keating sour grapes

PM to be judged on quality: Keating
June 3, 2003

PRIME Minister John Howard's service to Australia would not be decided by how long he spent in the top job, former prime minister Paul Keating said today.

Rather, Mr Howard would be judged on his levels of inspiration and courage, Mr Keating said.

Responding to Mr Howard's announcement today that he intended to remain prime minister beyond his 64th birthday next month, Mr Keating did not mention Mr Howard by name.

Mr Keating, a Labor prime minister from December 1991 until March 1996, responded somewhat cryptically to Mr Howard's announcement.

"A prime minister's service to the country and his importance is not, I believe, a function of time, but of imagination, inspiration and courage," Mr Keating said in a statement to AAP.

"Time, and the serving of time, is more often about opportunities passed over while presiding over the system - which, but for the intervention of change, more or less runs itself.

"The value for the country is invariably in 'the turn' rather than in 'the straight'."

Mr Keating was defeated by Mr Howard at the federal election in March 1996.