On a September 1985 report saying Mr Hawke was concerned about the likely political impact of Mr Keating's planned tax crackdown and that the prime minister wanted to water it down, Mr Keating has written: "The envious little bastard did everything to destroy it."
Mr Keating scanned 10,000 pages of news-clippings he had compiled since 1977 and gave them to the National Archives 10 years ago, but their existence has only just been revealed.
The clippings, complete with references to Mr Hawke scarred by the former treasurer's literary lash, are released today along with extensive cabinet records from 1984 and 1985.
Mr Hawke told The Australian in an interview that Mr Keating's "envious little bastard" comment was "just absolute bullshit and totally wrong" and said he felt "sorry for the poor bugger".
Mr Keating, in turn, told The Australian Mr Hawke appeared to lose interest in tax reform after the tax summit in early 1985.
"Bob and I shared many of the same instincts in reform, but when he went into the big attenuated mental fog after the tax summit, he wanted to walk away from the whole tax reform process," the former treasurer said.
Mr Keating, a lifelong reader of newspapers, made frequent notes in the margins of stories he agreed with or disagreed with strongly.
In October 1984, political columnist Laurie Oakes noted that some in Labor were asking why the government was being forced to deal with specific taxation questions during the election campaign.
Mr Keating noted across the story: "Because Bob is all over the shop."
On a report about Mr Hawke travelling abroad, Mr Keating has written: "Hawke went to Papua New Guinea leaving me to get the tax package not just through cabinet, but the full ministry (of all things) . . . this was a Hawke tactic set up to see the package fail. After the tax summit he completely lost interest in tax reform."
On a September 1985 story saying a poll indicated that most people supported Labor's tax changes, Mr Keating circled the key sentence and wrote in capitals: "No thanks to Hawke."
In an apparent endorsement, the former treasurer heavily marked a paragraph saying: "Mr Keating believes the substantial tax cuts the government could implement through a radical shift to an indirect tax base would be an electoral coup, yet Mr Hawke's advisers, Mr Peter Barron and Mr Bob Hogg, consider it a potential disaster."
He just as heavily underlined a story by Paul Kelly on the front page of The Australian on August 14, 1985, which said: "The sham of the great tax summit of July was exposed in full measure yesterday when the Treasurer, Mr Keating, publicly buried the compromise tax package negotiated by the Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, at the summit."
A clipping from September 1985 cited the then resources minister Gareth Evans criticising what appeared to be efforts by Mr Hawke to slow decision-making on tax reform.
"At one stage there was a sharp exchange between Mr Hawke and the resources minister, Senator Evans, who complained about the slow pace at which the meeting was progressing," the story read.
"Senator Evans, a factional ally of Mr Hawke, was worried that the real purpose behind his deliberations was to ensure that no tax package was ever finalised."
The report suggested that slowing the process down could see the planned tax crackdown substantially softened "and the Hawke tactics reflected concern that the political backlash generated by the tax reforms would be too damaging for the government". That's where Mr Keating added his "envious little bastard" comment.
Mr Keating explained in his interview that he believed Mr Hawke set him up with a cabinet sub-committee that he thought would not let his tax plan through.
"When I got it through, he decided I had to get it through the full ministry, winning the support of avowed leftists for measures such as lowering the top rate of marginal tax and introducing dividend imputation," Mr Keating said.
"It was like a hurdle race at Ascot where the horses keep having to jump higher."
Mr Hawke told The Australian he had no regrets about tax reform and paid "genuine tribute" to Mr Keating for producing " a very significant reform package".
"I just feel sorry for the poor bugger. I paid tribute to him and what he did," the former prime minister said.
"If he feels it necessary for some reason to go on like that, poor bugger, I genuinely feel sorry for him. I am about paying tribute to Paul for the good things that he did, I'm not here to knock him."
Mr Hawke said he had no regrets about not pursuing a consumption tax. "We all had concern about the inequity of the nature of this consumption tax," Mr Hawke said. "We were not satisfied that we would get a sufficiently fair compensatory package to make up for the inequitable impact of the tax itself.
"Paul was very much committed to it. I said to him that he could have every opportunity to develop it and so on. But it became clear to me before the end of the conference that it wasn't a political goer and I told him."
In a report on Mr Hawke's decision to opt for an election campaign lasting nearly two months in 1984, Mr Keating underlined a sentence questioning the prime minister's "unconventional choice of a long campaign, against advice" and another saying the government, which started well in front, should have opted for a "short, sharp campaign".
Mr Keating also underlined an Oakes comment that Mr Hawke appeared to believe his personal popularity was so formidable a political weapon that it appeared to turn strategic conventions on their head.
Headlines referring to the Treasurer as a headkicker and post-budget cartoons of him as the grim reaper complete with scythe did not elicit a remark.
But Mr Keating ticked a paragraph in an editorial that observed that his tax package would bring enormous changes to Australian share markets and he added three affirmative ticks to a paragraph that recognised that he had at one stroke reinstated the share markets as the main raisers of capital and spectacularly altered the traditional notion that capital gains must be the main source of profits.
In March 1985, Mr Keating was exercised over a report saying that he had told friends in the NSW Right of the ALP that the tax system was in a critical mess. He underlined a sentence saying that while Mr Hawke was a long way from jettisoning the treasurer, he was "covering his flanks".
Next to a line saying Mr Hawke had been right beside Mr Keating, the treasurer added a question mark. He made a long note across the bottom of the page and added: "This story was probably leaked by Hogg", a likely reference to then Hawke adviser Bob Hogg.
There were other tensions in cabinet and Mr Keating was clearly not hitting it off with finance minister Peter Walsh. Under a story in May 1985 about the emergence of an alternative policy to his indirect tax tradeoff, Mr Keating has added: "This story is a direct Walsh leak."
Additional reporting: David Uren
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