BOB HAWKE: DEMONS AND DESTINY

In writing his biography of former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke – Bob Hawke – Demons and Destiny – award-winning and best-selling author Troy Bramston has assembled a remarkable record of Hawke’s upbringing and education, the people and events that shaped him, his rise through the union movement, his complex personality and personal life marked by womanising and the demon drink, his nine-year government from 1983 to 1991, plus his post-prime ministerial life and legacy. Having conducted Hawke’s last interview and with access to countless personal papers, the story is gripping and revealing. To give a taste for what he found, Troy Bramston addressed The Sydney Institute on Tuesday 3 May 2022

BOB HAWKE: DEMONS AND DESTINY

TROY BRAMSTON

It is great to be back at The Sydney Institute, which I have had the privilege of addressing many times. Thank you to Gerard and Anne for inviting me to address the institute and for the valuable role you play in promoting debate and discussion in this great city.

I first met Bob Hawke in 1994 when I was 18 years old and in my first year at university. At a dinner, I approached Hawke and as he shook my hand, he looked deep into my eyes and asked my name. The room seemed to blur and the sound dulled. It was like being struck by lightning. I realised what so many others had experienced. He was charisma personified.

I later learnt that much of Hawke’s success on TV in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s was because he imagined talking to just one person. I once told him that when I was in primary school in the 1980s, that we had to do a school project on a famous Australian. Half the class chose Bob Hawke and the other half chose Paul Hogan. I later confessed to Bob that I chose Paul Hogan. He thought that was hilarious.

I was intrigued, fascinated, interested in Hawke as a man and as a leader. I studied his life, wrote about it and got to know him as a journalist and historian. I interviewed Hawke about 20 times over 15 or so years, including for this biography. It was a privilege to be the last person to interview him.

Hawke supported this book by also giving me access to his vast archive of personal papers. But it is an unauthorised biography and Hawke asked for no control over the manuscript.

Bob Hawke: Demons and Destiny tells the story of an extraordinary life from Bordertown to The Lodge and beyond. This book is about the real Hawke – the complete man: chronicling the stunning triumphs and terrible lows, a life riddled with huge flaws but also great virtues, marked by redemption and reinvention, which changed Australia and shaped the world.

There are new insights in the book – drawn from newly discovered archival documents and new interviews – about his upbringing, childhood, school and university education, his deep love for Hazel, their often stormy marriage and family life, his career in the union movement and rise to become the greatest ever champion of Australian workers, his extraordinary prime ministership which transformed Australia’s economic, social, environmental and foreign policy settings, and his post-prime ministerial life, devotion to Blanche, business interests, and thoughts on modern politics and prime ministers.

Hawke was born in the small country town of Bordertown, South Australia, in 1929.

Growing up the son of a clergyman and a schoolteacher, he was showered with parental love and told that he was special, destined for greatness. Hawke downplayed notions of divine intervention but he did tell me that he felt there was some kind of “guidance” throughout his life.

A turning point was a motorbike accident in 1947 while at university. Hawke nearly died. He decided to make the most of his life. He was deeply religious as a young man, but his faith was shattered in 1952 during a Christian student conference in India, where he witnessed widespread poverty.

Hawke had first seriously thought about public service of some kind when he won a Rhodes Scholarship to commence in 1953. At Oxford ­University, and later at the Australian National University, he was eyeing a career as an academic. (He had earlier thought about becoming a farmer or doctor.) At Oxford, he wrote a thesis on the basic wage and the Australian industrial relations system.

Oxford had a big impact on Hawke. It shaped his work ethic, liberal values, debating style and how he related to others. In 1958, he was appointed the ACTU’s research officer and advocate. He put his thesis into practical action, dazzling the industrial tribunals and courts with the force of his argument that wages should reflect productivity and prices. He won several critical cases, securing big pay rises for working men and women, and was his star was ascendant.

In 1969, Hawke won election as the ACTU’s president. Over the next decade, he earned a reputation for resolving intractable industrial ­disputes, led the union movement into several enterprises and became a prominent contributor to political debates. He was the most brilliant, articulate and effective leader the trade union movement had produced. Hawke had found an outlet for his talents. But the question of when he would go into politics percolated through the 1970s.

The idea that Hawke could one day be prime minister excited some and repulsed others, but it remained an idea so pregnant with promise that it was fixed in the public mind. The problem was that Hawke was a notorious drinker, infamous womaniser and prone to angry public outbursts. His emotions, whether revealed as tears or temper, were often vividly on display. He was a terrible, loathsome, awful drunk and could get verbally abusive when inebriated.

He first drank alcohol while studying at the University of Western Australia in 1949 – his third year. He entered the Guinness Book of Records while at Oxford University for downing 2.5 pints of beer in 12 seconds. In the 1960s or 1970s, Hawke might drink 20 beers in one session.

He was also a serial adulterer. Some women threw themselves at him, mesmerised by his charisma and power, and others he flatly propositioned. When scorned, he would often lash out and humiliate them. He could be selfish and careless. He married Hazel Masterson in 1956 and they raised three children: Susan, Stephen and Rosslyn. They lived with the roiling turmoil that most Australians read about or saw on television, and suffered because of it.

Hawke personified the very best and worst in Australians. He was a deeply flawed person, and his behaviour would not be tolerated today. Standards have changed. He could be vain and arrogant one moment, and then compassionate and inspiring the next. He embodied a mix of contradictions and contrasts, but he was an authentic political leader. He never hid who he was or tried to be someone he was not.

The book, accordingly, deals with Hawke’s complex personality, the light and shade, and the real man behind the legend. The demons are not ignored or sanitised. They were a big part of his life. It would be a dereliction of my duty as a biographer if I did not explore this fully. Hawke gave up the booze and stabilised his emotions to become prime minister. But he still had a steady group of women who satisfied his sexual needs. He had affairs as prime minister, including at The Lodge.

Hawke did not believe he had an addictive personality. He refused to accept that he was an alcoholic and would never have accepted that he had an addiction to sex. In truth, he was both a highly functioning alcoholic and a sex addict. The World Health Organisation has identified Compulsive Sexual Behaviour Disorder – and I argue Hawke had it.

Hawke always lived a supercharged existence. In the 1960s and 1970s, especially, his celebrity status reached its zenith. As ACTU advocate and then ACTU president, and Labor’s national president, he engaged the public consciousness like no other political or union figure. He was at the epicenter of a great celebrity drama in which he was the dominant figure: the drinking, womanising, emotional reactions, critical assessments, the audacious idea of consensus, the man with the ear of politicians and business titans, and the speculation about when he would go into politics.

The long, wavy, metallic hair, the tanned, soft, olive skin, the arched eyebrow, the mouth with the ­corners turned down, and the darting eyes with cigar in hand became legendary. He carried ­himself with an air of satisfaction and projected confidence.

Television was his premier means for talking to everyday Australians.

At a moment’s notice, like a board being clacked on a sound stage, he could transform to suit the audience. He was a supreme ­performer who could turn on a range of emotions, as though flicking through index cards until he found the right one: charm, persuasion, indignation, anger, sadness, humour. Voters tuned in because they did not know which Hawke they would get.

One of the most extraordinary interviews Hawke did in the 1970s was with female journalist Toni McRae for The Sun newspaper. Over a bottle of Veuve Clicquot at the Boulevard Hotel, he loosened his tie and kicked off his suede shoes and spoke about his family, his propensity to cry, his sleeping and eating habits, and assessed Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser.

He did one-arm push-ups while ruminating on being prime minister. “I’m not expecting that the prime ministership be offered to me on a platter,” he said, switching arms. “But if it was offered to me on a platter, I’d do it bloody well.”

Ros Kelly told me about Hawke campaigning with her in Canberra in 1980. It did not go to plan. While driving Hawke around in her car, they stopped at a set of traffic lights and looked across and saw two young women in a VW with the hood down. The girls noticed Hawke and shouted: “Bob, come and join us!” He jumped out of the car and into the back of their VW and disappeared for two hours. He later joined Ros at a shopping centre as if nothing had happened. Hawke then asked the local chemist about the best shampoo for his hair.

Australians accepted his faults because he was open about them. They witnessed him change in pursuit of his ambition. He did go off the drink and moderate his behaviour to demonstrate that he could be a disciplined prime minister.

By the time Hawke reached the prime ministership in 1983, he was the brightest star in the political galaxy. For decades, he had been a larrikin intellectual celebrity superstar. Labor MPs likened Hawke to the Pope being on the campaign trail. People just wanted to touch him, they recalled. Women would thrust their children into his arms and steal a kiss for themselves, while men shook his hand and patted him on the back. Australians saw him sing, dance, hold a bat, kick a football, throw a frisbee, shake hands with children and pat small animals. His central ambition was to unite and reconcile the nation after years of division and confrontation with the promise of consensus policy-making.

As prime minister, as he had done at the ACTU, Hawke brought Australians together.

In 1984, his approval rating reached an astonishing 78 per cent. No prime minister has come within cooee of that in the decades before or after. His overarching vision for Australia was to have a more competitive and productive economy and a compassionate society at home, and to be an independent and respected nation abroad. He wanted to end the policy stagnation and transform Australia’s economic, social, environmental and foreign policy settings for a new age.

Consider the social policy achievements: Medicare, the Sex Discrimination Act, increasing high school completion rates from about 35 to 77 per cent, overhauling universities and trades education, doubling childcare places, targeting welfare to those most in need and the world class response to HIV/AIDS. The economic reforms: floating the dollar, the Accord to moderate wages, dismantling the tariff wall, privatisation of government assets, national superannuation and the first budget surpluses since the 1950s.

Hawke wanted Australians to be proud of their nation and did much to cement our national identity and independence: a new anthem, adopting green and gold as the national colours, wattle as the floral emblem and passing the Australia Acts which, among other things, ended appeals to the Privy Council. And the landmark environmental achievements: saving the Daintree, Kakadu and the Franklin River.

We became more prosperous, better educated, more equal, compassionate, entrepreneurial, optimistic and proud of our nation. Hawke played an important role on the world stage as a mediator between East and West, developed close relations with Cold War leaders, strengthened the US alliance and made engagement with Asia a priority. His personal diplomacy safeguarded Antarctica from mining, he led the fight against South African apartheid and initiated the APEC trade forum.

I argue that this vast policy legacy, plus his personal popularity and four election victories in a row, is unmatched by any other prime minister or government post-war. Much of these achievements are due to the exceptionally talented group of ministers around the cabinet table, including Paul Keating as the dynamic Treasurer.

Hawke met the standard for how a prime minister should lead the nation, their government and party. Many of Hawke’s parliamentary colleagues thought he would never be prime minister, let alone a highly disciplined one. But as president of the ACTU and as a member of the Reserve Bank board, he had a good grounding in administration.

While the government traded on Hawke’s popularity, he had to master the machinery of government to be effective. He understood the levers of power. Hawke was able to bend the machinery of government to implement Labor’s policies while persuading his party’s constituency to stick with the government and was also able to win support from the other side of politics.

He led a government of longevity – the longest of any federal Labor government. The model of governing that Hawke established is an underrated aspect of his legacy. This model had as its hallmarks: a cabinet “chairman of the board” who worked cooperatively with ministers, welcomed frank and fearless advice from staff and public servants, put the national interest ahead of political self-interest, had a strong work ethic, focus and drive, and knew how to communicate with voters. These things are an underrated aspect of Hawke’s legacy – the art of politics – which has been in short supply in recent years.

Of course, Hawke was helped by having a very talented group of ministers. Paul Keating, the innovative and persuasive treasurer, described himself as “managing director” to Hawke’s “chairman of the board”. They were, for the most part, a great duo. Liberal leader John Hewson said the Hawke cabinets were the best since Federation.

Hawke was not an interventionist. He was consultative and collaborative, and let ministers run their portfolios. The array of talent sitting around the cabinet table, especially in the first two or three terms, was extraordinary: Paul Keating, Bill Hayden, Lionel Bowen, John Button, Don Grimes, Gareth Evans, Susan Ryan, Peter Walsh, Mick Young, Gordon Scholes, Kim Beazley, John Dawkins, Neal Blewett, Brian Howe, Michael Duffy and Ralph Willis, among others.

The first cabinet was extraordinarily diverse in their backgrounds, education and work experiences. There were unionists (Hawke, Keating, Willis, Young, Scholes), a shearer (Young), a doctor (Grimes), a farmer (Walsh), a policeman (Hayden), lawyers (Bowen, Button), a schoolteacher (Ryan) and an academic (Evans). Several already had ministerial experience (Keating, Hayden, Bowen) or had served on the back bench in government (Willis, Scholes, Grimes, Walsh, Young).

In time, the ministry would include three Rhodes Scholars (Hawke, Beazley, Blewett). Bowen had served in World War II, Young had been Labor’s national secretary, and Scholes had been speaker of the House of Representatives. Most had working-class or middle-class backgrounds. This diversity of backgrounds and experience has been lost in modern politics.

Hawke often let cabinet debates run and allowed ministers to have a say but would intervene on critical issues. Debates in cabinet, and those in the caucus and at party conferences, were often robust. But Hawke kept the government largely united.

Hawke assembled a talented personal staff and worked cooperatively with the public service. He had learnt from the mistakes of the Whitlam government in administration and cabinet and party management. He was wise to appoint public servants Graham Evans, Chris Conybeare, Sandy Hollway and Dennis Richardson as his principal private secretaries.

The personal style Hawke brought to the prime ministership was also critical. He was an effective communicator and a powerful persuader. He had a strong work ethic, energy and drive. While luck typically ran his way – such as facing a divided opposition – he also showed courage and took policy and political risks. He won the 1987 and 1990 elections after being behind in the polls.

While he was popular for most of his prime ministership, he had qualities that were more important: respect and trust. He was competent, safe, reassuring. He put the nation before self-interest and partisanship. He saw political opponents as adversaries, not enemies, and eschewed class division. English journalist Walter Bagehot described a statesman as someone of “common opinions and uncommon abilities” who “most felicitously expresses the creed of the moment, who administers it, who embodies it in laws and institutions”.

Hawke made mistakes and had regrets – not least the 1990 recession which had a devastating impact on many Australians and his failure to advance indigenous land rights – but he had Bagehot’s essential elements of a statesman in spades. He also changed Labor by retuning its philosophy, transforming its governing culture and making it electorally dominant. He made the party fit for purpose: winning elections and staying in power. He achieved his goal of leading a Labor government in power for more than just a few terms. He took Labor to four election victories and is the party’s most successful leader.

It is important to note that Hawke managed his party through a period of profound change. He culled the party’s sacred cows by accepting, as a necessity, market-based economic reforms while expanding a strong social safety net. He transcended the party and enlarged its beliefs, expanded its horizons and ambitions, and made it contemporarily relevant.

While Hawke was personally flawed and acknowledged his failings as a husband and father, he was a very effective prime minister who brought people together, established a model for effective leadership and remade Australia for the modern era.

This has been a mammoth project that involved turning over one million pages of archival documents here and overseas, reading 100,000 newspaper articles and hundreds of books. I love spending time in archives. It is like stepping into a time machine and visiting the past. The documents discovered for the first time are significant: unpublished memoirs, diaries, letters, meeting records, briefing papers and handwritten notes.

For example:

• Clem Hawke’s unpublished family memoir, which provides an insight into Hawke’s early family life,
• Hawke’s diary of his trip to India for a Christian student conference in 1952, chronicling his departure from organised religion,
• Hawke’s diary of his journey to Oxford where he witnessed the brutality of South African apartheid in 1953 and predicted “a day of reckoning” would come,
• letters between Bob and Hazel in the 1950s and ‘60s which expose his struggle against his demons as he pours out his emotions,
• diplomatic cables from the United States and United Kingdom from the 1970s, showing Hawke to be often too frank with his views on politics,
• the secret letters Hawke and Bill Hayden exchanged about the Labor leadership in 1983, sealing a deal which became the foundation of the Hawke government,
• newly declassified ASIO documents which expose Labor figures with secret Communist Party links,
• diaries, meeting records and letters with Cold War leaders such as Ronald Reagan, George HW Bush, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Brian Mulroney, Mikhail Gorbachev, Hu Yaobang, Zhao Ziyang and Nelson Mandela,
• Hawke’s handwritten cabinet room notes, briefs and papers,
• Bill Hayden’s letters to the Queen while Governor-General,
• and notes made by Hawke and Paul Keating about leadership discussions, including different views of the 1988 succession deal made at Kirribilli House.

It was such a privilege to interview more than 100 people for this book: Hawke’s family, friends, school and university classmates, union, party and ministerial colleagues, and international contemporaries such as George H.W. Bush, John Major, Brian Mulroney, George Shultz and James Baker.

I also interviewed all the prime ministers who succeeded Hawke – from Paul Keating to Scott Morrison – and include their assessments of him in the book. And I include Hawke’s assessments of them in the book – not all of which are as kind as they are about him.

I always checked and double-checked things in the book. I remember ringing Robert Ray, the former defence minister, to fact-check something. Ray said: “I guess this is one of your challenges – working out who is telling the truth, a half-truth or forgetting something.” I asked: “But everything you’ve told me is 100 per cent true, isn’t it Robert?” Ray replied, tongue-in-check: “Well, 90 per cent of it.”

I was interested in a phone call foreign minister Gareth Evans had with James Baker, the US secretary of state, at the start of the Gulf War. Evans wanted maximum consultation. Baker told me: “Gareth wanted me to tell him exactly when the balloon was going to go up to start the war … He and I had a few words over that, but I enjoyed working with Gareth.” Now, Evans had a different version of that phone call. Evans remembered Baker saying: “Who’s running this f—ing war? We appreciate your support but we are running this war. We have the military leadership. You guys will cooperate.” Knowing how tough Baker is, I think Evans’s recall is more accurate.

This book has been a big part of my life for many years. I have vivid memories of interviews with Graham Freudenberg, Susan Ryan, Bob Sorby, Andrew Peacock and George Shultz who are no longer with us. This book will be challenging for many people to read. It will shock and surprise even those who think they know Hawke.

Hawke trusted me to write a serious, well researched and balanced account of his life. I believe I have. What should be front of mind as we remember Hawke is that he loved Australians and they loved him. We have not had a postwar leader who was more popular, respected or trusted.

That is what has motivated my three prime ministerial biographies: to understand their values, motivations and ambitions, how they led – how they gained and used political power – and their legacy.

As I write in the book: In Hawke, Australians saw the mysterious but always recognisable alchemy of political leadership. And that is what should be remembered above all.