Annita van Iersel

Born in Oisterwijk, North Brabant, Netherlands, she studied languages in Paris and London. She worked at KLM and Alitalia as a flight attendant.

While working with Alitalia, she met Paul Keating, then an aspiring young politician.[1] They married on 17 January 1975. Her parents later joined her in Australia.

While her husband was prime minister (from 1991 to 1996),[2] their four children[2] spent part of their teenage years at The Lodge, the prime minister's official residence in Canberra. Annita was well travelled, and this, along with her knowledge of five languages, proved a valuable diplomatic asset, especially in support of Sydney's bid for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.[3]

In 1998, Annita and Paul Keating separated. That same year she enrolled in a Master of Fine Arts course, majoring in photography, at the Australian National School of Arts in Darlinghurst, Sydney. She graduated in 2001. In March 2008 she was scheduled to exhibit a series of paintings – oils on Belgian linen – that she created in her studio on the Hawkesbury River.[4]

They did not formally divorce until 2008, though she had resumed her maiden name of van Iersel long before then.[5] Annita revealed some years after the event, in an interview with her by The Bulletin, that Keating had broken off the relationship, not she, and had done it at a dinner party with friends.[6]