Greens leader Adam Bandt says Paul Keating has “got a sharp tongue but a short memory” and has challenged him to a Press Club debate in a counter-strike against “choice words” from the former Labor prime minister.
“Paul Keating is Labor’s patron saint of privatisation. Paul Keating boasted about selling off the Commonwealth Bank, Qantas, our vaccine manufacturer CSL, he’s proud of having kept wages low while giving the very wealthy and big corporations a tax cut. He still boasts about cutting government spending,” Bandt told journalists during a press conference.
“I am happy to debate Paul Keating anywhere, any time about Labor’s record in bringing economic rationalism and next-year liberalism to this country. Paul Keating has never seen a public asset that he didn’t want to privatise.”
Greens leader Adam Bandt speaking during the debate over amendments to the government’s climate change bill.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Keating savaged Bandt for branding Labor a “neoliberal” party in a row over the environment after Labor secured the numbers to legislate its 43 per cent cut to greenhouse gas emissions.
The former PM denounced the Greens as the “enemy of Labor” and accused Bandt of distorting the truth by ignoring Labor achievements including Medicare, compulsory superannuation and the safety net for wages under workplace laws.
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Returning fire, Bandt said Keating was entitled to his views “but he’s not entitled to rewrite history”.
“If he wants a debate, bring it on. I suggest we meet at the National Press Club to have a debate about Labor’s role in cutting public spending and bringing in tax cuts for the very wealthy and big corporations in this country,” he said.
“Because right now, in a cost-of-living crisis, Labor is proposing to make it even worse - by getting tax cuts to billionaires like Clive Palmer, ripping $220 billion plus out of the budget, leaving less money in there to get dental into Medicare.
“There’s not one single thing that Paul Keating can say in defence of this current government’s budget because this government is sounding far too much like the old government with their talk of budget cuts [and] when people remain with low wages and incomes below the poverty line. Bring it on, Paul Keating. He’s got a sharp tongue and a short memory.”