PM Transcripts

TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER THE HON PJ KEATING MP
DOORSTOP ST BRIGID'S CATHOUC CHURCH MARRICKVILLE
WEDNESDAY, 9 AUGUST 1995
PJK: You want me to say something about Fred well he was a great Labor
figure. His special place for all of us was that he was the link to the forties
governments. He was the link to the Curtin and Chifley years. He was only
thirty when he joined the Curtin Govemment and he had that relationship
with Curtin as the youngest member of the Caucus. And he developed, I
think, a very special relationship with Chifley. As a young man he was a great
devoted follower of Chifley's. So he saw that period of Labor Government
ard he knew what a Labor Government was over an extended time and he
had that continuity, Of course then through most of his life he was in
Opposition and he came to government in 1972 with Gough Whitlam and
had three years of It. He retired In 1975 after thirty years. So his Ministerial
lifa was for three years only but his political life was over thirty. For us he
was the link to the Curtin and Chifley years. He was very much a Labor
traditionalist. He made light of the fact that he was in Opposition for most of
his life and picked up the anecdotes that he told others, but he was a
sedous Labor person with serious commitments to the community and he
was no humbug. And I think it is those values that we all cherished in him
and that we'll all miss.
J: You sat at the Cabinet table with him. What did you personally learn from
Fred Daly?
PJK: There was a fair amount of forgiveness in Fred I think. The split In the
ffltles of course was the dreadful agony they all lived through. But the joy of
coming to office in ' 72 saw all of that peel away from him and he took the
best of his life the best things of his life and celebrated them. I think
that's the lesson that we can take.
J: Can I just ask you one other question, there was a French newspaper
t dking about ethnic cleansing in Australia. Do you have a response to that?
PJK Well only that it holds the values of Australians in contempt. We gave up
our colonialism in the 1970' s, the French are still hanging on to their
olonialism in the Pacific. Maybe the French should have a good look at
themselves.
ENDS 7