that's something that had to be done but I think-th atwhat I've had, I've had the opportunity of having a go at changing an economy and a society, and that's a very great opportunity to be given and I just hope at the end of it people think that I never missed an opportunity, that I never threw the fight anywhere. You mentioned the word integrity earlier. That goes very much to this, I think. That you don't throw the fights, in the cabinet room, in the nation, in the country, in the public debate, that you don't squib them. In other words, you see a problem and you go and try and get it resolved. Now, I have certainly done that in the ten years that I've been in ministerial office, and to have the opportunity of doing that I regard as a very great opportunity and to have it with, as I'Ive had, a good family and a happy life, what else could you ask? Neville Wran used to say to me, " I tell you, Champ," he said, " if you have a warm bed and three square meals a day, you're going pretty well." And that's pretty right. You see all these people who've got properties and everything else, but you can only sleep in one bed at a time and have one meal at a time, so if one's looking for the valuable things in life, rather than the material things, I think, then you can'It be ' too far wrong, and I hope I've looked for those things and it's made me very happy. MARY KOSTAKIDIS All right, thank you very much Prime Minister. 16: 28: 20 IL/ UZ UZ 4384 IbV 1hbibliguullab