And heading to Australia was the world's most powerful man.

Tell us about that moment.

So President George H.W. Bush, or Papa Bush as he's known, was coming basically to thank a dutiful ally for helping the United States for their assistance during the first Gulf War, right, when Saddam Hussein rolled his tanks into Kuwait.

Now, H.W. Bush had established a close fraternity, if you like, with Bob Hawke.

He was expecting to see Hawke.

He was expecting it to be basically a trip about, you know, playing golf.

They might have had a bit of a chat about the export enhancement program, which was affecting Australian farmers.

I wonder after writing this book about him, and it's a terrific book, what you think about that idea

Tell us about that moment.

So President George H.W. Bush, or Papa Bush as he's known, was coming basically to thank a dutiful ally for helping the United States for their assistance during the first Gulf War, right, when Saddam Hussein rolled his tanks into Kuwait.

Now, H.W. Bush had established a close fraternity, if you like, with Bob Hawke.

He was expecting to see Hawke.

He was expecting it to be basically a trip about, you know, playing golf.

They might have had a bit of a chat about the export enhancement program, which was affecting Australian farmers.

But it was essentially, you know, a trip of bonhomie.

I wonder after writing this book about him, and it's a terrific book, what you think about that idea

I mean, how do you think that shaped the figure that became the Keating of the 80s and then obviously into the Prime Ministership?

Yeah, so I think, you know, here is someone who was born in 1944, so he grows up in the shadow of the Second World War.

His early heroes, as you say, are Churchill.

Churchill of the 1930s, not so much the Churchill... of Gallipoli or the Churchill of 1942 in Singapore.

He loves Churchill's gallantry and his fighting spirit.

On the other hand, he loves Roosevelt's idea of a unitary world, you know, and I think he's starting to see in this early reading that he does as a young man that Roosevelt is telling the European empires that it's all over, right, that the era of decolonisation is starting.

Now, Look, I think it takes a while for Keating to put all this together into a world view, but certainly you're right.

But that's really central to a lot of this story, isn't it?

Please welcome them again to launch Grand Ambition, Paul Keating's Global Vision for Australia, Professor James Curran and the Honourable Paul Keating.

Well, thank you very much, Anne Mossop, and thank you to the Sydney Writers' Festival for all the hard work that has gone into putting this event on.

Thank you to my publisher, Simon & Schuster, who were an absolute dream of professionalism to work with.

Thank you to Paul Keating especially for making the time tonight, and thanks to all of you for being here and sharing in this event.

There were three reasons why I wanted to write this book.

One was about I wanted to see what the potentialities of government could be, The second was that I wanted to understand the potentialities of political power.

And the third, I wanted to explore what's possible for Australia.

three or four times, you know.

How relevant are the ideas of a Prime Minister from thirty years ago at a time where everything is shifting, where China is more powerful and militarized and the world order is being turned on its head thanks to Donald Trump?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Look, a very good question, and this is often the criticism that is made off Keating and has been made by the current Foreign Minister Penny Wong among others, that Keating was living in a different time.

These were completely different circumstances.

Great power rivalry is back in a way that it really wasn't in the early 1990s when he's dealing with the end of the Cold War.

That's the sin they've got as big as the US They will never – the Americans will never condone or accept a state as large as them You know And that’s what China presents