Paul Keating to me was one of the best PMs weve had..so why cant the genreal population agree with that and not cast aspersions on his economic credibiltiy.

If he was so inept why was he named as the' worlds greatest treasurer?' Thats some honour you know!..He was visionary and capable, not very popular with public, but i dont know why..he was very funny.!!!!!

What did Paul do wrong? and can you say something nice about Paul.?

I wish he was PM now.

Brilliant man

Absolute arsehole... that's why he isn't popular!

Quote:


So Paul Keating considers himself a dill then? 


To me... he seemed like a silly old fool... and like all labor leaders... an arrogant one at that.

He betrayed Bob Hawke and led Australia to an economic crisis. And yes, he wanted Australia to be part of Asia and change Australia's cultural climate.

There's nothing much I can really say I like about the guy.

ex-member DonaldTrump wrote on Mar 20^th, 2007 at 12:46am:

Australia was heading for economic crisis regardless, the idea that Keating had anything to do with it is a well debunked myth: it was a combination of an over-stretched economy (thanks to Fraser and Whitlam policies of controlling interest rates) and global recession. Hawke and Keating with bi-partisan support set us up for the long growth period we have enjoyed since the beginning of Keatings leadership. Yes growth has been more or less ongoing for over 15 years now, not the 11 years of Howard.

But don't take my word for it, take the word of the former governor of the reserve bank, the eminent conservative economist Ian Macfarlane (Costello appointee):

At the end of the 1980s expansion, the Australian economy was over-stretched on a number of ways. By the second half of 1989, GDP was rising by over 5% and domestic demand by 8%. The strongest components of spending were imports, which were rising by 29% and commercial construction, at 22%. At the same time, inflation was 7-1/2%. More importantly, the corporate sector was heavily geared, and yet its borrowing was still rising at 17% per annum, despite interest rates being at very high levels. Prices for all classes of property, commercial, industrial, retail and residential, had risen to exceptional heights. The country was therefore extremely vulnerable to any contractionary shock to the economy itself, or to confidence.

The shock duly came in the form of the international recession of the early 1990s. Again, as in 1974 and 1982, Australia participated. The early 1990s international recession came in two waves, with the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Finland and Sweden, going into recession in 1990, followed by the Continental European countries some time later. Given the over-stretched economic situation in Australia, and the international recession, our participation was inevitable.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/boyerlectures/stories/2006/1769927.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/boyerlectures/default.htm

If you are at all interested in an in depth analysis of Australias economic history, listen to those lectures. This is not lefty trash this is one of the most eminent economists in this country (favored by the right if anything) talking history without the political spin.

Keating was an architect of the independence of the reserve bank and the floating of the Australian dollar. Keating recognised the importance of trade within our local region and so sought to strengthen our diplomatic ties, nothing more. And yet he set up an economic system that allowed us to weather the storm that was the Asian economic crisis. Had he actually done anything to 'make us part of Asia' we would have gone down during that particular recession, we did not. Isolationism leads to the death of any nation, look at North Korea, look what happened to the USSR, what was happening to China. It is senseless economic suicide to ignore our geographic neighbours.

Macfarlane makes some very strong points in that particular lecture about the fact that interest rates alone were not responsible for the 90s recession, demonstrating that under treasurer Howard, interest rates hit 21% with strong growth. The basis of his entire lecture series is that the historical approach to economics was for governments to create employment where there was a failing from the private sector, and to control interest rates. Seeing as interest rates are such a politically sensitive issue, governments failed to raise them when they needed to be raised and inflation grew out of control.

The current system, implemented by the Hawke/Keating government with bi-partisan support (important fact there!) is that of an independent reserve bank that is charged with using interest rates to control inflation, and it has been a very successful policy that has kept us firing on all cylinders ever since. Forget Howard and the Liberals, Labor was responsible for the necessary economic policies that have made our country strong in recent years! Howard has simply minimised government spending in an already favorable situation, not that he hasn't done a good job of course.

Keating is quite simply the man. 

Most politicians tend to overplay their power to influence the economy. Right?

freediver wrote on Mar 20^th, 2007 at 8:05pm:

Traditionally, they did have a lot more power. From a modern perspective its easy to simply say they don't have a great deal of power over the economy (while really they have quite a bit of influence as you yourself pointed out in our little debate earlier) because direct control of interest rates and unemployment levels has been removed from their hands. Historically this was not the case, listen to those lectures, very good stuff. Governments did control interest rates, something which has tremendous effect on the economy, evidenced by the fact that the reserve bank is charged with using this tool to keep our economy healthy. Governments caused a lot of damage through making political decisions on interest rates, Hawke and Keating changed all this. 

AN... Keating played an enormous role in creating our current economic situation. Would you rather that he had nothing to do with Australian politics in the 80s and 90s and we had not modernised the way we did?? Don't let your personal ethnic prejudices cloud your judgement, Keating played an important role in the history of Australian economics, trade with our neighbours is also vital to our survival as a nation: the thing you are so 'alistic' about. Would you rather we wallow in abject squalor because of our staunch opposition to international trade... a stance driven simply by the desire to distance ourselves from other cultures? Is it really worth sacrificing our way of life for this ideal??

freediver wrote on Mar 21^st, 2007 at 1:43pm:

But control over interest rates does, and this is what the Keating policy put a stop to, as does the very old method of controlling unemployment - that was to simply create more government jobs. Although I think they gave up on that one long before Keating came around.

freediver wrote on Mar 21^st, 2007 at 3:01pm:

I often wonder about this, it certainly is part of Labors argument right now. I would say that most likely the government has enough influence for them to need to be responsible about economic policy, that is I wouldn't go so far as to say they have zero influence on the economy. When you think how much importance is on industrial relations and wages then government policy has the potential to effect this stuff. Tax is also influential I guess. For instance, how much has the first home owners grant effected the housing industry? Some say it is just absorbed by state taxes but I think it has had a meaningful impact, housing has been a fairly big player in inflation recently so I guess thats some influence (in the wrong direction of course!). I think government policy probably has an effect, but an indirect one that is not likely to  be immediately recognised? I think global conditions are probably far more influential in reality though, especially for us when we earn most of our income from minerals exports.

You're supposed to be the one that is strong on these topic freediver, so don't expect a good analysis from me