#paulkeating

Our (former) politicians were quite literally puppets. Here’s Paul Keating in his Zegna double breasted suit! #armadaleantiquecentre #highstreet #armadale #hsarmadale #paulkeating #rubberyfigures #therecessionwehadtohave #zegna (at Armadale Antique Centre) https://www.instagram.com/p/CDTTwqUJtxf/?igshid=1uu8n883cejbg

Treasurer Paul Keating and PM Bob Hawke at a press conference, 1983

Paul Keating and Bob Hawke, in the Prime Minister's Office, on one of their last days in Old Parliament House in 1988. Image: Museum of Australian Democracy

Paul Keating's statement on the death of Bob Hawke

Well, I think that - I think leadership's always been about two main things: imagination and courage. —Paul Keating

This Australia day I think it is important to pause and reflect apon what it means to be an Australian and how good we have it here. It is also important to acknowledge that this is a day for many, that represents the end of their way of life. In the redfern adress Paul Keating said it best: “It begins, I think, with the act of recognition. Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the disasters. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine these things being done to us. With some noble exceptions, we failed to make the most basic human response and enter into their hearts and minds. We failed to ask – how would I feel if this were done to me?” Australia day is a great day but it is a day which marks the worst aspects of our past with the best hopes for our present and our future. It would be wrong that a page dedicated to Australian history didn't acknowledge Aboriginal Australians and the cultural destruction and generational decimation that was delt by the same Australia we are celebrating today. We are truly sorry. #Australiaday #IndigenousAustralia #redfrenadress #paulkeating #sorry