The Keating government was the federal executive government of Australia led by Prime Minister Paul Keating of the Australian Labor Party from 1991 to 1996. The government followed on from the Hawke government after Paul Keating replaced Bob Hawke as Labor leader in an internal party leadership challenge in 1991. Together, these two governments are often collectively described as the Hawke-Keating government. The Keating government was defeated in the 1996 federal election and was succeeded by John Howard's Coalition government.
Background
Keating entered Parliament in 1969, aged just 25, when he won the seat of Blaxland for the Australian Labor Party. He went on to briefly serve as minister for Northern Australia during the final days of the Whitlam government in 1975. Keating then served an extended period in the Shadow Ministry through the period of the Fraser government, culminating in his appointment as Shadow Treasurer in January 1983. Labor, led by Bob Hawke went on to defeat Fraser at the subsequent 1983 federal election and Keating began a long period of service as the nation's Treasurer.
Keating had no tertiary qualifications and just previously three weeks experience as a minister. Despite this, Keating oversaw a number of important transitions in the Australian economy, including the floating of the Australian dollar and program of deregulation of the Australian economy: including privatisation of assets and reductions in tariffs. He formed a powerful partnership with Hawke to deliver numerous reforms; subsequently, Hawke initially agreed to stand down after the 1990 election in Keating's favour, but later reneged on this proposal, causing tension between the two. On 3 June 1991, Keating challenged Hawke for the leadership, lost the ballot and went to the backbench. Six months later he again challenged Hawke, this time winning the leadership of the Labor Party and becoming the 24th Prime Minister of Australia.
Terms in office
Following his victory in the Labor Party leadership spill of December 1991, Keating went on to lead the Labor Party to the 1993 federal election. Labor was returned with an increased majority in the House of Representatives, with 80 seats to the Liberal Party's 49 and the National Party's 16 seats, with two independents.
Three years later, Keating again led the party to the 1996 federal election, in which it was soundly defeated by the John Howard-led Liberal–National Coalition: the Liberals won 75 seats, and the National Party a further 19 to Labor's 49. Keating then resigned from Parliament on 23 April.
Keating's personal style
Keating was a combative Parliamentarian. Author and journalist Peter Hartcher described him as "famed for his flair with an insult". In his earlier career as Treasurer, Keating once said of Opposition Leader John Howard, "From this day onwards Mr Howard will wear his leadership like a crown of thorns and in the Parliament I will do everything I can to crucify him." Other colourful invective he employed in the Parliament to describe political opponents included "brain-damaged", "mangy maggot" and "scumbags". In 1992, Keating refused to allow his Treasurer John Dawkins to appear before a senate estimates committee and described the Senate as consisting of "unrepresentative swill". During John Hewson's tenure as Opposition Leader, he once said that being challenged by Hewson was like "being flogged by a wet lettuce".
Economy After succeeding from Hawke as Labor leader and prime minister, Keating reshuffled the Cabinet. Dawkins replaced Ralph Willis as Treasurer. In 1991 Australia was in the midst of a prolonged economic recession, with eight-quarters of declining economic growth. In response to these economic conditions, Keating announced the One Nation economic program in February 1992. Throughout his first year in office, unemployment continued to rise and with it government expenditure on welfare. In response, the government passed the Australian National Training Authority Act 1992 and Disability Discrimination Act 1992. Unemployment reached 11.4% at the end of 1992 – the highest level since the Great Depression.
The government introduced the Superannuation Guarantee in 1992 as part of a major reform package addressing Australia's retirement income policies. Since its introduction, employers have been required to make compulsory contributions to superannuation on behalf of most of their employees. This contribution was originally set at 3% of the employees' income, and has been incrementally increased.
A landmark workfare scheme known as Working Nation was implemented with the intention of providing work and training for the long-term unemployed,Australia's Welfare Wars Revisited: The Players, the Politics and the Ideologies by Philip Mendes while the Industrial Relations Reform Act 1993 created a set of minimum entitlements in the workplace, relating to equal remuneration for work of equal value, unpaid parental leave, termination of employment (including unfair dismissal), and minimum wages.States, markets, families: gender, liberalism, and social policy in Australia, Great Britain, Canada, and the United States by Julia Sila O'Connor, Ann Shola Orloff, and Sheila Shaver According to Bill Kelty, the industrial changes introduced by Keating government provided trade unions "with more rights to bargain and more protection than was afforded to unions in most other nations". In addition, the Sex Discrimination Act (SDA) and Affirmative Action Act of 1986 were strengthened in 1992 by a series of amendments, with the SDA provisions extended to federal industrial awards and protections against sexual harassment in the workplace extended.
A number of adjustments were made to the social wage during Keating's five years in office. These included the introduction of the Earnings Credit Scheme, which enabled pensioners to earn extra income without losing their pension payments, a nonincome-tested Child Care Cash Rebate and a Home Child Care Allowance, the latter of which was paid directly to full-time carers of children in the home, a maternity allowance,The Australian welfare state: key documents and themes by Jane Thomson and Anthony McMahon a Commonwealth Dental Health Program,Australia: The State of Democracy by Marian Sawer, Norman Abjorensen, and Phil Larkin the Mature Age Allowance (an early retirement scheme for unemployed disadvantaged Australians over the age of sixty),Australia by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development a Parenting Allowance (a payment for parents with children at home and with very little personal income), and an Additional Parenting Allowance to the partners of unemployed workers.
The system of rental assistance was made more generous, with the maximum rates of Rent Assistance rates increased in real terms between March 1993 and September 1994 by 138.9% for families with three or more children, by 109.2% for families with one or two children, by 90.5% for single recipients without children, and by 79.5 for couples without children. These increased rates were protected by inflation as the rates had been indexed twice yearly from March 1991 onwards. Students in receipt of the homeless rate of AUSTUDY or ABSTUDY were also made eligible for rental assistance.
The Keating government also made improvements to the family benefits system, continuing a major policy of the Hawke government. In 1987, the Hawke government established benchmarks for the adequacy of maximum level family payments (i.e. payments to social security recipients and low-income working families) to ensure that they provided effective assistance to those in need. These benchmarks were set at percentages of the pension rate, and were therefore linked indirectly to Average Weekly Earnings. From a value of 11.9% of the combined married pension rate, the value of the Family Allowance Supplement was set to increase to 15% for children under 13 years old and to 20% for children aged between the ages of 13 and 15. These benchmarks were increased by the Keating government in 1992 and again in 1995 to reach 16.6% and 21.6%, respectively.
The Keating government sold government business enterprises Qantas, CSL Limited and Commonwealth Bank.
Immigration
The Keating government pursued a multiculturalist immigration policy.
The Keating government introduced mandatory detention for asylum seekers with bipartisan support in 1992,Timeline: Mandatory detention in Australia, Special Broadcasting Service, 17 June 2008 scrapping a time limit of 273 days. Mandatory detention would become increasingly controversial under the succeeding Howard government, a Coalition government led by Howard.
Culture and society The government's agenda under Keating included creating an Australian republic, reconciliation with Australia's Indigenous population, and furthering economic and cultural ties with Asia. Keating and his supporters styled his approach to social policy as "Big Picture" politics.Fast Forward , Shaun Carney, The Age, 20 November 2007 Keating embarked on a legislative program which included establishing the Australian National Training Authority (ANTA) and the Creative Nation cultural policy in October 1994 (which significantly increased funding for the arts, established SBS independent and allocated funding for the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association and other new media initiatives).The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre: Asia by Don Rubin The government also undertook a review of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984, and legislated native title rights for Indigenous Australians following the Mabo High Court decision.
Republican nationalism In February 1992, Paul Keating announced that he wanted Australia to change its national flag because it contained the Union Jack within its design. Later that month, Queen Elizabeth II visited Australia for the Sydney Council's 150th anniversary and Keating greeted the Queen with a speech in which he spoke of a growing "national purpose" and "independence" in Australia. He was then accused by the British press of breaching protocol by putting his arm around the Queen's back. When queried about these events in Parliament on 27 February 1992, Keating launched a repudiation of Australian ties to Britain and called the Liberals "'bootlickers" and "lickspitters" and accused them of "cultural cringe to a country which decided not to defend the Malay peninsula, not to worry about Singapore, not to give us our troops back to keep ourselves free from Japanese domination". The Liberal-National Opposition, led by Dr John Hewson, called the republican agenda a "distraction" from Australia's economic problems, criticised Keating's attack on Britain's war effort as a fiction and argued that Australia had already long since established independence from Britain. Australians for Constitutional Monarchy was established by Michael Kirby to counter the republican movement. Republicanism was however to become a key goal of Keating's cultural agenda for Australia.