An Introduction

Day 1,488, 02:35 • Published in Australia Australia • by Paul J Keating

Allow me to introduce myself; I’m Paul J Keating, born 2 weeks ago into this world. Some of you may remember me as the greatest Treasurer Australia has ever seen, and a not-too-shabby Prime Minister I might add. Others may remember me less kindly, but it isn’t my responsibility to deal with every dull-witted moron who spouts ignorance and idiocy. Some of you may not remember me at all and that’s great, let’s start from scratch.

It seems from media reports that I’ve joined this country at a time when things are changing in a major way with a departure from a long-term alliance led by American and European powers. Allow me to say, in complete ignorance of the history and context of this move, congratulations!

In my less than humble opinion long-distance relationships are fine for melancholy poets but not much use for nation building. Why successive generations of real life Australian political leaders fawned and doted on their British and American protectors instead of engaging with the Asia-Pacific is a mystery to me, though there is the obvious explanation that they were short-sighted idiots with the intellectual acuity of a concrete block.

From what I’ve read though it sounds as though we’re in an invidious situation, having left an alliance without resolving in any permanent way a feud with our nearest neighbours. I guess sometimes you need to take a risk when making your own way in the world, the most important decisions are often the most difficult ones.

I don’t know much about this situation so I’ll refrain providing any further naive and uneducated commentary except to quote myself from a 1994 speech that seems to resonate quite well today:

”No country is more important to Australia than Indonesia. If we fail to get this relationship right, and nurture and develop it, the whole web of our foreign relations is incomplete.”

Thanks to those who have welcomed me, it’s nice to see there are people looking out for new members of the community. I'm surprised to see there is no social democratic / labour party here, and I'd like to hear from anyone who'd be interested in redressing this deficiency in the political scene.