Do we like Paul Keating?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Nothing harmful in his own words turned up, and there is a real record on Indigenous recognition and gay and lesbian service, with contested positions on defence and the Israel-Hamas letter.
Keating is the Labor prime minister of the early 1990s, and the speech he is best remembered for is Redfern Park on 10 December 1992, six months after the High Court's Mabo decision. He told the crowd “It was we who did the dispossessing”, and named the taking of children from their mothers. That was a prime minister saying out loud what governments had avoided saying, and Indigenous leaders still cite it as a call for action on equality.
On gay and lesbian Australians the record is real but patchy. The Star Observer's 2008 review says his government let gay and lesbian people serve in the defence force and recognised same-sex couples in immigration. It also says the government did not recognise them for super or tax, dropped some anti-homophobia programs, and left a Tasmanian law fight to the High Court. Nothing turned up on trans people, and nothing from him that is hostile to anyone in that community.
On AUKUS he has been the loudest Labor voice against his own side. In 2024 he told the ABC's 7.30 that the deal was about “the military control of Australia” and could make Australia the “51st state of the United States”. Deputy PM Richard Marles called that “not a fair characterisation” but defended his right to say it. That is a hard-nosed foreign policy argument, and plenty of people who share our values land on each side of it.
In 2023 he was the only living former PM who did not sign a joint statement on the Hamas-Israel conflict. He said he felt “seriously verballed” by reports he would sign, thought the draft too sharp even after it was softened, and said “I can do better than groupthink.” He also said he had avoided joint statements from former leaders for 27 years. Some will read that as principle, others as a missed chance to stand with the group; we can't read his mind.
The gaps are worth admitting. We found no court cases or fines against him, no sourced misconduct allegations, and nothing from him demeaning women, migrants or any minority. Criticism of his handling of Indonesia and East Timor came up, but mostly from partisan outlets, so we've left it out. TheyVoteForYou doesn't cover his years in parliament, so the voting record below is thin.