Post-political career
After leaving Parliament in 1996, Keating moved to the affluent eastern Sydney suburb of Woollahra. He accepted appointment as a director for various companies, and also became a senior adviser to Lazard, an investment banking firm. Keating was appointed to the advisory council to the Chinese Government Development Bank. He was also appointed a visiting professor of public policy at the University of New South Wales and was awarded honorary doctorates in law from Keio University in Tokyo (1995), the National University of Singapore (1999), the University of New South Wales (2003) and Macquarie University (2012). In 1997, Keating declined appointment in the Australia Day Honours as a Companion of the Order of Australia, an honour which has been offered to all former prime ministers since the modern Australian Honours System was introduced in 1975. On his refusal, Keating expressed that he had long believed honours should be reserved for those whose work in the community went unrecognised and that having been prime minister was sufficient public recognition.
In 2000, Keating published his first book since leaving office, Engagement: Australia Faces the Asia-Pacific, which focused on foreign policy during his time as prime minister. In 2002, Keating's former speechwriter and adviser, Don Watson, published Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: A Portrait of Paul Keating PM. The book first drew criticism from Keating's by then-estranged wife, Annita Keating, who said that it understated her contribution, a complaint Watson rejected. Keating himself was so unhappy with the book that it brought the two men's friendship to an abrupt end.
Keating initially avoided public political comment during the Howard government, although made occasional speeches criticising his successor's social policies. Ahead of the 2007 election, Keating joined former Labor Prime Ministers Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke to campaign against Howard, describing Howard as a "desiccated coconut" who was "Araldited to the seat", as an "...old antediluvian 19th century person who wanted to stomp forever...on ordinary people's rights to organise themselves at work...he's a pre-Copernican obscurantist". He also described Howard's deputy, Peter Costello, as being "all tip and no iceberg" when referring to an alleged pact made by Howard to hand the leadership over to Costello after two terms.
In February 2008, after Labor's victory in the 2007 election, Keating joined former prime ministers Whitlam, Fraser and Hawke in Parliament House to witness new prime minister Kevin Rudd deliver the National Apology to the Stolen Generations. In August 2008, he spoke at the book launch of Unfinished Business: Paul Keating's Interrupted Revolution, authored by economist David Love. Among the topics discussed during the launch were the need to increase compulsory superannuation contributions, as well as to restore incentives for people to receive their superannuation payments in annuities.
In 2013, Keating took part in a series of four-hour-long interviews with Kerry O'Brien which were broadcast on the ABC in November of that year. The series covered Keating's early life, his entry into Parliament, his years as treasurer and prime minister, and canvassing his academic, musical and artistic interests, economic and cultural vision for Australia, and commitment to Australia's integration into Asia. O'Brien used these conversations as the basis for a 2014 book Keating: The Interviews. Keating repeatedly declared he would not write a memoir, so his cooperation with O'Brien was perceived as the closest he would come to producing an autobiography.
In 2016, Troy Bramston, a journalist for The Australian and a political historian, wrote an unauthorised biography that Keating cooperated with titled Paul Keating: The Big-Picture Leader. Bramston was given full access to Keating's personal papers, was granted a series of interviews with Keating and also interviewed more than 100 other people. It was described as the "authoritative" and "definitive" Keating biography written by a "first class" political historian.
During the 2015 New South Wales state election, Keating gave his support for the privatisation agenda of the Liberal government and slammed the Labor Party for its anti-privatisation position.
In 2019, during campaigning for that year's federal election, Keating spoke out against the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation by calling them "nutters". His remarks attracted media criticism, and Labor leader Bill Shorten distanced himself from Keating's views. Keating later issued a joint statement with Bob Hawke endorsing Labor's economic plan as part of the election campaign, and condemning the Liberal Party for "completely [giving] up the economic reform agenda". They stated that "Shorten's Labor is the only party of government focused on the need to modernise the economy to deal with the major challenge of our time: human induced climate change"; it was the first joint press statement released by the two since 1991. After Hawke's death in the same month, Keating gave an address at Hawke's state memorial service at Sydney Opera House on 14 June, where he reflected on the "great friendship and partnership" the two had enjoyed.
In September 2021, following the announcement of the AUKUS trilateral military alliance between the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, Keating criticised the alliance, saying that "Australia turns its back on the 21st century, the century of Asia, for the jaded and faded Anglosphere" and the deal would be "locking the country and its military forces into the force structure of the United States by acquiring US submarines". Keating went on to criticise Labor's opposition foreign affairs spokesperson Penny Wong, accusing the Labor opposition of being complicit with the Liberal government in "false representation of China's foreign policy". His comments were criticised by Labor MPs Anthony Byrne and Peter Khalil.
In January 2022, Keating accused British foreign secretary Liz Truss of making "demented" comments about Chinese military aggression in the Pacific, saying that "Britain suffers delusions of grandeur and relevance deprivation." In 2023, Keating went on to call the AUKUS pact "the worst deal in all history" and lambasting the Labor government for being "incompetent" and stating that the decision was the worst by a Labor government since Billy Hughes attempted to introduce conscription during World War I.
In 2024, Keating criticized AUKUS, claimed Taiwan is "Chinese real estate", and that Taiwan is comparable to Tasmania. In December 2024, Keating sold his shareholding in Boost Mobile for $40 million, having co-founded the business in 2000 with an investment of $500,000.
