Talk:Paul Keating

Portrait

@Timeshift9: why do you want to use a black and white picture from 1985 for the infobox? Onetwothreeip (talk) 23:18, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

It is regrettable that the only half decent headshots available from during his parliamentary career are not in colour. The previous infobox image used was this one, which is of such small resolution that no usable headshot could be cropped from it. Though earlier PMs, we use many black and white infobox images. One consistency however is the use of portrait shots for infobox images, which is as it should be. Also note that the black and white Keating portrait in question is also used in the 1993 and 1996 election infoboxes. Timeshift (talk) 00:36, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

The main inconsistency here is that the image is from before he was prime minister. It would be preferable to have a less than perfect picture of him during his premiership than a less than perfect picture of him in 1985. The same goes for the pictures in the 1993 and 1996 election infoboxes, those are obviously not contented conclusions. Honestly, how can there not be a decent portrait of him between 1991 and 1996? Onetwothreeip (talk) 00:43, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Because of wikimedia's licensing requirements. Again, this extremely poor resolution image is just not suitable for infobox portrait headshots. On the flipside, it has been the lack of suitable photos that has made so many good photos find their way on to wikipedia over the years. If we just used any old image, we would never have amassed such a great collection of suitably licensed PM images over the years! Motivation... Timeshift (talk) 01:28, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

I think the 1993 photo as is would be sufficient for the infobox on the main page, though that said I'd agree that you cannot crop it further and would indeed be a poor choice for pages such as the 1993/1996 ones as well as Prime Ministerial lists. In which case I think unless we find a better pic, the 1985 picture would suffice with those other pages (damn you licensing rules) --Thescrubbythug (talk) 14:32, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

@Thescrubbythug: surely the 2007 colour photo is preferable to the 1985 black and white photo! Onetwothreeip (talk) 23:12, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Surely one of these colour pictures 1 2 3 are free to use and suitable for infoboxes, from the National Library of Australia. Onetwothreeip (talk) 23:51, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Disagree entirely. The 1985 photo is black and white, yes. But not only is it better quality, but he looks almost the same as he did when he was Prime Minister. By contrast the 2007 photo clearly is post-Prime Ministerial and he had aged substantially by that point. As for the three photos you linked.... I unfortunately don't think they'd be an adequate alternative to what we currently have. Thescrubbythug (talk) 14:52, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Why do think they are inadequate? Obviously they would have to be cropped first, I'm not suggesting the infobox picture include Russell Crowe. Knowing Keating as I do, this 1985 picture looks considerably younger than when he was prime minister. Obviously something from the 90s either way is what we should aim for though. The lack of free images for him is very strange, and I remember when Wikipedia was using a picture of a statue as his infobox picture. Onetwothreeip (talk) 22:02, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

The convention across Wikipedia, surely, is to illustrate biographies of living persons with photographs that reflect their current appearance—using the most-recently available (free) portraits. This is perfectly logical, since the article as a whole is written in the present tense. The 1985 is in my mind entirely unsuitable not merely because it is of a low resolution and quality but because it is laughably outdated. There are two adequate portraits in the article that might be used for the infobox: File:Paul Keating 2017 01.jpg and File:Paul Keating 2007 2.jpg (the latter is also small, but of a suitable quality). When Keating dies that is the time to be using a period photo. --Hazhk (talk) 11:12, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Hewson's Ferrari

Paul Keating attempted to appeal to the envy of the masses by referring to the fact that his opponent John Hewson had three million dollars and a Ferrari.

This ploy worked well until it was revealed that Paul Keating had three million dollars and a Mercedes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.144.105.211 (talk) 18:29, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Keating the American

How come this article has such a ratshit image of Keating? We need a head (and possibly shoulders) shot. I realise the licensing opportunities of using public domain American images, but do we really need a picture of an Australian Prime Minister standing in front of an American flag? How about this one?

Surely we have had something better in the past? A colourful and highly visible individual and we don't have a good photo of him? Other PMs have excellent images. ScoMo, Gillard, Abbott, Howard, Hawke, to name a few. --Pete (talk) 18:19, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Paul Keating

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Paul Keating's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "History":

• From Transdev NSW: History of Our Bus Services Archived 16 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine Veolia Transport
• From St Euphemia College: Our History Archived 2012-06-02 at the Wayback Machine (Alphacrucis)
• From Malaysia: Andaya, Barbara Watson; Andaya, Leonard Y. (1982). A History of Malaysia. MacMillan. pp. 26–28, 61, 151–152, 242–243, 254–256, 274, 278. ISBN 978-0-333-27672-3.
• From Australia–Indonesia relations: Schwerdtner Máñez, K & Ferse, S.C.A. (2010) The History of Makassan Trepang Fishing and Trade. PLoS ONE 5(6) e11346. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0011346 [1] Retrieved on 6 April 2012
• From Bob Hawke: "History". apec.org. The idea of APEC was firstly publicly broached by former Prime Minister of Australia Bob Hawke during a speech in Seoul, Korea, on 30 January 1969. Ten months later, 12 Asia-Pacific economies met in Canberra, Australia, to establish APEC.
• From Punchbowl Bus Company: About Us Punchbowl Bus Company
• From Bogor: "History of Bogor City". Archived from the original on 12 August 2011. Retrieved 28 May 2010.
• From Canterbury Boys' High School: "School History". History. Canterbury Boys' High School. Archived from the original on 25 July 2008. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
• From Australian Labor Party (Western Australian Branch): "History of WA Labor". WA Labor. Archived from the original on 2018-08-07. Retrieved 2018-08-07.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 03:09, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

First defeated Labor Prime Minister who did not serve as Leader of the Opposition

The fact that Keating is the first defeated Labor Prime Minister who did not serve as Leader of the Opposition which I inserted got removed for no reason.

When I put it back it gets removed only this time with a warning.

The removal of that fact was for no reason and the warning was absolutely unjustified.

I like therefore asked that fact be put back again. 49.3.72.79 (talk) 04:48, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

It's trivia. Nick-D (talk) 10:46, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. (I would agree that a warning was over the top - if a warning had been issued, which it hasn't been; they're just notices.) Frickeg (talk) 13:10, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

A warning was given to me by Materialscientist.

It is not trivia, it is simply the truth.

In New Zealand, it is not uncommon for defeated Prime Ministers to then serve as Leader of the Opposition, the most recent being Bill English.

In Australia, the last former Prime Minister to have been Opposition Leader was Gough Whitlam after his dismissal and 1975 defeat.

Unlike New Zealanders, Australians have not seen a former Prime Minister as Opposition Leader in living memory.

It is not trivia, it is the truth and I reject the reasoning for its exclusion.

Unlike fellow Labor Prime Ministers Fisher, Scullin and Chifley before him, Keating chose to walk away after losing the top job in an election and it is a fact that should be noted. 49.3.72.79 (talk) 13:19, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

I'll be entirely honest, I'm in agreement with 49.4.72.79 here - I see no reason why it should be excluded, given that it would simply state a historical fact, and it would do absolutely no harm to the page whatsoever to acknowledge this. Thescrubbythug (talk) 07:04, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles shouldn't be collections of trivia. Nick-D (talk) 08:33, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Define trivia. Why is this trivia, but "tendered his resignation as Prime Minister on 11 March, 13 years to the day after Bob Hawke had first taken office" not trivia? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 09:13, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

That's trivia too, in my opinion. But before we even get into a discussion of what is and isn't trivia, at a bare minimum we would need a source of some kind indicating that this is a significant fact in any way. Frickeg (talk) 09:23, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

I see no issue with including facts that happen to be trivia so long as we don't make it so that the majority of the information on a (in this case biographical) page consists of "trivia" - which it certainly isn't the case for Paul Keating's page. I do think it is worth acknowledging the fact that Keating happens to be the first former Labor PM not to carry on as Opposition leader, as well as the first former PM from the Labor side to resign from Parliament almost immediately after losing office. My main point of disagreement with 49.4.72.79 was how it was added - while I'm in favour of including this information, I don't think it merited a standalone paragraph at all. Thescrubbythug (talk) 09:51, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Please provide reliable sources which state that this was a noteworthy feature of Keating's prime ministership. Nick-D (talk) 09:56, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Well, it wasn't a feature of his Prime Ministership, but it is a fact that is to do with the end of his time in office. As I've already said, I see zero issue whatsoever with acknowledging this piece of information, and so far I'm honestly completely baffled by your strong opposition to this. Including this piece of information would not lower the quality of this article in the slightest, and people who would be looking through and learning about Keating would likely find it interesting that he was the first Labor PM who didn't serve as Opposition Leader after losing office. This *is* a historic precedent as prior to Keating every Labor PM who lost an election continued on immediately after losing office as Opposition Leader, and like Malcolm Fraser before him on the Liberal side, he became the first to not only immediately resign as party leader, but also to quit Parliament entirely - a precedent that was followed by Kevin Rudd in 2013. It's not an irrelevant unsourced opinion; it's not an addition that indicates any bias of any kind; and it's not an addition that could ever be construed as spam. It's harmless, and just because you might think acknowledging this is so irrelevant that it should be dismissed as "trivia" (which in itself isn't even a bad thing as long as it's not used in excess and does not make up the majority of information on a page) doesn't mean it should be treated as borderline spam and should be stubbornly rejected for inclusion. This is just such a small hill to die on - surely there's got to be far more important issues and debates on Wikipedia content to focus on than to pointlessly veto this with one sentence dismissals. Anyway, I've now given my two cents on this and made my stance clear (which is in favour of including this, but reworded a little and *not* be given its own paragraph), and I won't be contributing further - I'm sure 49.4.72.79 will be happy to also have a further say if need be, particularly since this was all their initiative. Thescrubbythug (talk) 10:52, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

First with thanks to Thescrubbythug.

In 1993, when Keating was expected to lose that year's election, Laurie Oakes was asked whether he thinks Keating would be Opposition Leader after the election.

Oakes says it would depend on the extent of the defeat. If it was a narrow loss he would stay on as leader but if it was a big defeat he will walk away.

Three years later in 1996, Keating did walk away when he suffered a landslide defeat.

Surely this assessment made by a respected journalist in Oakes does not make the fact that Keating becoming the first defeated Labor Prime Minister not to become Opposition Leader as trivia.

In addition to this at the 1996 campaign Treasurer Ralph Willis released a letter that later turned out to be a forgery and Keating blamed Willis for depriving him of a narrow defeat. Evidently this meant Keating, as per Oakes' assessment, had decided to become Opposition Leader if he had lost the election narrowly.

As well as an assessment there is also perspective and I looked at Scullin's defeat in 1931 and he suffered a worst defeat than Keating's and yet Scullin decided to stay on to lead his party in Opposition.49.3.72.79 (talk) 05:48, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Do you have a link to that Oakes source? Frickeg (talk) 06:37, 29 October 2020 (UTC)