Paul Keating has been speaking out again about Australian history:

He said he has never been to Gallipoli and never will because it is nonsense to think the nation was born again or redeemed there.

“The truth is that Gallipoli was shocking for us,” he said.

“Dragged into service by the imperial government in an ill-conceived and poorly executed campaign, we were cut to ribbons and dispatched and none of it in the defence of Australia.”

He said the sacrifice of soldiers was simply testament to the nation’s lack of confidence and ambivalence about itself.

“Who were we and what we had become. If our sons suffered and died valiantly in a European war, such sacrifice was testament to the nation’s self worth,” he said.

“In some respects we are still at it; not at the suffering and the dying but still turning up at Gallipoli, the place where Australia was needily redeemed.

“Without seeking to simplify the then bonds of empire and the implicit sense of obligation or to diminish the bravery of our own men, we still go on as though the nation was born again or even, redeemed there. An utter and complete nonsense.”