Labor, Boris Johnson ("that fool"), the Canberra press gallery ("the question is so dumb it is hardly worth an answer"), ASIS ("ning nongs"), ASPI ("pro-American cell"), Marise Payne ("great non-minister of our times"), Joe Biden ("can hardly keep put three coherent sentences together") all copped some sort of verbal pasting.

But, in his second National Press Club appearance in 27 years, the former PM saved his acid for the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Defence Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong, calling the ministers "seriously unwise".

"Running around the Pacific Islands with a lei around your neck handing out money, which is what Penny does, is not foreign policy," Mr Keating shot at Senator Wong while stating the military has taken over Australia's foreign policy.

And for Mr Albanese? He is, for Mr Keating, "accommodating", surrounded by a "neo-con bureaucracy" and acting "unwisely". He questioned his competence.

"He screwed into place the last shackle in the long chain, which the Americans have laid out to contain China," he said. "We are now part of a containment policy against China."

The two men, according to the elder, are not currently speaking to each other. Hence the need for the Press Club event.

He also ripped into particular journalists, but more on that later.

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Never a fan of the AUKUS deal, he is now in full pelt criticising it as "irrational in every dimension" and Labor's "worst international decision" unveiled at a "Kabuki show" in San Diego.

He believes it laughable China is a threat to Australia as the prime provider of its iron ore, coal and wheat. And why is that? "Because I have a brain," he grizzled into the TV feed.

The $368 billion (at least) deal, where he notes only Australia is paying, puts Australia "deep in the doo doo" and "sucked into the American control system" with our interests "subsumed by those of our allies".

"I want my name clearly recorded among those who say it is a mistake," he wrote in a 9-page scene setting statement.

He clearly has had a dramatic falling out with the Sydney Morning Herald and its political editor Peter Hartcher for hawkish China coverage, but unloaded on colleague Matthew Knott as he was in attendance.

"If I were you, I'd hide my face and never appear again," he said, while ignoring the question about China's treatment of Uyghurs.

Other questions were regarded as silly, dumb or without contextualisation.

Former prime ministers always get a certain licence in the public sphere and he claims a majority of Labor people share his view.

Paul Keating was being Paul Keating. He had something to say, but the withering show likely diluted his message. It is not nothing that he is pushing against his own party and people, but where did the blows land?

The trigger was pulled 18 months ago. Australia is on the AUKUS path.