Paul Keating celebrates 70 years Getting it right: Paul Keating turns 70 on Saturday. When Bill Kelty rose to speak at his old friend Paul Keating's 70th birthday party last week, he polished up an old anecdote unknown to most of the 70-odd guests in the room. It was the story of a tense and protracted negotiation in the mid-1980s, between Mr Kelty, then ACTU secretary, Bob Hawke, then prime minister, and Mr Keating, then treasurer. The terms of trade had declined and the government wanted the unions to agree to a smaller increase in wages. Mr Kelty said no. They spent all day at the Lodge, locked in battle. It was a really, really hard meeting. We weren't getting anywhere," Mr Kelty recounts. Paul Keating disappeared, and half an hour later came back and put a video on. It was of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire dancing. Mr Hawke and Mr Kelty, neither of whom are renowned musical enthusiasts, were amazed. Hawke turned to me and said, 'He's really quite mad, you know'. Mr Keating's birthday is on Saturday but he threw his party last weekend, a modest, stand-up cocktail affair in the rooms of the Australian Institute of Architects, which are above the former prime minister's own office in Potts Point. As for the Astaire and Rogers video, as always with Mr Keating, it was part of a grand narrative. "He was trying to break the tension," says Mr Kelty. But he was also saying 'Look, you've got to work together. It requires hours and hours of practice. It's not just about the performance, it's about getting it right'. Only he would do that.