Larrikin leader
Bob Hawke 1929-2019
Bob Hawke, the former Prime Minister of Australia, who has died aged 89, fought his way up the beer-and-smoke ladder of Australian union politics to the top of his country’s Labor Party, then drank, bragged, bullied and charmed his way into the affections of the Australian people, who elected his party into office an unprecedented four times.
If there was a political leader who embodied the stereotypes most commonly associated with his nation, then Hawke was that leader. His harsh nasal voice, clear, challenging gaze, salty vocabulary and penchant for folksy metaphors (he described an old-style trade union leader as “preparing to deposit his lead in the saddlebag” of the party, and on another occasion observed that it was “time for the parliamentary party to fish or cut bait”) were all defiantly Australian.
So was his capacity for drink and his habit of getting into scrapes. When he was kicked out of office in 1991, he said he would like to be remembered as “a bloke who loved his country . . . the larrikin trade union leader who perhaps had sufficient commonsense and intelligence to tone down his larrikinism . . . but who in the end is essentially a dinky-di Australian”.
Most of all he personified Australian self-confidence — to an astonishing degree. In his memoirs, published in 1994, he single-handedly took the credit for almost everything his Government achieved and made breathtaking claims for his influence on the world stage. It was he, for example, who had led the way to the ending of apartheid in South Africa. When Nelson Mandela later visited him in Canberra, he allegedly told Hawke: “I want you to know, Bob, that I am here today because of you.”
Hawke even claimed to have taught the young Shane Warne (“a real beaut kid”) how to bowl. “National hero status,” he admitted, “is not the easiest thing to handle.”
The bluster may have been over the top, but it was forgivable, for Hawke was a formidably astute politician. He understood that political principle is pointless without power.
His self-confidence went with a propensity for tears. He wept on television confessing to his infidelities while he was with his long-suffering first wife Hazel, whom he left in 1995 for Blanche d’Alpuget, author of his authorised biography. The plight of his daughter Rosslyn, a heroin addict, also caused him to break down in front of the cameras. He broke down again embracing a refugee from the Tiananmen Square massacre.
But it was Hawke’s identification with his own country that ultimately proved his downfall. The economic crash of 1987 affected Australia badly; Hawke’s ebullient optimism began to grate and he found himself under pressure from his party treasurer, Paul Keating, for the leadership. Somehow Keating persuaded Hawke to promise that if Labor won in 1990, Hawke would make way for him. Hawke then ratted on the agreement, so in 1991 Keating forced an election and Hawke was voted out.
Hawke never forgave his rival and, in his memoirs, sought to settle the score by claiming that he (Hawke) had backed out of their deal in patriotic disgust after Keating had described Australia as “the arse-end of the world” and threatened to emigrate to Paris if he failed to become prime minister. It was an allegation that Keating hotly denied.
Robert James Lee Hawke was born on December 9, 1929, at Bordertown, South Australia, the younger of two sons of a congregational minister and his evangelical wife.
A precocious youngster, at the age of 3, accompanying his father to visit a bedridden parishioner, young Bob decided to jump up on to a stool and preach her a sermon.
The family moved to Perth, where Hawke’s mother Ellie coached him for a scholarship to Perth Modern School.
After winning the University of Western Australia prize for best thirdyear Law student, Hawke won a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford.
On his return to Australia in 1956, he became the advocate of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. By the age of 43 he had worked his way up through the blokeish world of Australian union politics to become leader of the ACTU and president of the Australian Labor Party.
Hawke entered the federal parliament in 1979. In 1983 the country’s Liberal Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, called a snap election and Hawke swept to power.