Bob Hawke

Robert James Lee Hawke (born December 9 1929), Australian trade union leader and politician, was the 23rd Prime Minister of Australia. After a decade as leader of the Australian union movement, he entered politics and was Prime Minister within three years. He became by far the longest-serving Labor Prime Minister, and was second-longest-serving Prime Minister overall until December 2004, when John Howard overtook him. But critics continued to dismiss him as a populist, whose focus on "consensus" resulted in the abandonment of many traditional Labor values.

Prime Minister

The inagural days of the Hawke government were distinctly different from those of the Whitlam era. Rather than immediately initiating extensive reform programmes, Hawke announced that Fraser's pre-election concealment of the budget deficit meant that many of Labor's election commitments would have to be deferred. Hawke managed to persuade the Labor caucus to divide the ministry into two tiers, with only the most important Ministers attending regular cabinet meetings. This was to avoid what Hawke viewed as the unwieldy nature of the 27-member Whitlam cabinet. The caucus under Hawke also exhibited a much more formalised system of parliamentary factions, which significantly altered the dynamics of caucus operations.

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Hawke used his great authority to carry out a substantial set of policy changes. Accounts from ministers indicate that while Hawke was not usually the driving force for economic reform (that impetus coming from the Treasurer Paul Keating and Industry Minister John Button), he took the role of reaching consensus and providing political guidance on what was electorally feasible and how best to sell it to the public, at which he was highly successful.

Related Topics:
Paul Keating - John Button

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Keating and Hawke provided a study in contrasts. Hawke was a Rhodes Scholar; Keating left high school early. Hawke's enthusiasms were cigars, horse racing and all forms of sport; Keating preferred classical architecture and collecting antique Swiss cuckoo clocks. Hawke was consensus-driven; Keating revelled in aggressive debate. Hawke was a lapsed Protestant; Keating was a practicing Catholic. Despite, or because of, their differences, the two formed an effective political partnership.

Related Topics:
High school - Cigar - Horse racing - Sport - Classical architecture - Antique - Swiss - Cuckoo clock

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Among other things, the Hawke Government floated the Australian dollar, deregulated the financial system, overhauled the tariff system, privatised state sector industries, ended subsidisation of loss-making industries, and sold off the state-owned Commonwealth Bank of Australia - all reforms that in other Western countries were performed by right-wing governments. The tax system was reformed, most notably through the taxation of capital gains - a reform strongly opposed by the Liberal Party at the time, but not reversed when they returned to office.

Related Topics:
Australian dollar - Commonwealth Bank of Australia

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Hawke benefitted greatly from the disarray into which the Liberal opposition fell after the resignation of Fraser. The Liberals were divided between supporters of the dour, economically and socially conservative John Howard and the urbane Andrew Peacock. The arch-conservative Premier of Queensland, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, also helped Hawke with his "Joh for Canberra" campaign in 1987, which proved highly damaging for the conservatives . Exploiting these divisions, Hawke led the Labor Party to comfortable election victories in 1984 and 1987.

Related Topics:
John Howard - Andrew Peacock - Queensland - Joh Bjelke-Petersen - 1987 - 1984

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Hawke's Prime Ministership saw considerable friction between him and the grassroots of the Labor Party, who were unhappy at what they viewed as Hawke's iconoclasm and willingness to co-operate with business interests. All Labor Prime Ministers have at times engendered the hostility of the organisational wing of the party, but none more so than Hawke, who expressed his willingness to cull Labor's "sacred cows". The Socialist Left faction, as well as prominent Labor figure Barry Jones, offered severe criticism of a number of government decisions.

Related Topics:
Socialist Left - Barry Jones

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On social policy, the Hawke government saw gradual reforms. The Whitlam government's universal health insurance system (Medibank), which had been dismantled by Fraser, was restored under a new name, Medicare. A notable success for which the government's response is given considerable credit was Australia's public health campaign about AIDS. In the latter years of the Hawke government, Aboriginal affairs saw considerable attention, with an investigation of the idea of a treaty between Aborigines and the government, though this idea was overtaken by events, notably including the Mabo court decision.

Related Topics:
AIDS - Mabo

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The Hawke government also made some notable environmental decisions. In its first months in office it stopped the construction of the Franklin Dam, on the Franklin River in Tasmania, responding to a groundswell of protest about the issue. In 1990, a looming tight election saw a tough political operator, Graham Richardson, appointed Environment Minister, whose task it was to attract second-preference votes from the Australian Democrats and other environmental parties. Richardson claimed this as a major factor in the government's narrow re-election in 1990.

Related Topics:
Franklin Dam - Franklin River - Tasmania - 1990 - Graham Richardson - Australian Democrats

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