In April 1992, the Iranian embassy in Canberra came under violent attack.
Political protesters set rooms alight, shattered the windows of a car parked inside the front gates and attacked a staff member with a screwdriver.
Australian taxpayers paid almost $500,000 in compensation for damaged furniture, stolen goods and injuries to embassy staff.
Cabinet papers now released by the National Archives show, while the government followed global practice in paying the bill, it also felt payment was necessary to stem criticism over its failure to provide diplomatic protection.
Soon after the attack, an embassy official named Ali Bourgeh yelled from the front of the building that federal police had ignored the embassy's warnings.
"The federal police of Australia is responsible for whatever happened here because they were notified at least seven hours before that we were going to be attacked possibly."
The National Archives has released the papers linked to the incident, marking the new year.
They show Cabinet also discussed concerns about the Iranian ambassador's attempt to claim more than $1.7 million for injuries and stress to staff.
It was noted the embassy had cooperated to a limited extent to provide exact details.
Six months later, ministers agreed to deny visas to Iranian diplomats if they were suspected of infringing on national security.
The man who filmed the embassy attack was SBS cameraman Mick O'Brien.
He remembers it all too well.
"I raced inside, all hell had broken loose. It was noisy, it was chaotic it was pretty nerve-wracking, and the hearts were racing I can tell you."
The early '90s marked the beginning of Paul Keating's prime ministership, after a leadership tussle with Bob Hawke.
He made his mark early on with his colourful language in the chamber.
(Speaker) "Order! Order! The Member for Higgins!"
(Keating) "The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly." (jeering) "I want to do you slowly."
Despite the humour, the Keating government was dealing with the repercussions of a recession Mr Keating famously said Australia had to have.
The budget deficit surpassed $15 billion and unemployment spiked at more than 11 per cent - the highest rate since the Great Depression.
Australian National University historian Nicholas Brown says economic concerns framed many of the decisions at the time.
"Cabinet is told repeatedly it's not working but also the fact that it's not working is making it so much harder for us to fund the promises that we've made, so that's where the issue of the deferred tax cuts, the ramping up of taxation on cigarettes, tobacco, unleaded fuel and so on. All of this becomes part of that awkward message that the Keating government is having to preach saying we're not going to go down the Liberals' route of putting a GST on everything but equally we're kind of having to impose taxes on basic kind of consumables."
On the other side of the world, the country known at that time as Yugoslavia was being torn apart.
Australia opened its doors to Balkan refugees who became the country's fourth-largest ethnic group.
The cabinet was warned the size of the community made for a fragile situation given the possibility some could carry the effects of war with them.
But it was in Indigenous affairs, according to one former senior government minister, that really firmed up Paul Keating's place in history - in particular, his response to the High Court's Mabo decision.
He made this address to the nation on the 15th of November in 1993.
"The court's decision was unquestionably just. It rejected a lie and acknowledged the truth. The lie was terra nullius, the convenient fiction that Australia had been a land of no one; the truth was native title."
The Indigenous Affairs Minister at the time was Robert Tickner.
He says the Prime Minister's leadership never wavered.
"There was really only one shot at this. You know, history would have absolutely condemned us if we had come up with a tawdry, half baked and unworkable outcome, and as Paul Keating has said himself the cabinet did in 18 months what sometimes would take a decade in other countries to achieve."
In May, Australia marks 50 years since the 1967 referendum which allowed Indigenous Australians to be included in the national census.
Mr Tickner's calling on Malcolm Turnbull to use this year's anniversary as a platform for further change.
He says it's a job only a Prime Minister can do.
"If you want to really drive change, let me tell you no Aboriginal Affairs Minister - whether it's Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela or me - no-one can change the rules, it's got to be driven as a national leadership issue, as a national priority."
