Labor's old 'cane toads' croak on the main political stage once again

Cartoon / Rod Emmerson

This is what has been missing from Australian politics for too long: the venom of former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating.

Keating was the man who put "scumbag" into the political lexicon, who described the Senate as "unrepresentative swill" and who castigated New Zealand for "living off the scrapings from Australia's plate".

He considered former conservative Prime Minister John Howard a "little dessicated coconut" and the "greatest job and investment destroyer since the bubonic plague", and former Liberal Treasurer Peter Costello as "all tip and no iceberg".

Now Keating's tongue is publicly lashing again, lacerating predecessor Bob Hawke for his version of their time in power as reported in a newly released biography by Hawke's wife, Blanche d'Alpuget.

Keating deposed Hawke in 1991 after eight years and nine months in office - the third-longest term behind Liberals Sir Robert Menzies and Howard. Keating lasted four years and two months.

Now, in a revival of rivalry that former Labor leader Bill Hayden told the Australian was "a bit like old men croaking like cane toads", Keating has attacked the biography he declined to be interviewed for.

In a letter to Hawke published in full in the Australian yesterday, he attacked his former boss for "treating me shamefully while attempting to diminish my motivations and larger schematic" in Hawke's own, earlier, autobiography.

Keating said that while he had not upbraided Hawke for that, the reports he had read of d'Alpuget's new book demanded a response. He attacked Hawke for "wilfully misrepresenting" his views on key policies, supported by quotes from economist Professor Ross Garnaut, "your rusted-on, if one-eyed, adviser at the time".

Keating's letter accused Hawke and d'Alpuget of downplaying depression suffered by Hawke during his time as Prime Minister, and of failing to make it clear that "your emotional and intellectual malaise lasted for years".

"The fact is, Bob, I was exceedingly kind to you for a very long time," it said. "I carried you through the whole 1984-87 Parliament, insisting you look like the Prime Minister even if your staff, the Manchu Court I called them, were otherwise prepared to leave you in your emotional hole. No other prime minister would have survived going missing for that time. But with my help, you were able to."

Keating said he declined to be interviewed for the book because d'Alpuget could not write about those years without dealing honestly and fully with Hawke's long years of depression and executive incapacity.

He said he was writing the letter to say now that enough was enough: "That yours and Blanche's rewriting of history is not only unreasonable and unfair, more than that, it is grasping. It is as if, Narcissus-like, you cannot find enough praise to heap upon yourself."

Keating said it was now obvious that Hawke and d'Alpuget's expressions of friendship towards him in the past few years had been completely insincere. He said he could promise that if he ever wrote a book it would tell the whole truth and record "how lucky you were to have me drive the Government during your down years, leaving you with the credit for much of the success".

Hawke has yet to respond publicly.