d’Alpuget’s peace pact with Hawke’s children fragile to the end

The difficult peace pact between Blanche d’Alpuget and Bob Hawke’s eldest daughter Sue Pieters-Hawke was showing signs of fatigue at the former prime minister’s state memorial on Friday.

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A difficult peace pact between Blanche d’Alpuget and Bob Hawke’s eldest child Sue Pieters-Hawke was showing signs of fatigue on Friday as Pieters-Hawke reached for her stepmother at her father’s state memorial service at the Opera House — and received what looked to be a frosty reception.

Stepping down from the stage at the concert hall after paying tribute to her father, Pieters-Hawke —
the only one of the former prime minister’s three surviving children with first wife Hazel to speak at the service — kissed Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who was seated in the front row of the congregation, before extending a warm hand to the dignitaries seated to his right as she made her way back to her own front-row seat.

Coming to her stepmother, who at 75 is just 13 years older than Pieters-Hawke, a seated d’Alpuget offered no response and no hand to her advancing stepdaughter, leaving Pieters-Hawke to reach awkwardly for d’Alpuget’s knee, which she furnished with a pat.

As television cameras capturing the encounter showed, d’Alpuget had no smile of acknowledgment for her stepdaughter — her face remaining fixed, apparently unmoved by the affectionate gesture.

Blanche d'Alpuget at the State Memorial service for her husband, former prime minister Bob Hawke, on Friday. Picture: AAP

Moments earlier, Pieters-Hawke referenced her stepmother — albeit briefly — in her speech, telling the congregation her father had “ died peacefully, with Blanche holding him” on May 16.

The nod was interpreted by some as a gesture of solidarity towards the woman who unpopularly became Hawke’s second wife in 1995, some 20 years after Hawke first began his on-again, off-again extramarital affair with the perennially glamorous — and apparently ageless — writer.

In a television interview in 2014, the year after Hazel’s death,
Hawke confirmed the nation’s suspicions that there had long been family tensions between d’Alpuget and his sometimes rebellious children from his first marriage.

As he told ABC’s Australian Story, his three children “weren’t as nice” to their new stepmother as they could have been.

Bob Hawke shares a laugh with his first wife Hazel Hawke on election day in 1990. Picture: Colin Bull

“The kids weren’t happy about the fact that I divorced and married Blanche. And they
weren’t as nice to Blanche as they could and should have been,” Hawke said.

D’Alpuget said: “They didn’t want me as part of the family and they actually put that in writing.”

Hawke’s youngest daughter, Rosslyn Dillon, told Australian Story: “I think I said something to Blanche along the lines of, ‘oh well, if you’re still around in 10 years we’ll see if we can sit down and have a chat then’.”

Dillon, seated at the far end of the front row during Friday’s service, told her 2014 interviewer relations with her stepmother improved after Hazel’s death.

For her part, Pieters-Hawke, conceded: “Blanche has been a fabulous grand-stepmother to my children and a wonderful stepmother.”

The television interview followed an ugly airport altercation between d’Alpuget and Pieters-Hawke in 2011 that was attended by police.

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Pieters-Hawke confirmed she called police to Brisbane Airport after encountering her stepmother by chance in the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge.

She denied a newspaper report that stated the two women had to be physically separated after arguing — saying she had not touched d’Alpuget and would not be pursuing
the matter.

Bob Hawke later disputed a report his wife became hostile when his daughter approached her in the lounge.

Sue Pieters-Hawke with her mother Hazel.

Sources claimed d’Alpuget was distressed at the time to learn her stepdaughter was writing Hazel Hawke’s biography — partly to correct d’Alpuget’s version of events on the breakup of her parent’s marriage as documented in her 2010 Hawke biography, Hawke: The Prime Minister.

As it happened, Pieters-Hawke wasn’t the only one to take exception to d’Alpuget’s book. Former prime minister Paul Keating also aired his objections to d’Alpuget’s account of his role in Hawke’s government, writing to The Australian newspaper to say he would be seeking to set the record straight.

In her speech at Friday’s memorial service, d’Alpuget didn’t miss Pieters-Hawke in her thankyous.

“(Thanks to) … Ms Sue Pieters-Hawke, Bob’s daughter, his eldest child,” she said, without embellishment.

The gussy gilding she saved for other speakers — among them the “wonderful” Bill Kelty, former ACTU leader; the “great” Ross Garnaut, economics professor; and the “magnificent” Paul Keating.

Still, “Bob’s daughter, his eldest child” should consider herself lucky.

Hawke’s two younger children, Stephen and Dillon, both present, received no acknowledgment from d’Alpuget at all.

With Hawke’s multimillion-dollar estate — which sources estimate could be worth close to $20 million — yet to be settled, the days of d’Alpuget and her stepchildren playing nice are expected to soon be a thing of
the past.