Vox Hunt: Teen Idol

Show us who you idolized as a teenager.

Paul Keating Treasurer

Some people will find this extremely sad but I was a huge fan of politician Paul Keating in my late teens (around 17-18 years old).  He was Treasurer when I was at high school and just starting to take an interest in politics.  I studied a lot of his economic reforms as part of my high school economics course and admired what he was trying to achieve (it probably also helped that I was too young to be affected by some of the negative fallout such as the rising interest rates).  After university, I worked in Canberra under both the Hawke and Keating Labor governments and came to admire Paul Keating even more then.  Not only was he extremely witty (as evidenced by this archive of some of his more famous insults) but his politics seemed so courageous and forward-looking, including his vision of Australia as a republic and his belief in closer ties between Australia and its Asian neighbours (this latter also benefited me personally as an Asian linguist). I was working in Jakarta when the Howard Government got elected and I honestly felt like not coming home.  Sure enough many of my worst fears were realised in the following years and it wasn't long before I packed up and left Canberra for Sydney.  I just couldn't stand working for that "dessicated coconut" and his cronies any longer.