100,000 losses since that first generation. Assuming 4 generations per century at 3 children per head, that's 8.1m Australians who never existed. Multiply that by all the countries who suffered similar losses, our country and the world would look very different today. (Feel free to correct my maths, I just did it in my head)
I was fairly young when Keating was PM, very much at the 'best personality wins', and 'politics are boring' phase of my life, (now they're just tedious!), and I recall him as being very stern, unapologetic, very, very smart and quite up himself, after the Hawk hilarities. In hindsight, it was Hawke who was up himself. How they ever worked together is a mystery. With the exception of John Howard, all the PMs since then come across as eternal high school popularity models. Whining, backstabbing, no pride, not very inspiring of leadership, and they all seem to have squeaky voices.
