Bob Hawke: Scott Morrison, Anthony Albanese lead condolence motion
It was the day Bob Hawke ruled Canberra again, as the new parliament honoured a dearly-departed PM.
Scott Morrison has opened parliament paying tribute to former prime minister Bob Hawke, who died on May 16 aged 89.
It began a flood of sentiment: the bulk of the day was spent on condolences to Hawke, with regular parliamentary business suspended to pay tribute to the man dubbed “the people’s prime minister”.
The accolades cut across party lines and protocol in a rare display of unity, with no shortage of laughs and fond anecdotes as they lauded Hawke’s leadership, political nous and love of his country.
Hawke’s ‘great romance’ with the people: PM
The PM said Hawke had a “great romance” with the Australian people.
“They knew each other … They forgave each other. They understood each other’s virtues and they identified with each other’s weaknesses. In Bob Hawke’s own words, it was a love affair, and indeed, it was,” Mr Morrison said.
He paid tribute to Hawke’s economic reforms and for establishing Medicare: strongly opposed by the Coalition at the time.
“Social reforms that became embedded in our national life. And now, in so many cases, enjoyed bipartisan support that was not present when they were initiated. The Medicare card we all carry in our pockets is a reminder of his great contribution,” Mr Morrison said.
He said Hawke was “Labor’s greatest prime minister”.
In a lighthearted moment, Morrison noted Hawke was only opposition leader for 36 days, after defeating Bill Hayden the day the 1983 election was called.
“In a coincidence, the current Leader of the Opposition equals that record tomorrow,” he said.
Opposition leader Anthony Albanese asked: “Does this mean you are going to call it?”
Morrison said Hawke was visceral as well as intellectual.
“But he had a capacity to feel, to not disguise or hide his emotions. He shed tears at times. He rose to anger. He expressed joy,” he says.
Mr Morrison announced the government will provide $5 million to the Sir John Monash Foundation to create an annual scholarship, called the Bob Hawke John Monash Scholar.
Australia’s ‘leader and cheerleader’: Albanese
Anthony Albanese met Bob Hawke when he was president of Young Labor, and the former PM became one of his mentors — despite Young Labor and Hawke not always seeing eye-to-eye.
Hawke was Australia’s “leader and cheerleader,” he said.
“All this energy was channelled into making life better for his fellow Australians,” he said.
“He was ahead of us, calling us on, and yet, somehow, he was also walking alongside us, and for good measure, giving us an encouraging push from behind.
“Bob was hardly a stranger to ambition, but his ambition embraced the rest of us. He knew we were capable of better, and he knew we could do it together.”
Hawke was blessed with a talented frontbench that did not take Gough Whitlam’s “crash or crash through” approach, he said: “Bob, Paul Keating his Treasurer, and their team, had a clear and urgent agenda to rescue Australia. They knew how to implement it, and how to sell it. Their energy was coupled with pragmatism.”
He said Hawke revolutionised eduction and healthcare in Australia, and helped fight against South Africa’s apartheid racism.
Mandela moment
“When Nelson Mandela arrived in Canberra, he said, ‘I want you to know, Bob, that I am here in Canberra at this time because of you’,” Albanese said.
“Fighting that was just one example of Bob’s loathing for racism. He knew the strength in laying in unity, and he was always ready to fight those who sought to divide.”
Hawke “transformed Labor so that Labor could transform the nation”, Albanese said.
“He took on internal fights and won them so that he could lead the nation.
“He was Australian Labor’s greatest leader with four successive victories which consolidated the reforms like Medicare and superannuation, so that they couldn’t just be wound back easily.”
‘My hero, my friend’: Shorten
In his first public speech since leading Labor to a surprise election loss, Bill Shorten said Hawke rose above “low rent, low risk” politics and brought the nation together through his “unique connection with the Australian people”.
Hawke’s consensus approach attracted Shorten into politics.
“Consensus is what attracted me to join the Labor Party, consensus is what Hawke and Keating and Kelty and those marvellous Labor leaders of those generation delivered,” Mr Shorten said.
“Consensus was never the low rent, low risk pursuit of the lowest common denominator.
“Bringing our nation together did not mean presenting people with a set of soft options, or leading people down the lazy path of least resistance.
“Bob had a genuine and unique connection with the Australian people. He deployed it in the service of something bigger, in the service of our country.”
A strawberry milkshake and a cigar
Mr Shorten recalled the last time he saw Hawke before his death.
The former PM sat on his balcony with a crossword, a strawberry milkshake and a cigar.
“The sun was on his face. He was at ease with himself,” Shorten said.
“He wanted to talk about everything else, not himself. He knew what he meant to Australia. He knew what he achieved for his country.
“It is among the great privileges in my life that not only did I get to meet my hero, I had the honour to have him as my friend.”
Hawke and Keating broke bread: Butler
Opposition climate change spokesman Mark Butler was overjoyed in his last meeting with Bob Hawke over summer, when he was told the former prime minister had “broken bread” with his successor Paul Keating.
“He put his hand on my forearm and said, Paul and I made up,” Mr Butler said.
“It was such an important thing for our party that he and Paul had broken bread.”
He said Mr Hawke was the most generous mentor in the Labor movement: “Bob always treated us as equals. He (encouraged) us to be more ambitious and progressive and brave.”
Mr Butler said Mr Hawke had the best record of any prime minister of environmental issues, and was passionate about action on climate change.
Plibersek fights tears for ‘comrade’
Opposition eduction spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek fought tears as she voiced her appreciation for Bob Hawke treating her as a “comrade” when she was a young woman.
“That meant so much to me, to be treated as a comrade,” she said.
“I went to see him for the last time at his home just before the election campaign, and he was tired. He really was. Very tired. But he was still full of insight into the campaign, into political issues that we face today.
“(He) became PM when the country was bedevilled with stagflation, a moribund economy.
“He was the consummate conciliator … who healed the wounds of our party and our nation.”
As a university student, Plibersek campaigned against HECS. Now she recognises it provided opportunity for more students to enrol in tertiary education.
Hawke knew eduction could transform peoples lives, she said.
“If you are one of those people, particularly form a working class family, and you have your university degree on a wall, you have to remember that that too is the legacy of the Hawke government.”
She says Hawke showed no interest in “rewriting history” in talking about his legacy.
“I caught up with Bob quite a bit in the later years of his life,” she says.
“He didn’t feel the need to reel off his successes. He was very comfortable with his legacy … and he didn’t feel the need to remind people of it.”
Hawke, Frydenberg and a punt on a portrait
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg shared an anecdote about how he helped ensure Hawke’s portrait was hung at Oxford University, where the former PM completed a Rhodes scholarship.
Studying at the university, Frydenberg noticed Hawke’s portrait was absent — unlike other world leaders who were alumni.
Back in Australia, he contacted Hawke, saying he’d like to see Hawke’s portrait hung at University College in Oxford.
Hawke agreed to sit for a portrait, but the Treasurer was left wondering who was going to pay for it.
“The bill came and it was quite a significant amount of money,” Frydenberg said.
An opportunity came when a horse Hawke owned with John Singleton had a win.
“The next morning, I called Bob Hawke and said ‘is there any chance your friends can tip some money into it?’ He said ‘I’ll see what I can do’,” Frydenberg said.
Without giving much further detail on who footed the bill, Frydenberg says, the portrait now hangs in the prestigious university.
Hawke ‘architect of modern Australia’: Marles
Deputy Labor leader Richard Marles labelled Hawke the “architect of modern Australia”, who matched idealism with “pragmatism and smarts”.
“He embraced his union roots but he reached out to the whole of Australia, reaching out to people who didn’t vote for them,” Marles said.
Marles was “starstruck” when he first met Hawke in 2000, as assistant secretary of the ACTU.
“Bob put us all at ease straight away. Before long we were hanging on his every word,” Marles says.
“Australia without Bob feels a little less bright. Feels a little less colourful.”
The ‘eternal optimist’: Wong
Every time Labor’s Senate leader Penny Wong met Bob he was “optimistic, ebullient and telling me what to do,” she said.
He gave her an anecdote for the ages when, after the 2013 loss, she went to see him in his office.
“He said ‘how are you love?’, and I said ‘Oh, you know, it’s pretty hard being in opposition’,” Wong said.
“He said ‘oh well I wouldn’t know’.”
“Not much more to say really.
“Bob Hawke’s ability to lead, his vision, his values, saw him dominate the Australian political stage for two decades,” she said, of a man whose “contribution to public life and his deep connection with the Australian people lasted a lifetime”.
Bob at his best: McCormack
Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack remembers being at the SCG “not that long ago” when Bob Hawke skolled a beer. “The crowd just went off, they rose as one,” McCormack says. “Even when he was prime minister he received that sort of adulation.”
He says Hawke was “at his best” for Australia when arguing against US agricultural subsidies to former president Ronald Reagan.
Australia’s ‘great reformer’: Bowen
Opposition health spokesman Chris Bowen said Hawke was Australia’s “great reformer”.
“He did not see his personal popularity as something that should be left in a cupboard. He used that popularity to lead the most reformist government in Australian history,” Bowen said.
“Much of it looks easy in hindsight, inevitable. But of course it was not the case. It was hard.
He said Paul Keating recognised the “innate power” of the Hawke-Keating partnership: “That they could only do what they did together”.
“Bob Hawke has been rightly noted and lauded by the Prime Minister and others on the other side as one of Australia’s greatest prime ministers. He was a remarkable man, a remarkable politician,” Bowen said.
The Hawke-Keating factor: Andrews
Liberal MP Kevin Andrews remembers entering parliament a few months before Hawke was rolled by Paul Keating.
“It was indeed the leadership of Mr Hawke and his treasurer Mr Keating that lead to remarkable changes in the economy,” Mr Andrews says.
“That cabinet was by modern standards a small cabinet but it was a talented cabinet and did some great things.”
