2 days Ago By Emma Kemp
Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Got it Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Forget rugby league, Australia’s most talented niggler has always been Paul Keating .
Arguably no figure in any sport has understood how to get under an opposition’s skin with quite the same persistent mordacity as the former prime minister in the ’90s. “How you going over there, Curly? Old darling?” he goaded Alexander Downer during question time in February 1995. When the Liberal Party leader reacted in exactly the way Keating had hoped (some shouting and some name-calling), he simply mimed reeling in the imaginary fish he’d just caught.
“This is a salmon that actually jumps on the hook for you,” he said, high on his own supply, before eyeing Peter Costello and John Howard on the frontbench. “In fact, there are three or four of them there.” Love him or not – and he is polarising – Keating commanding a room of adversaries was a rare act of theatre.
One worthy of an actual theatre adaptation , and even a 65,000-member Facebook group called The Paul Keating Insult Appreciation Society. If he played cricket, he would probably be motor-mouthing at first slip. If he played rugby league, he might give Reed Mahoney a run for his money.
And in 2024 that would be saying something, given Mahoney’s blossoming reputation as a peerless wind-up merchant.
