Bob Hawke is an Australian politician, 23rd Prime Minister of Australia and the Leader of the Labor Party. He is, to date, Labor's longest-serving Prime Minister and Australia's third-longest-serving Prime Minister.
Background
Ethnicity:
Both his parents were of Cornish origin and he himself has stated that his background is Cornish. This led the Cornish writer and historian A.L. Rowse to write, "Bob Hawke's characteristics are as Cornish as Australian. I know them well: the aggressive individualism, the egoism, the touchiness, the liability to resentment, even a touch of vindictiveness."
Mr. Hawke was born in Bordertown, South Australia, Australia, on December 9, 1929. the second child of Arthur Hawke (1898-1989) (known as Clem), a Congregationalist minister, and his wife Edith (known as Ellie), a schoolteacher. His uncle, Albert, was the Labor Premier of Western Australia between 1953–1959 and was also a close friend of Prime Minister John Curtin, who was in many ways Bob Hawke's role model.
Mr. Hawke's elder brother Neil, who was seven years his senior, died at the age of seventeen after contracting meningitis, for which there was no cure at the time. Ellie Hawke subsequently developed an almost messianic belief in her son's destiny, and this contributed to Mr. Hawke's supreme self-confidence throughout his career. At the age of fifteen, he presciently boasted to friends that he would one day become the Prime Minister of Australia.
Education
Bob Hawke was raised in Perth, attending Perth Modern School and completing Bachelor of Arts in Law and Economics at the University of Western Australia. At age 15, he boasted that he would one day become Prime Minister of Australia. He joined the Labor Party in 1947, and successfully applied for a Rhodes Scholarship at the end of 1952.
In 1953 Mr. Hawke went to the University of Oxford to commence a Bachelor of Arts at University College. He soon found he was covering much the same ground as his Bachelor's degree from Perth, and switched to a Bachelor of Letters, with a thesis on wage-fixing in Australia. The thesis was successfully presented in January 1956.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) is the apex body that represents the workers in Australia and is an association of country’s highly structured labor movement. Soon after Bob Hawke joined the ACTU in 1958, he was in charge of presenting a case for higher wages at the national tribunal. His first appointment as an advocate for the ACTU was in 1959. The case resulted in a pay rise, which was a great achievement for him.
In 1969, he was elected the president of ACTU. While holding the position, he focused on the betterment of living conditions of workers. He was against with the Vietnam War, but encouraged alliances between USA and Australia.
He was a supporter of Jews, and for the same reason his assassination was planned by Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and its Australian counterpart.
Until 1980, while serving as the President of the ACTU, he successfully represented the association in front of arbitration councils for earning suitable settlements. Between 1973 and 1978, he also served as the Federal President of the Australian Labor Party.
In 1980, he contested the election to the House of Representatives and won the Melbourne seat of Wills. Soon after his election, he was appointed as the Shadow Minister of Industrial Relations, Employment and Youth, by Labor Leader Bill Hayden.
In 1982, he challenged the leadership of Bill Hayden and a ballot followed. Even though Bill Hayden won, the difference in the number of votes was minimal and this event gave Bob Hawke considerable recognition as a leader within the party.
In 1983, Bill Hayden announced his resignation as leader of a party and Bob Hawke was named the acting leader of the Australian Labor Party. In the elections held the following month, he led the party to a landslide victory, thereby ending seven years of rule by the Liberal Party.
On 11 March 1983, he was sworn in as the 23rd Prime Minister of Australia. During his time as Prime Minister, he worked towards industrial accord by bringing about a uniform wage across labour unions of Australia. He was successful in effectively tackling inflation rate and maintained cordial relations with foreign nations like the USA. He was re-elected as Prime Minister in 1984.
Some of the most noteworthy decisions concerning the Australian economy that he took during his reign were the deregulation of the banking system and floating of the Australian Dollar. These decisions helped revamp the Australian economy.
Other steps that were taken include the introduction of tax reforms, privatization of state owned enterprises and the trading of financial institutions owned by state like CSL Limited, Qantas and Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
In 1989, in a move to improve economic cooperation among the nations of Asia Pacific, he formed the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum that promoted free trade among nations of the region.
He took several initiatives in the environmental sector, such as, stopping of a dam construction in Tasmania and supporting Landcare groups of farmers in the country. His health care initiatives included a widespread public health campaign regarding AIDS. A universal health care system in Australia was established under the name Medicare.
The Labor party won the 1987 and 1990 elections. As a result of the late 1980s recession, Hawke won the 1990 elections by a very tight margin.
He appointed Paul Keating as Deputy Prime Minister and in December 1991 Hawke resigned as prime minister and Keating assumed the prime ministership of Australia.
After resignation, he became more prominent in the business world and showed minimal involvement with the Labor Party during Paul Keating’s time as Prime Minister. After 1996, when John Howard assumed the position of Prime Minister, he became more involved with the works and campaigns of the Labor Party. He is known to supported candidates like Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and Kristina Keneally in their campaigns.
In 2009, he assisted in the setting up of a Centre for Muslim and Non-Muslim Understanding at the University of South Australia. According to him interfaith dialogue is essential and lack of understanding of religion was one of the greatest potential threats of the world.
Mr. Hawke's first attempt to enter Parliament came during the 1963 federal election. He stood in the seat of Corio and managed to achieve a 3.1% swing against the national trend, but fell short of winning the seat. He was first elected to the House of Representatives at the 1980 federal election for Wills in Melbourne. Immediately upon his entry into Parliament, Bob Hawke was appointed to the Shadow Cabinet by Labor Leader Bill Hayden as Shadow Minister for Industrial Relations, Employment and Youth. With opinion polls indicating that, in contrast to Hayden, Mr. Hawke was "a certain election winner", Hayden called a leadership ballot for 16 July 1982. Hayden managed to defeat Mr. Hawke and remain Leader, but his five-vote victory over the former ACTU President was not large enough to dispel doubts that he could lead the Labor to victory at a federal election.
Mr. Hayden's leadership was further questioned when Labor performed poorly in a by-election in December 1982 for the Victorian seat of Flinders, following the resignation of the former Liberal Minister Sir Phillip Lynch. Labor needed a swing of 5.5% to win the seat, but could only achieve 3%. This convinced many Labor MPs that only Mr. Hawke could lead Labor to victory at the upcoming election. Labor Party power-brokers such as Graham Richardson and Barrie Unsworth now lined up behind Bob Hawke. More significantly, Hayden's staunch friend and political ally, Labor Senate Leader John Button, eventually became convinced that Mr. Hawke's chances of victory were greater than Hayden's.
Button's defection was crucial in encouraging Mr. Hayden to resign as Labor Leaderless than two months after the lackluster performance in Flinders. When Hayden announced his resignation on 3 February 1983, Bob Hawke was named an acting leader. On the same day, Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser called a snap election for 5 March 1983, hoping to capitalize on Labor's feuding. He believed at first that he had caught Labor before it could elect a replacement Leader, but was surprised to find out that Hayden had already resigned. Mr. Hawke was elected Leader of the Labor Party, and twenty-five days later Labor won on a 24-seat swing, ending seven years of Liberal rule.
Views
Realism
Interests
Literature, Cinema
Connections
On March 1956 Bob Hawke married Hazel Masterson at Perth Trinity Church. They would go on to have three children: Susan Pieters-Hawke (born 1957), Stephen (born 1959) and Roslyn (born 1960). Their fourth child, Robert Jr, died in his early infancy in 1963. The couple divorced in 1995. Mr. Hawke subsequently married the writer Blanche d'Alpuget, and the two currently live together in Northbridge, a suburb of the North Shore of Sydney.