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wow, Australia isn't the ass end of the world it is resting dog face
KEATING DENIES 'ARSE END' REMARK
By PETER GILL
Jun 24, 1994 – 10.00am
THE Prime Ministerial vision of a proudly independent Australia making its own way in the world has been threatened by claims from his predecessor that Mr Keating described Australia as the "arse end of the world".
The acrimony of the 1991 leadership challenge resurfaced yesterday with Mr Keating denying the claim by Mr Bob Hawke that he disparaged Australia in an argument over the Labor leadership.
The public debate between present and former prime ministers was played out on the nation's airwaves yesterday and threatens to become a political brushfire for the Government.
Mr Keating "explicitly and categorically denied" a television report that he would leave Australia if he did not secure the prime ministership because"this is the arse end of the world".
"The allegation is deeply offensive and defamatory. It isclearly intended to personally vilify and politically damage me," Mr Keating said last night.
"People can choose to believe the record, and what is on the record - the real, tangible testaments of my affection for Australia and devotion to its interests - or they can believe Mr Hawke's alleged fragment of a private conversation," he said.
Earlier yesterday, Mr Keating said he could not remember making the comment to Mr Hawke and suggested he had often made the point that Australia was a long way from everywhere.
But Mr Hawke responded that his memoirs - in which the alleged conversation will appear - "doesn't sustain the proposition" that the comment was made in any geographical context. A spokesman for the Prime Minister said Mr Keating and Mr Hawke had different recollections of the event in question and added that it would "come down to a historical debate".
The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Downer, said that "if it is true that Mr Keating has described my country in that way, then I feel very sad about it, because I think I can speak for 17 million Australians and say that we love our country".
Meanwhile, amid rowdy scenes in the Senate, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Evans - in a direct attack on Mr Downer's British wife - said the Prime Minister and his family did not have to be "pushed" into becoming Australian citizens.
Mr Downer said the "unprovoked attack" on his wife "marks a new low-point in national politics".
Senator Evans responded with an apology to Mrs Downer but said the low-point in recent politics was the Opposition's "grotesque and utterly groundless attack on the character and reputation of (former senator) Graham Richardson".
https://www.afr.com/politics/keating-denies-arse-end-remark-19940624-k5ydx