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| Issue No 49 |  |
07 April 2000 |
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ReviewKeating's EngagementBy Roland Stephens
Whether it's analysis or self-justification, Paul Keating's new book is an engaging read.
This is the first book I have read that has been published in the new Century - which is quite appropriate given what the author sets out to achieve. Keating provides a comprehensive coverage and analysis/ justification of foreign policy under his Prime Ministership and uses this to both draw lessons and suggest directions for the new Century. Keating's meaty vocabulary and lyrical turn of phrase make this book at once engaging, entertaining and enlightening. His ability to convey policy complexities to a broad audience, without diminishing the substance of his thesis is as evident here as it was in his period as Treasurer. The book, as the title suggests, focuses on Australia's growing defence, trade and cultural relationships with other nations in its region. But it also ranges through our relationship with the US, UK and Europe, the creation and development of APEC, Australia's position in the global dynamic, its contributions to nuclear disarmament and the author's passion for a reconciliation between Australia and its Indigenes and the creation of an Australian Republic. This is a broad brief for 300 pages and in parts the strain shows. Except for the US and Indonesia, the assessment on individual states was a bit patchy - with the UK receiving a more comprehensive treatment than New Zealand, some of the ASEAN countries and India. In some areas, such as the section on Vietnam, the link drawn between Keating's anecdotes on his contact with individuals and the theme of the book seems a bit thin. However, Keating's attention to multilateral relations largely makes up for this and tacitly acknowledges the gradual diminution in importance of the nation state. This acknowledgment is belied in the structure of the book which, at first glance, seems to rely on descriptions of particular unilateral relationships. It could, perhaps, have been structured in a more creative way without losing any of its clarity. My only other gripe is that Keating's identification of the centrality of economic and social diversity to success in the next century, is not matched by a vision of how this great need can be conveyed to the Australian people. It is one thing to say that Howard and Hanson's unique brand of myopia is wrong. It is another to shape that realisation into a coherent argument that will wash with the broad mass of people, many of whom who quite logically connect change, at the micro level, with pain. This, given his ability to communicate, was the great tragedy of Keating's Prime Ministership and it sits as a hole in this book. Despite these not insignificant problems, the central thesis of the book stands up. Keating puts a powerful and imaginatively argued case that Australia will only survive if it is diverse and poised for change, and that a generous engagement with our region is the path to this diversity. His point about rapid change is inadvertently made by the map at the front of the book which still shows Dili as a regional city of Indonesia rather than as the national capital of an independent East Timor. The book went to print as a new nation was born on our doorstep. Keating's projection of the changes and opportunities the future could hold, through the prism of his Prime Ministership, is effective precisely because he is the last Prime Minister we have had who is more interested in the future than the past and is likely to be so for some time. Keating P, Engagement: Australia Faces the Asia Pacific, Pan Macmillan, Sydney, 2000
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   Interview: Rebuilding from the RubbleRamona Mitussis, APHEDA's co-ordinator in East Timor reports on how Australian workers are contributing to rebuilding a nation. East Timor: UN Poseurs Delay ReconstructionReturning to the Dili compound where he spent five days under siege, HT Lee finds an aid bureacracy out of control. Unions: The Last Bank in Minto"It's a busy branch", Carol Davison insists, watching the crowd gather around the Commonwealth Bank branch at Minto Mall. By the time you read this, the branch will be another empty shopfront, stripped of its fittings, with junk mail starting to accumulate under the front door. International: Workers of the World UniteILO Director-General Juan Somavia's keynote address to the ICFTU Congress in Durban, South Africa this week. Olympics: Strange TenantsRentwatchers lifts the lid on the legacy the 2000 Games will leave on Sydney's tenants. Politics: The Loneliness CrisisLindsay Tanner looks at the politics of the soul that form the backdrop of many of our social ills. History: Songs of SolidarityVisiting US labour acadmeic John Lund has found a new way to digest history - he commits workers' struggles to song. Satire: Seven Launches 'Popstars' Spin-offOn the heels of Popstars comes a new show taking five minor celebrities and turning them into normal people Review: Keating's EngagementWhether it's analysis or self-justification, Paul Keating's new book is an engaging read.
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