Wednesdays with Bob

by Derek Rielly

  ‘Well, I had a long relationship with the Australian people,’ says Hawke. ‘It went right back to the time when I was representing Australian workers in the court then as head of the ACTU. And I genuinely like people, you know. I like mixing with them and I was more at ease with people than Paul was.’

  How did Paul woo the press?

  ‘The press enjoyed Paul. He was fun in parliament. They got more fun out of him than they did out of most politicians.’

  In August ’88, you appeared on the ABC’s The 7.30 Report just after the budget and said, in a roundabout way, that Paul was good but, because of the depth of talent in your cabinet, he was replaceable. Was that a shot across the bow for Paul to pull his head in?

  ‘Aw… no… it was just sorta… it was just a statement of fact that… but, look, I’ve always publicly and privately acknowledged how good Paul was…’

  The afternoon following the appearance on The 7:30 Report, Keating saw Hawke in his office and told him, ‘The relationship is over, dead and buried,’ and, ‘When I decide to come at you, mate, I’ll take your head right off!’

  According to Keating now, ‘Had he not gone on the television set and said the day after the 1988 budget that he didn’t need me anymore, then the leadership would not have formally arisen in 1988 and there would have been no Kirribilli agreement… So Bob brought it on by this streak of jealousy he has in his nature… the budget of 1988 went so well he couldn’t contain himself. He had to say something mean.’

  Hawke is irritated. To question his intention, his honesty and ethics never goes well. In an earlier, more vital epoch, he would’ve let me have it:

  ‘It’s a ridiculous question and you know it’s ridiculous.’

  ‘You’re being a bloody pest.’

  Or, ‘I hope the standard of your questions improves.’

  Today it’s a mild lash, a light cane across the buttocks instead of the once-formidable cat-o’-nine-tails.

  ‘All these sorta questions suggest that I didn’t have respect for him,’ say Hawke. ‘I mean, he was a very considerable treasurer and parliamentarian! Very considerable.’

  Were you worried after your comments that the government would lose its prized treasurer and parliamentary performer?

  ‘Well, I was,’ says Hawke, who, upon the urging of his Minister for Social Security, Graham Richardson, followed up The 7.30 Report interview the next night with a conciliatory piece on Ray Martin’s A Current Affair, where he’d say, variously, ‘I want him there, because it’s very much in many respects a Hawke–Keating government’ and that Keating’s ambition to be leader was ‘totally legitimate’.

  And now: ‘It was unpleasant, but it passed,’ says Hawke.

  In November the same year, you pledged to hand over the prime ministerial levers to Keating when you met with him, Bill Kelty and Peter Abeles, at Kirribilli House, an agreement you subsequently reneged on. Did you genuinely believe you’d cede the leadership to Keating sometime after the 1990 election or were you buying time?

  ‘What?’ Hawke snaps.

  Were you genuine when you made the agreement?

  In Hawke: The Prime Minister Blanche wrote, ‘Hawke had called Keating’s bluff and won. He had a leg-rope on his treasurer and his treasurer’s supporters for two to three years.’ It was this sentence that drove Keating into a revisionist frenzy. In Paul Keating: The Big-Picture Leader he says, ‘Blanche gave the game away in her book. She said Bob was very happy with the Kirribilli agreement. Why wouldn’t he be?’

  ‘Yeah… ahhh… but I’ve quoted what Paul said to me in my office.’ (Keating told Hawke that if he didn’t get a run at the PM’s job, ‘We’ll be off to Europe. We won’t be staying here – this is the arse-end of the world.’) ‘I don’t want to go over it again because it’s not very pleasant…’

  So you really were going to hand over the keys after the next election?

  ‘Yeah, but until that time…’

  And you called Blanche that night…

  ‘Well, did I? Okay…’

  Was that because you had a sense that your time as prime minister was almost done and you’d soon have a new freedom?

  ‘No, no, I just wanted to talk to her…’

  Keating also says that he, and not you, drove the Madrid Protocol that kept the miners out of Antarctica. He said that when he met with French prime minister Michel Rocard in 1988 they reached a deal to make Antarctica an ‘environmentally protected zone’. He told Rocard he’d brief you when he got back to Australia. Did he?

  ‘Not that I recall.’ Hawke pauses. ‘Look, it’s recognised that Antarctica was me.’

  Hawke laughs at the absurdity of having to explain something so obvious.

  ‘One of the things about Paul is he did so many things for which he is responsible and did them so well and… [laughs]… he just had a tendency at times to claim a little bit more. But he didn’t need to. Because he’s one of the greatest members of parliament since Federation.’

  A few months later, I’ll contact Keating’s office to arrange an interview. A phone call to his assistant Susan Grusovin meets with an unenthusiastic response. The return email the following week is even less pumped.

  Keating, writes Grusovin, ‘has no interest in any conversations about your book. He took note of your reference to Antarctica and his meeting with Prime Minister Michel Rocard in 1988. He said you might be interested in some of the press reporting of the period in respect of Antarctica, which may not come your way from Bob Hawke’.

  The clippings from the Sunday Telegraph and the Financial Review are helpfully attached, with handwritten notes from Keating, in a PDF.

  In one, from the Financial Review, 5 May 1989, with the headline HAWKE WAVERS ON ANTARCTIC TREATY, ROSS Dunn reports: ‘The Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, yesterday voiced his strong opposition to mining in Antarctica –’ the next section is highlighted by Keating in yellow ‘– but refused to take a stand on the key issue which has deeply divided his Cabinet – whether to sign a new Antarctic Minerals Convention.’

  In another highlighted passage from the story:

  Mr Keating is wholly embracing environmental concerns in his efforts to prevent Australia signing an international minerals convention for Antarctica.

  At his urging, Federal Cabinet will soon consider supporting Antarctica becoming a world park, or at the very least declaring Australia’s territory a national park.

  Mr Keating has proposed investigating the world park concept in his latest attempts to convince the Federal Government not to sign an international convention…

  Hawke looks at me and pleads, ‘Do we have to have much more of Paul?’

  I tell Hawke that Bramston’s book demands some kind of response.

  ‘My point is,’ says Hawke, ‘I don’t want to be seen as knocking Paul. I don’t want to be seen as knocking Paul because I genuinely think he made a great contribution to Australia. Outstanding.’

  What was the point of not retiring or ceding the leadership to Keating when it became apparent you didn’t have the numbers? You called Col the night before and asked him to come up and stay with you. Did it seem absurd to you that the party would, for the first time in history, choose someone less popular?

  ‘Well, I wasn’t certain and I wasn’t just going to lie down. I owed it to my supporters,’ says Hawke.

  The ballot was close, 56–51. If Hawke supporters Gareth Evans and Con Sciacca hadn’t been out of town for the vote, two successful phone calls would’ve swayed it. Does Hawke ever reflect on the what-ifs?

  ‘That’s life,’ he says. ‘If your aunt had balls she’d be your uncle.’

  Your pal Col says the next six weeks, as you transitioned from prime minister to unemployed sixty-two-year-old man, were pretty rough. Blanche describes you as being in a bad way psychologically.

  ‘Awwww, I don’t think I was in a bad way psychologically. In one sense, disappointed. But in another sense, I’d had a great life, you know. A very constructive one, do
ne a lot, and it’s not a fair assessment to say I was in a bad way psychologically. I knew there’d be good days ahead.’

  Would it be accurate to say you feel a great affection, a love, for Keating?

  ‘I… I… I… you know… I… [long pause]… great respect,’ he says finally. ‘Great respect.’

  Sensing I’ve exhausted the issue, I move on.

  I raise a topic that’s been particularly controversial of late. Gay marriage. What are Hawke’s views?

  He throws his hands up to signal the stupidity of the question. ‘Obviously in favour of it!’ he says.

  Now for the lighter part of the interview, I say.

  Hawke brightens.

  Death!

  ‘Gah!’

  How would you like your funeral to proceed, who will speak and in what order?

  ‘Oh I haven’t thought about that in any detail,’ says Hawke. ‘Plenty of time for it.’

  What songs will be played?

  “‘Ode to Joy”, the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth. I love that.’

  Are you agnostic or an atheist?

  ‘Ah… agnostic with a slight question mark.’

  You’ve told Blanche that when death comes you’ll be like your dad, that you won’t be any trouble and that yours will be an easy death.

  Hawke becomes exasperated.

  ‘I just don’t think about dying! I’ve never been worried by death and I’m not now. I just don’t think about it! A lot of people do! I don’t!’

  Fair enough. Why should he rake over the bones of a working relationship that ended twenty-six years earlier or ponder the finer details of a state funeral, however fun that might be for the interviewer?

  Hawke sits in perpetual warmth on the terrace of a house that hangs off one of the most divine positions on Sydney Harbour, a house oriented to steal the sun’s every ray.

  ‘A good place to smoke a cigar,’ he says.

  It is the winter of an important man’s life. And although age gives no man an easy pass and Hawke carries all the accoutrements of ageing – the pacemaker, the uncooperative feet, a hearing aid, a beautifully ravaged face – he isn’t one to complain.

  He enjoys the deafness age has wrought upon him (‘The quiet! I’m so happy!’) and he has his daily, dementia-busting sudokus and cryptics to smash. He still commands media attention, China craves his business and political acumen, and every earthly want and whim has long been satisfied.

  More, he has the woman he fell in love with forty years ago, and married twenty years later, in his bed every night.

  And when your face is aimed at the autumn sun, there’s a cigar in your paw and a crossword to finish, all those old squabbles do seem irrelevant.

  ‘I couldn’t be happier,’ he says.

  He looks down. Smiles at something. Lost in memories? More like fortified by a good life.

  ‘You know the way out,’ he says.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  How unexpected life is. One minute I’m swinging an ambitious pitch at a cocktail party, the next the door to every significant figure in recent history is swung open.

  To John Howard, who didn’t walk out when I was forced to whisper the word ‘cunt’ in the context of a John Singleton quote, and to his assistants Sally Murphy and Ruth Gibson, thank you.

  To Gareth Evans, for your candour and delightful sprinklings of Latin, as well as your lightning responses to emailed queries, thank you.

  To Kim Beazley, who was as kind and as forthright as you’d expect of someone admired on both sides of politics, thank you.

  To Dick Woolcott, for stories almost too good to be true, thank you.

  To Col Cunningham, who eventually consented to an interview even though he was convinced it would be a doomed affair and who charmed me, like he’s charmed everyone else over the past eighty-something years, thank you.

  To Louis Pratt, who put down the levers of his 3D printer in the middle of a $300,000 commission for the interview, thank you.

  To John Singleton, who is anything but a dull bulb, thank you.

  To Ross Garnaut, who gave me two interviews in one day and who didn’t show me the door when I mixed up monetary and fiscal policy, thank you.

  To my parents, Cam and Kay, for your patience, kindness and counsel, thank you.

  To my brother, Grant, whose writing I stole to win a prize in grade seven, thank you.

  To Jeanne Ryckmans, the literary agent who delivered me this prize, thank you.

  To Pan Macmillan’s formidable team, Angus Fontaine, Rebecca Hamilton, Libby Turner, Daniel New and the book’s editor Ali Lavau, thank you.

  To Richard Freeman, for shooting a cover that stole my breath, thank you.

  To Jill Saunders, for your diary keeping and wry humour, thank you.

  To Blanche, the wife, the brilliant author, original thinker and peerless Sunday lunch companion, I thank you.

  And to Bob Hawke, who consented to the book without meeting me and who patiently put down his sudokus and cryptic crosswords every Wednesday at three o’clock for an hour, sometimes two, of what might’ve seemed at the time as very odd lines of questioning, thank you. Thank you.

  SELECTED ENDNOTES

  11. ‘His Majesty’s Masturbators, as Eleanor …’: d’Alpuget, The Young Lion, HarperCollins, 2013, p. 4.

  19. ‘I’ve been around in public …’: National Press Club, Channel 10 News, 2 March 1983, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DgabQbditJk

  20. ‘Would you care to comment…’: National Press Club, Channel 10 News, 2 March 1983, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DgabQbditJk

  21. ‘like some mythic figure …’: McGregor, Time of Testing, Penguin Books, 1983, p. 22.

  22. ‘Leadership is not about being…’: Keating, National Press Club, 1990, http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p291051/html/ch03.xhtml?referer=&page=10

  22. ‘Paul’s performance was vainglorious and …’: Hawke, The Hawke Memoirs, Heinemann Australia, 1994, p. 498.

  22. ‘Keating was a saboteur, pure …’: Hawke, The Hawke Memoirs, Heinemann Australia, 1994, p. 536.

  24. As one university don described…: d’Alpuget, Robert J. Hawke, Schwartz, 1982, p. 61.

  24. ‘It was in between overs …’: Cricket Network, ‘Handscomb on his ton, his dismissal – and Bob Hawke!’, 4 January 2017, http://www.cricket.com.au/video/peter-handscomb-bob-hawke-aus-tralia-press-conference-pakistan-third-test-day-two-scg-high-lights/2017-01-04)

  25. In 1983, one economics writer…: McGregor, Time of Testing, Penguin Books, 1983, p. 29.

  25. ‘He physically couldn’t stand, except…’: d’Alpuget, Robert J. Hawke, Schwartz, 1982, pp. 97-8.

  32. The 2010 telemovie Hawke opens … : Network Ten, Hawke, 2010.

  38. ‘It’s just an unarguable case …: Koziol, Sydney Morning Herald, ‘“Absurd”: Bob Hawke blasts lack of will to legalise euthanasia’, 14 April 2016.

  43. Does the brotherhood rhetoric match …: MacCallum, The Good, the Bad and the Unlikely, Black Inc, 2012, p. 145.

  44. Gough Whitlam called Woolcott, ‘Australia’s …’: Woolcott, Richard, Undiplomatic Activities, Scribe, 2007, p. 3.

  54. ‘When the rate of return … ’: Picketty, Thomas, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, 2013, p. 1.

  55. ‘By 1990 no Australian child …’: Hawke, 23 June 1987, via http://electionspeeches.moadoph.gov.au/speeches/1987-bob-hawke and https://melbourneinstitute.com/downloads/publications/Poverty%20Lines/AER%201987.pdf

  59. She describes your life at …: d’Alpuget, Blanche, On Longing, Melbourne University Press, 2008, p. 24.

  60. ‘He suggested a time, a … ’: d’Alpuget, Blanche, On Longing, Melbourne University Press, 2008, pp. 59–60.

  62–3. Now, twenty years on, the show … : 60 Minutes, Channel Nine, 29 January 2017.

  63. ‘When Hazel died in 2013 … ’: Murphy, ‘Hazel: a rock star’s rock, a nation’s role model’, Sydney Morning Herald, 25 May 2013.

  64. Devine claimed Blanche stole
Hazel’s … : Devine, ‘A Slap in the Face of History’, The Sunday Times, 2 July 2011.

  73. d’Alpuget, Hawke: The Prime Minister, Melbourne University Press, 2010, p. 137.

  74–5. ‘I will always remember my … ’: Hawke, ‘Time to recognise the state of Palestine’, Australian Financial Review, 13 February 2017.

  75. ‘Bibi will reply, ‘What kind …’: Henderson, ‘Netanyahu shows failings of Hawke-Rudd call for Palestinian state’, The Australian, 25 February 2017.

  75. The Victorian Labor MP Michael … : Lewis, ‘Labor ‘heroes’ accused of provoking Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of Australia visit’, The Australian, 21 February 2017.

  76. The Australian’s foreign affairs writer … : Sheridan, ‘Labor’s Hawke, Rudd and Evans invite ridicule by maligning Israel’, The Australian, 25 February 2017.

  77. In diplomatic cables published by…: ‘Hawke would have quit over Israel’, Jewish News, 12 April 2013.

  82. ‘In a sort of surrogate … ’: Hawke, ‘In The Family – The Beazleys’, Australian Story, http://www.abc.net.au/austory/transcripts/s401435.htm.

  86. And according to Beazley’s biographer…: ibid.

  88. In his final speech to …: Hawke, 19 December 1991, http://australianpolitics.com/1991/12/19/bob-hawke-final-speech-as-pm.html

  93. It took eighteen months of…: ‘The Madrid Protocol’, Australian Antarctic Division: Leading Australia’s Antarctic Program, Australian Government Department of Environment and Energy, http://www.antarctica.gov.au/law-and-treaty/the-madrid-protocol

  96. ‘I was devastated and overwhelmed … ’: Hawke, The Hawke Memoirs, Heinemann Australia, 1994, pp. 192

  97. ‘If you kick him it… ’: ibid, p. 196.

  97. ‘I was accused of being… ’: ibid, p. 263.

  103. Earlier in the year, the …: Robinson, ‘Oxford’s Cecil Rhodes statue must fall – it stands in the way of inclusivity’, The Guardian, 19 January 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/19/rhodes-fall-oxford-university-inclusivity-black-students