Paul Keating has written an article, Shining a light on the record, in which he takes credit for the economic direction during the Hawke Labor Government the direction of which, according to him, Hawke played no significant part.

In 1988 the business was dominated by the huge May statement, which included the seminal change in the tariff structure driven by me and bringing forth an August budget with a record $5.5bn surplus. While in 1989 the agenda was dominated by a bursting economy, rising interest rates, a May 2 statement with tax cuts to prevent a major wage breakout and a budget surplus of $1.9bn.

The public record — that is, the newspaper record of the major dailies covering all of those events — makes clear that I was the progenitor of the policy responses to those issues throughout the five years. I cannot for a second ­believe my three former colleagues have forgotten the magnitude of these events or how the cabinet stewardship of them was conducted.

Well, my own personal recollection, which I admit may be faulty, is that it was me that made all the difference. All Keating did was follow the ACCI pre-Budget submission which I had written. It worked like a charm until, moronically, Keating decided the economy was overheating and brought on the recession we had to have. I told him not to do it, but by then it was too late. He had decided to follow Treasury’s advice instead of mine. It was all downhill from there.