How Hawke, Keating, Button and Barry Jones Might Have Dealt With Today’s World

A Political Fab 4

(With quotes or indirect quotes from the musical Fab 4)

If you put Bob Hawke, Paul Keating, John Button and Barry Jones into today’s world of crazy things - geopolitics, AI disruption, declining societal trust, China-US tension, housing stress, social‑media tribalism and a hollowed‑out middle class - they would not have responded with panic, slogans or knee‑jerks. They would likely have tried to build a national project.

The other day when I quoted an old Beatles song on social media someone commented (without malice) that I was showing my age. You bet I’m showing my age. Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four? Huh? Well, I’m 71 now which means I’ve seen a thing or two.

Because I believe Bob Hawke’s second, third and fourth ministries were the best this country has ever seen - certainly the best in my lifetime. They were serious, capable, reforming governments. And each of those four figures would approach today’s world differently, just as they did then.

This is all theoretical - obviously, and it is all my opinion - obviously. But it’s an interesting question.

Lots of things have changed, though, including the structure of the economy. Australia is now arguably a small‑business nation. We have millions of enterprises, most of them tiny, all of them essential to community life, supply chains, services, culture and employment. Hawke, Keating, Button and Jones would see that fact immediately and they would treat small business not as a photo‑op or a tax source, but as a central pillar of national capability. They knew they’d get by with a little help from their friends in small businesses.

Hawke would start where he always started - with power to the people. He understood that economic reform only works if people believe they are part of the deal. His genius was consensus - unions, business and government in the same room, arguing, compromising and building something together.

In today’s world, Hawke would rebuild that architecture, but he would likely recognise that the old tripartite model is gone. He would bring small business formally into the national conversation, not as an afterthought but as a partner. He would push productivity and wage growth together rather than treating them as enemies. He would lower the cultural temperature instead of exploiting division.  He’d communicate reforms in ordinary language; and insist Australia stay globally engaged rather than retreat into nationalism.

He would likely hate the current performative style of politics (although he did like to perform) - the constant outrage, the culture‑wars, the dog whistling. Hawke liked winning, but he also liked people. He would understand that social cohesion now depends on the survival of local enterprises - the butcher, the café, the mechanic, the childcare centre - the places where Australians actually meet each other. (As an aside John Howard also deeply understood this dynamic.)

Keating, who thankfully is still with us, would see the current era mainly through geopolitics and economic structure. He would probably argue Australia risks becoming strategically lazy and economically shallow.

Today he would warn against becoming intellectually dependent on either Washington or Beijing. He would push advanced manufacturing and national capability; attack short‑term politics and reactive economics; he would argue Australia needs cultural confidence, not just resource exports. He would speak aggressively about housing inequality and intergenerational drift.

And he would almost certainly savage the politicians driven by polling, consultants and focus groups. Mr Keating did like a good savaging. But then again life is very short, and there's no time for fussing and fighting, my friend.

Crucially, Keating would see small business not as a constituency but as distributed capability. They would be his network of firms that actually make things, repair things, innovate, employ, train and adapt. He would see AI, clean energy and critical minerals not just as industries but as civilisation‑shaping shifts, equivalent to the tariff reforms and deregulation battles of the 1980s. And he would want small and medium enterprises at the centre of that transformation, not on the margins of it.

John Button was the practical industrial strategist. He didn’t talk about destruction, where you could count him out. He was into change and change management. Most people forget how important he was to modernising Australian industry. He understood that protecting outdated industries forever was unsustainable, but he also believed governments had responsibilities during transitions.

In today’s world, Button would support domestic manufacturing in strategic sectors; push industry policy around batteries, defence, medical technology and clean energy; connect universities, TAFEs and industry properly (with the help of John Dawkins); and focus heavily on regional employment and skilled work.

But he would also see that the industrial ecosystem now depends on small business. The supply chains, the specialist firms, the repairers, the innovators, the entertainers. the bands, the contractors - the entire scaffolding of modern industry is built on SMEs. Button would design policy that helps small firms scale, export, modernise and collaborate. He would reject both extremes: a pure free‑market and simplistic protectionism. His style was thoughtful, calm and technically literate. He would be frustrated that modern debate often rewards emotion and party ideology over competence and reality.

Barry Jones would have seen much of this coming decades ago. He warned early about automation, knowledge economies and the importance of education and scientific literacy.

Today he would be obsessed with AI and the future of work; declining attention spans; anti‑intellectualism; the collapse of serious public discourse; and education systems not preparing people for technological change.

But he would also warn against techno‑utopianism. He may have asked “What happens to meaning, citizenship and democracy when knowledge fragments and people live inside algorithmic communities?”

Jones would argue that the real crisis today is not just economic - it is cognitive. And he would see small business as the frontline of that crisis. He would push for digital capability, lifelong learning, scientific literacy and civic reasoning - not as luxuries, but as survival tools for millions of enterprises facing AI, automation and information chaos.

None of the fabulous political four were anti‑market, but none of them worshipped markets either. They saw government as something that should shape the future, not merely commentate on it.

They would understand that in a decentralised, disrupted, unpredictable world - small business is not a side issue.

Of course, they might not have done all these things or thought this way but why not consider what the best would do? Mr Keating and Mr Jones are still alive and kicking and they may comment on this oped if they ever saw it – which I doubt they will. That would be awesome though, even if they were somewhat critical. Out of interest some of the other ministers in Hawke’s second ministry included Lionel Bowen, Kim Beazley, Ralph Willis, Gareth Evans, Peter Walsh, Susan Ryan, Bill Hayden, Neal Blewett – nice.

And if I remember correctly a young Anthony Albanese didn’t like Hawke and his reforms – reforms that changed our economy to one of the best on the planet. (I think he was busy carrying pictures of Chairman Mao.) Has he changed his mind? Or is he a nowhere man, sitting in his nowhere land? Making all his nowhere plans that pleases nobody – or pleases just a few unworthy people and nations?