Paul Keating's unfinished argument for an independent Australia
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What was Paul Keating’s vision for an independent Australia in the Asian region?
I'm Daniel James, and you're listening to 7am. Paul Keating has been out of office for 30 years. But he's never really left the national conversation. Heating wanted Australia to find its security in Asia, not from it, and to stop defining itself through bigger powers in the Anglosphere. That vision now sits uneasily alongside AUKUS, a more powerful China, and an Australia tied even more closely to the United States. Today, historian and author of Grand Ambition, James Curran, examines Keating's argument for a more independent Australia and why it continues to challenge the modern Labour Party. It's Saturday, September five.
We are in for the first time in our history located in the region of the fastest growth in the world. And we've been set up now, we are set up now as we've never been set up before, to be in it, to exploit it, to be part of it. It offers tremendous, tremendous
opportunities for Australians.
James, you argue that Paul Keating's global vision for Australia and our place in the world is more relevant than ever. So to start with, can you remind us of what that vision
was? So I mean in essence I think the the Keating vision was a reconciled republic finding its security in, not from Asia. That was the Keating vision in a nutshell.
I said to the Australian people, we've turned the corner. Can I say now after the election, let me repeat it, we have turned the corner. The growth is coming through. We will see ourselves as a sophisticated trading country in Asia, and we've got to do it in a way where everybody's got a part of it.
Keating was thinking about the way in which Australia's strategic environment would change fundamentally, right? He saw China coming. He worried that America might lose that sense of the importance of an economic footing in Asia as well as a security footing. And we're seeing that now. But essentially it was an integrated vision that sort of married a view about Australia's constitutional. future being independent of Britain with atoning for uh some of the way in which the indigenous peoples had been treated in the past with a sense of belonging and connecting to Asia in a new way, in a way that they hadn't been before. And so how far
has Australia diverged from that vision since Keating left office?
Well I think, you know, I mean he surely could not have known in nineteen ninety six, before that election with John Howard, he gave a speech at the press club, Keating. It was his sort of last address as Prime Minister, really, and he said that when you change the government, you change the country.
How did Keating’s ideas about a “reconciled republic” differ from the traditional Anglophone model?
The risk in this election, I think, for Australia, is that the fire will go out. The crucible that that cabinet has provided to generate this country to take its place in the world as a modern industrial country will go.
I think a lot of the momentum went out of that vision at that point. I mean there is a legitimate question as to whether Australians were ready for Paul Keating's vision at this time. But if we think about the way in which John Howard, I mean yes he held the Constitutional Convention on the Republic, but we know that he that he was a constitutional monarchist. And I mean the the the sort of the air went out of the Republican balloon at that point.
They wanted to stick with the Menzian model. You know, here we were, good little Anglophiles, you know, waving our little royal flag. Which had the Union Jack in the corner, all bowing to the Queen, and our future was guaranteed by the United States Navy, and we don't do anything else, and we just be a whole
When Howard spoke about Asia, he spoke about uh practical regionalism. You know, he wasn't interested in the kind of effort that Keating had been making to try and help Australians understand uh these countries and cultures of the region in a way that they hadn't before. And of course, from that moment too, you really see The imperative of the Conservative governments and their their Labour successes to be fair has been to wrap Australia's strategic policy ever more tightly around the American Alliance.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What was Paul Keating’s vision for an independent Australia in the Asian region?
0:01–2:54
2
How did Keating’s ideas about a “reconciled republic” differ from the traditional Anglophone model?
2:54–5:23
3
Why did Keating’s vision lose momentum after the 1996 election and the Howard era?
5:23–7:41
4
How did the shift from “practical regionalism” under Howard to today’s AUKUS affect Keating’s legacy?
7:41–10:19
5
In what ways does Keating’s call for Australian agency challenge the current Labour foreign‑policy approach?
10:19–12:31
6
Why did Prime Minister Anthony Albanese seek Keating’s advice on China, the US and post‑Trump geopolitics?
12:31–14:28
7
How does Keating’s critique of AUKUS illustrate his broader concerns about Australian sovereignty?
14:28–17:11
8
What lessons does James Curran draw from Keating’s archives for Australia’s future strategic direction?
17:11–19:05
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