SYDNEY—No-one could accuse Malcolm Turnbull of picking soft targets.
Taking on a political pugilist like Paul Keating is one thing.
Scrapping on one of Mr Keating's preferred battlegrounds - foreign policy - is another.
Squaring off in a three-way public debate with Chris Patten, the former British Conservative Party chairman and Hong Kong Governor whose ferocious intellect and broad background is more than a match for both Australians, is yet another.
But Turnbull had the ambition, self-belief, arrogance, call it what you will, to do just that.
The occasion was a panel debate on world affairs organised by the Oxford University old boys' network, and what a fetching study in contrasts it made.
Mr Keating, the former prime minister, sat alongside Mr Turnbull, who seeks that office with a burning desire.
Through Australian eyes, it was the self-made Labor man who left school at 14 up against the Liberal Rhodes scholar, the working class Bankstown boy against the member for Wentworth, one of Australia's wealthiest electorates.
Mr Keating, as a visiting professor at NSW Uni, once derided the so-called sandstone universities.
Mr Turnbull attended the very institution that organised Friday night's soiree in Sydney - and they don't come any more sandstone than Oxford.
Perhaps it was just as well the debate was marked by friendly banter rather than overtly aggressive point-scoring.
It was a convivial discourse over dinner and a glass of red, although two political warriors like these could hardly sit side by side all night without a touch of argy-bargy.
Mr Keating chastised Mr Turnbull at one stage for breaking a fundamental rule of public life - "thinking aloud in public" about the deposit base of people's savings.
It was a reference to Mr Turnbull's call for a $100,000 cap on the Rudd Government's guarantee on savings.
But when moderator Tony Jones asked Mr Turnbull if he had started a run on the banks, the Liberal leader replied: "I no more started a run on the banks than Paul saved everyone here from selling pencils in Martin Place."
When Mr Turnbull pointed to the growth of wages under John Howard's Government. Mr Keating interjected: "It was my wages policy."
Mr Turnbull countered: "Far be it from me to contradict the great man on the right. Someone has to take credit for everything, I suppose."
Later Mr Keating observed: "Malcolm could talk under wet cement."
Mr Turnbull replied: "I've got an endorsement from Paul."
Mr Turnbull could easily have looked lightweight in a debate that ranged over Barack Obama's US presidential victory, the power shift from west to east, climate change and the global financial crisis.
He has solid credentials on money matters, having made more of the stuff as a merchant banker and businessman than anyone else in the parliament.
But foreign policy? Global affairs? New presidents? The world stage?
Mr Keating has been there, done that, signed the treaties, talked with presidents, walked the walk, seen the vision splendid of Australia's future security within Asia, and tried to haul his country along with him.
Mr Turnbull, who wants his chance, acted more like a politician than the other two, which of course is what he does these days.
He couldn't resist a couple of digs at Kevin Rudd, or a ramble through his own business experiences in China.
"China has had 3,000 years of sophisticated civilisation,"he said.
"How long has America had? Think about it."
Lord Patten said it should come as no surprise that China might soon have the world's largest economy, because that's what it had for 18 of the past 20 centuries.
Mr Keating said Australia stood to profit from being near the "big pot of gold in Asia".
"We happen to be near the world's fastest growing region for the first time in our history," he said.
Mr Keating called for a new world structure, saying: "You can't go on with a G7 or G8 world where you invite the Chinese, Indians and Brazilians in for a cup of coffee afterwards."
He said president-elect Obama had arrived in the "nick of time" to hopefully develop global agreement on climate change and the world financial crisis.
"One of the great questions for Obama is this: Is China an economic competitor that has to be strategically watched or is China a force for stability in the world?" asked Mr Keating.
"I'm in the latter category - if he is too, we'll end up with a better world, a more representative one."
Mr Turnbull, as a comparative novice, was no doubt watching and learning as Mr Keating showed two glimpses in particular of his old political form.
One was a moment of keen perception as he dissected Republican John McCain's failed US presidential bid.
"McCain's best speech was his concession speech," said Mr Keating.
"It showed him probably as he really is.
"Why was it so good? Because it showed that fundamentally he never truly believed he should be in charge."
"If you've got a choice between in charge and not in charge, always take in charge."
Mr Keating also had fun savaging bankers as a "particularly modest form of financial life", though he graciously turned to Mr Turnbull and said: "Investment bankers are more clever."
But when one member of the audience prefaced a question with the remark: "I am a banker, and we are probably as popular as politicians right now", Mr Keating shot back: "Cut it out, you're not that popular."
It was vintage Keating.
