Keating Channels De Gaulle

It wasn’t only clocks that Paul Keating brought back from Paris: in his interview with Kerry O’Brien on Tuesday night the former Prime Minister, in a statement eerily reminiscent of President De Gaulle’s famous declaration: “L’état c’est moi”, said “The public record shows that from 1984 on I was the driving force of the Government”.
This contrasts with Ross Garnaut’s recollection of the operation of the Hawke-Keating Government. In his recently published book, “Dog Days – After the Boom”, Garnaut says “The breadth and depth of the agenda required the decentralisation of individual leadership. The prime minister’s leadership style suited the demands of the reform programme. In the presence of the relevant advisers in his office and often from his department, Hawke would discuss policy issues with ministers and lay out objectives for the portfolio in major speeches. The ministers would then be given considerable responsibility for carrying out the reform, consulting regularly with the Prime Minister and his office, and taking submissions to cabinet when proposals had been refined.
“The exceptional quality of ministers in the Hawke cabinet made the depth and breadth of the reform programme and the decentralisation of responsibility possible”.
Mind you, Keating has Garnaut typed, describing him as the “leader of a Manchu Court of obsequious sycophants”.