Former Senator Graham Richardson has openly admitted to lying in the cause of putting Paul Keating in the Lodge.
A spokeswoman for the Leader of the Opposition, Alexander Downer, said Mr Downer would not be commenting on it yesterday.
However, the Leader of the National Party, Tim Fischer, said yesterday that it was no wonder people had such a jaundiced view of politicians when a former Cabinet Minister cheerfully admits he is a liar”.
In extracts from his memoirs _ (ital)Whatever it Takes(end ital) _ published in (ital)The Australian(ital) at the weekend, Mr Richardson justified his lying because he had to prevent damage to the party while still keeping Paul Keating’s challenge hopes alive in the time between the first unsuccessful challenge to Bob Hawke in June 1991 and the successful challenge in December 1991.
“”My dilemma was to keep the challenge going, while winning more caucus votes than the process of keeping it alive was losing us,” he wrote.
“”To some people, however, my position was obviously see as equivocal.
“”. . . . dampening speculation about a challenge was absolutely necessary on several occasions: sometimes in public, often in private. When caucus anger was boiling over and the temperature needed to be lowered, I had no hesitation in doing it or causing it to be done. This did not indicate treachery to Keating, but the difficulty I was having in helping him become prime minister without destroying the party.
“”This sounds uncharacteristically noble, but having said that I have to add that to achieve that goal successfully I had to lie from time to time _ which I did.”
He mentioned a 2KY interview with Bob Hawke in which “”I said publicly that no challenge was planned, which was true enough because the second time around there would not be one without my agreement.
“”What I didn’t say was that as soon as Hawke made a big mistake, we would be off like a shot.”
But if the votes had not been secure at the end of the year, then the challenge would be off.
Mr Richardson has also held back after the launch of Fightback so Labor’s attack on it would not be jeopardised.
And in the most Machiavellian admission, Mr Richardson said he had advised Mr Hawke to do a major Cabinet reshuffle to give his Government renewed vigour, knowing that Mr Hawke was unlikely to have the courage to do any such thing and that Mr Hawke was more likely to water down the advice to a mere movement of one or two Ministers which would result in Mr Hawke looking weak and looking like he was prepared to allow one Minister, John Kerin, to be the fall guy for a poor government response to Fightback. And this is precisely what happened.
Mr Richardson revealed also that he had had to “”do a job” on Queensland Deputy Premier Tom Burns for accusing Mr Keating of gross disloyalty, but later at Mass held after the death of the son of an MP, Mr Burns had turned around at the time to give the peace sign and had been surprised to see Richardson. They had exchanged “”peace be with you” greetings.
Mr Richardson had told Mr Keating that Mr Keating could not win the next election.
He revealed also that approval for the $800 million Better Cities program had not been given without proper scrutiny of details or testing by economic ministers, but had been approved by Mr Hawke and Deputy Prime Minister Brian Howe because it had been Mr Howe’s special project and Mr Howe’s left faction had supported Mr Hawke in the first challenge.
The approval had shown John Kerin as a weak Treasurer, Mr Richardson said.
Mr Fischer said, “”Former Senator Richardson has cheerfully admitted he is a liar. It is no wonder that people have such a jaundiced view of politicians when a former Cabinet Minister makes that sort of admission.
“”The internal machinations of the Labor Party will give underwhelming confidence to the people with both the Richardson revelations on how Hawke was rolled through to the 1 per cent interest rate hike this week.