Australia's most successful politician ?, page-7

Well let me put it this way, the global economic boom while Howard was PM was not of his making.

In the lead up to the "recession we had to have" Keating had urged the RBA to lift interest rates more quickly to head off a possible recession, seems the RBA had not reacted quick enough and hence we got "recession we had to have"

For some who dropped out of school aged 14, Keating had a pretty good head for politics and economics. Although he was in the labor party he was more to the right of politics and copped a lot of flack from the left