Most of the discussion on Monday’s Message Board concerned various personalities of the Hawke-Keating Labor government, elected 20 years ago. Yesterday’s Fin ran a picture of the incoming Cabinet in 1983, along with a ‘where are they now’ feature. While, as I’ve noted, I have mixed feelings about this government’s policies, the quality of the Ministry was exceptional. Position for position,I don’t think any member of the current government outclasses the corresponding minister in 1983. Even without considering positions, it’s hard to see many of the current ministry justifying a place. You’d have to include Howard himself, but that’s about it.

Another striking observation is how little renewal there was. The ministry that went out in 1996 was a lot weaker than the one that came in 1983. The effects can be seen on Labor’s frontbench today. Although it’s only seven years since they were in office, most of the prominent figures (with the exception of Crean himself) are newcomers who were not ministers in the last Labor government.

Turning to a more detailed assessment, I agree with the bulk of the recent commentary in ranking Hawke ahead of Keating. It’s often suggested that Keating was the ideas man while Hawke was the ‘chairman” but I think this was wrong. Hawke’s focus on consensus was an idea about process rather than policy, and it was what enabled Australia to implement a more moderate and sustainable version of the neoliberal policies that were pretty much inevitable in the 1980s. Keating, on the other hand, was not fundamentally driven by ideas. Rather, he picked up whatever ideas seemed useful to him at the time (neoliberalism or ‘economic rationalism’ in the 1980s, reconciliation and the republic in the 1990s) and expounded them with his characteristic vigour and intensity.

Keating’s case is helped by the fact that he was by far the most able Australian politician of the past thirty years and by the fact that, out of office, he has conducted himself, in private and public, with dignity and good sense, in marked contrast to Hawke’s personal follies (for example, doing the remarried celebrity bit for the women’s magazines) and sleazy political conduct like doing PR for Burmese dictators.

Of the others, my favorite was probably John Button. An engaging character, and someone who managed to maintain Labor principles while adapting them to new conditions. My least favorite of the major figures was probably Peter Walsh. Politically, I agree with him on a lot of things and disagree on even more, but, as was observed in the Monday comments thread, he is basically driven by hate. ‘Good haters’ can be an asset in politics at times, but over time the hate tends to drive out the positive concerns that originally generated it.