Cabinet papers released today by the National Archives show Working Nation began as a rational exercise but was soon overtaken by a desire to make the policy everything to everyone.
Paul Keating’s government, faced with the prospect of international action on climate change, took steps to preserve the coal industry - a tactic that has been rebooted many times since.
Hangga Fathana, Universitas Islam Indonesia (UII) Yogyakarta
It was Paul Keating himself who first raised the idea of a security agreement between Indonesia and Australia in June 1994 to Indonesian President Soeharto.
While both parties may have set out to modernise and renew their ideologies, the ALP’s and Labour’s attempts to marry the old and new instead precipitated two separate identity crises.
For his own good, Malcolm Turnbull can’t get out of the country quickly enough. He’s off on Wednesday to the G20 in Germany and, if he has any sense, while he’s abroad he’ll try to avoid being drawn on…
The Mabo decision changed Australia’s concept of land ownership. It was a divisive yet important step toward recognising Indigenous rights and establishing native title.
The Prices and Incomes Accord was a series of agreements between Labor and the ACTU where unions would moderate their wage demands in exchange for improvements in the ‘social wage’.
Cabinet papers reveal the extent to which the Keating government was torn between concern for fiscal responsibility and a desire to tackle Indigenous disadvantage and pursue meaningful reconciliation.
Labor’s project of economic transformation hit some harder realities as Paul Keating assumed the top job. And a new push on remaking Australia stirred a brooding reaction of its own.
The 1992 and 1993 cabinet papers confirm that Australia was a reluctant player in international discussions about climate change and environmental issues under Prime Minister Paul Keating.
By the end of 1992, Paul Keating had done more than anyone to place on the political agenda issues of national identity that had been either dead or dormant for years.
Former Deputy Prime Minister Brian Howe says Bill Shorten must channel the abilities of his colleagues in parliament and the broader progressive movement if he is to lead the ALP back to government.
Scare campaigns only work if there is some anxiety to build on. Labor’s Medicare campaign plugged into a long history of Coalition ambivalence – or open hostility – towards Medicare.