Serial mouth opening Former Prime Minister Paul Keating made a superb move in the media this week, banging on again about his four pillars policy in an attempt to move media heat away from his Hungry Mile redevelopment opposition, and it worked a treat.

Keating headlines are now directly re-focused back on the finance sector, telling ABC’s The World Today program he wouldn’t have allowed St. George to be taken over by Westpac if he was Treasurer, citing anti-competitive behaviour that the banks will simply put margins up.

Well Keating is not the Treasurer, and the Westpac take over of St George is not anti-competitive.

This is why.

Sure, St. George is no longer an independent bank, but it still remains a functioning alternate banking brand, with a different product structure to the big four banks, and with now the added bonus of being owned by a AA rated bank, of which there are only nine in the world.

St. George therefore new has the backing and support of one of the strongest banks in world, allowing access to lower priced wholesale funding, which reflects in more competitive product pricing.

Then the flip side, Westpac after consuming St George has a market capitalisation of $73 billion, roughly in line with the Commonwealth Bank ($74 billion), National Australia Bank ($62 million) and Australia and New Zealand Bank with $58 billion.

Westpac paid $12 billion for St George, so from a bank value St George was never going to be a major competitor to the big four banks, especially considering more than half of all the banks residential lending was domiciled in New South Wales, reflecting a weak national reach.

So the Keating comments on the four pillars policy are old and regurgitated, moving the attention from the Hungry Mile development while he buys time to consider if the strong opposition was really the best angle.

And if anybody doubted the self promotion of Keating, here’s the deal clincher.

Former US President Bill Clinton this week praised Australia’s current PM Kevin Rudd saying he was one of the world’s smartest leaders.

Not to be outdone Keating told The World Today Clinton can pick a top notch leader when he sees one, saying Clinton has an eye for quality, adding, “He used to think that about me at the time”.

More headlines no doubt.