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This collection of speeches reflects many of those interests and impulses - whether it be Joern Utzon's Opera House or the imperative of liberal internationalism in foreign policy or Neoclassicism, the future of native title or the rise of China. Each is related in a wider construct which is part and parcel of the way | have viewed and thought about the world. While the speeches are from the period after my prime ministerial life and period in government, the impulse in writing them came from the same framework and inclinations which informed my life in public office. The speeches may be read individually or read together, subject to subject, idea to idea. Either way, a common thread informs them all. | trust this might be evident to the reader. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/creativity-is-central-to-our-endeavours/story-fn59n1ix- 1226173494033 Paul Keating explains as never before e BY:PAUL KELLY, EDITOR-AT-LARGE ° From:The Australian e October 22, 2011 12:00AM WITH his panoramic view of world affairs sharper than ever, Paul Keating blames the current global crisis on blunders by European and US leaders and warns that Australia must rediscover the keys to national success. Interviewed in his Sydney office, furnished in a style he calls “the last gasp of revolutionary classicism", Keating's new 600-plus page book sits atop his desk, an insight into his intellectual, aesthetic and political obsessions. What has Keating been doing since he left office in 1996? He has been travelling, speaking and analysing the world and Australia with undiminished intensity suggesting a man operating as prime minister-in-exile. His idea of leadership is more philosophical than ever, more distant from Bob Hawke or John Howard. His focus is the synthesis between beauty and reason and his book encompasses China's currency, the world malaise, Mahler's Symphony No2 and broaching the republic with the Queen. During the interview Keating talks, as never before, about his leadership concept. But he is doing something else: explaining himself to a still puzzled nation. “The great changes in civilisation and society have been wrought by deeply held beliefs and passion rather than by a process of rational deduction," Keating tells me. In retirement, his political inspiration comes from music and beauty, not opinion polls. There are signs he has mellowed. While ruthless with his judgments Keating is keen to support a struggling Labor Party while addressing the source of its strategic demise. "The failure of the Rudd and Gillard administrations is the lack of an over-arching story, the lack of a compelling story," he says when interviewed last week. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_029673