Kenneth keating

The Washington reflex: you discover a problem, throw money at it and hope somehow that it will go away

Keating understood the power of tradition yet he loved to break the rules and create a new orthodoxy. That's what he did as treasurer saying, in effect, that Labor runs a market model with equity, and it worked. When he became PM, he tried to construct a new set of Labor beliefs based on Asian engagement, reconciliation and the republic. For Keating, these weren't just policies; they were the new Labor template handed down from the mount. The trouble, of course, was his inability to convert a lot of the public.

Success is easy. Any mug can be successful and make a fist of it. It's how you deal with it afterwards that is the test of character. I've watched a lot of people lose everything. Now Keating in a sense has lost everything. If you add up all the things he's lost, it's pretty significant. But there is still an absolutely remarkable, unbroken, interesting, involved bloke who is not crushed by what he's been through at all. He's still defiant, he's still funny, he's still full of ideas.

Couldn't get nothing better. She's going to love it.

Meetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.