Paul Keating

Paul Keating
Paul Keating c. 1994
24th Prime Minister of Australia
In office 20 December 1991 – 11 March 1996
Preceded by	Bob Hawke
Succeeded by	John Howard
Constituency	Blaxland (New South Wales)
Personal details
Born	(1944-01-18) 18 January 1944 Sydney, New South Wales
Political party	Labor

Paul John Keating (born 18 January 1944) was the 24th Prime Minister of Australia. He was from the Labor Party. He grew up in the city of Sydney and the suburb of Bankstown. He left De La Salle College at Bankstown at 14 years of age and worked as a clerk with the Sydney County Council doing this while juggling with studies and managed a rock band called The Ramrods. Annita van Iersel married Paul Keating in 1975. In 1998, the Keatings separated.

Keating was Treasurer from 1983 to 1991 and Deputy Prime Minister from 1990 to 1991. He challenged and beat Bob Hawke for the job of prime minister in 1991. He won one election in 1993 but was beaten by John Howard in 1996. As treasurer with Bob Hawke, he made lots of changes to the Australian economy and made it more modern. In the early 1990s, Australia had a really bad recession while he was treasurer, and when he became Prime Minister. As Prime Minister he tried to make Australia better friends with Asian countries and liked things like APEC. He also wanted Australia to become a republic and wanted the government to say it was "sorry" to Aboriginal people for the things that white Australians did not long ago.