The intense antagonism inspired by Paul Keating remains as puzzling today as it was a decade ago. Some of the criticism at least makes sense: the One Nation types, including the look-alikes who used to populate the Liberal Party branches, hated him equally for his economic and his social policy. But why are supposed economic liberals like Bob Catley and Gerard Henderson – and Crikey’s Christian Kerr – joining the attack?

Keating’s great virtue was that he understood that economic and socio-cultural liberalisation had to go together; that we couldn’t become an open economy while retaining 19th-century colonial attitudes to Aborigines and our Asian neighbours. He continued to push that vision despite the political costs.

I don’t know where Henderson gets the idea that “80% of voters supported [Keating’s] general direction.” Free trade was phenomenally unpopular at the time. So was privatisation (still is, in fact). So was Aboriginal reconciliation, once you got beyond the warm fuzzy sentiment.

Henderson himself used to be more critical of anti-Keating hysteria. In his Menzies’ Child (1994), page 222, you will find the following passage:

“… after December 1991 … many [Liberal Party] members simply could not accept that Paul Keating was prime minister. This self-delusion at times put the Coalition off course in the run up to the 1993 election – so much so that millions of dollars were wasted on a facile anti-Keating advertising campaign.”

Yes, Keating was arrogant. Yes, he handled a lot of things badly. Yes, he has some shocking blots on his record, like mandatory detention and crawling to General Suharto. But most of the time he tried to do the right thing – and he paid the price for it.