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NATIONAL 9 NU'IVOR I CANBEIR RA HULREIx.,
VR" SGALLRYARLIAMENT 11OUSE CANIIERRA
PlIN( 0127) 3 300 FAX: ( 062) 73 3097
Date: 8 July 1990 Time: 0900
Source: National Nine Network Programme: Sunday
Jim Waley: For once, Labor's numbers men got it wrong.
Wednesday, July 11 was generally felt to be the day Bob
Hawke would go into the record book as Australia's second
longest serving Prime Minister. Perhaps they forgot a leap
year. But when-former Science Minister, Barry Jones,
checked the sums he declared Tuesday the day Mr Hawke
displaces Malcolm Fraser as runner-up to the all-time champ,
Sir Robert Menzies. Sunday's political editor, Laurie
Oakes, wasn't caught out though. He prepared our cover
story on the Hawke factor, 2,679 days on.
LAURIE OAKES: When Bob Hawke extended his winning to streak
to four elections in a row last March he shared his triumph
with his staff at the Lodge. The staff have served him for
seven years and four months, almost double the average
tenure of Australia's 23 Prime Ministers and come Tuesday,
when he exceeds Malcolm Fraser's term, longer than any save
Sir Robert Menzies.
MALCOLM FRASER: I would like to congratulate him.
Australian Prime Ministers have often been very short-lived
except Sir Robert Menzies and Bob has come up into second
place. Good luck.
LAURIE OAKES: For a man who likes breaking records it is a
particularly satisfying milestone.
BOB HAWKE: It is a matter of pride. The satisfaction is
basically that we have been in office long enough now to do
things. The great problem of Labor in the past was that
they were there for short period of time and couldn't really
have a lasting impact. I think we have been able to do
2
that. LAURIE OAKES: The Hawke Government has purged the memory of
the turbulent Whitlam years. His Prime Ministership has
coincided with an unprecedented period of Labor dominance at
both the State and Federal level and while there are signs
that dominance may now be waning, the achievement wins
praise even from the man he defeated in 1983 and whose
record he is about to overtake.
MALCOLM FRASER: There aren't too many Australians who like
their politics. When one half of us were frightened by the
policies of one party and the other half were frightened by
the policies of the other party. It was a deep ideological
divide and the Labor Party under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating
seems to have put all that into the past. It is not a
socialist ideological debate any more. It ought to be a
debate purely about competence. Who can do the job best.
Whose balance of policies is best. This really is the major
benefit that has come from the Hawke/ Keating axis.
BOB HAWKE: I think Malcolm Fraser is right if he has said
that I have had that preparedness to adapt. Now some of
your opponents outside your party and perhaps at times more
vehemently within your party will describe that as a
weakness or as betrayal. I think it is a betrayal of your
trust if you are not prepared to adhere to the goal of
creating the greatest amount of happiness and prosperity and
security that you can for your country. That what's your
responsibility is.
LAURIE OAKES: With the Government battling deep-seated
economic problems, happiness and prosperity haven't exactly
been Australia's lot for a siieable chunk of the Hawke
years. Yet no modern Prime Minister has been so
consistently popular. Another of his records is a 78 per
cent public approval rating early in his term and it has
only been in the last two months that an Opposition leader
has managed to get his nose in front and keep it there for
more than one poll.
TONY EGGLETON: I think that Menzies's dominance of the
political scene was quite different from Hawke's. Hawke has
been liked, even though that liking may be receding now, but
Menzies was not ever a popular figure in the same sense. He
was a much respected figure.
BARRY COHEN: The public like him and they trust him. He
has certainly got something that no Labor politician in
history has had. A continuing to use his words love
affair with the Australian people.
BOB HAWKE: And for a fair bit of the time a lot of them
reciprocated not with a constancy that measures changes but
I think we are basically good mates.
TONY EGGLETON: One of his strengths has actually been
another personality. I think that his credibility has been
greatly supported by Paul Keating as his Treasurer. I think
it has been a combination of the likeable Bob with the tough
Treasurer that has actually provided the combination that
has been successful.
PAUL KEATING: I think Bob himself would say that a
substantial part of that is the team. I think the team
would say the substantial part of it is him. He has had, I
think, exceptionally good Cabinets. The part of the
strength he has drawn from that has been his style of
leadership which has been to let those Cabinets and those
Ministers go about their portfolio responsibilities and to
make and recommend changes in their own right.
SIR JOHN GORTON: I think it is almost all Hawke personally.
The team helps of course. It also hinders quite a bit. But
I think it is Hawke personally and the feeling he has got
among the people.
LAURIE OAKES: There was a time ' when you wouldn't have had
a schooner on Hawke becoming Prime Minister at all let along
a sober and enduring one. He drank, swore and womanised
with a recklessness that was unprecedented in public life
but a lot of Australians loved the larrikin image. And at
ALP gatherings it wasn't Whitlam's autograph they gave their
shirts for, it was Hawke's. Sir John Gorton recalls how the
then head of Australian Council of Trade Unions used to
behave in the Prime Minister's Office in those days.
SIR JOHN GORTON: He used to come up to the office to see me
when he was up here and he would sit down and he would talk
to you very sensibly. He would have a can a beer and he
would sit and talk to you. He would have another can of
beer and then he would talk not so sensibly and in the
finish he was just arrogant and just laying everything down
and bashing the table and I am very glad he is not like that
now. LAURIE OAKES: When you look back on the old Hawke, I think
it is fairly true to say that you were a drunk, loudmouthed,
aggressive person. None of that is unfair, is it?
BOB HAWKE: No, there were all those things there but there
was a constancy. I was always a very, very hard worker. I
was a hard drinker. I can't disguise that fact and I don't
intend to but I was never an alcoholic in the sense that
most alcoholics can't work. When I made the very conscious
decision which.. is now just over 10 years ago it was May
1980, a decade without a drop it was a tough decision but
one that I have never regretted because I could never have
been Prime Minister if I hadn't made the decision.
LAURIE OAKES: In the mid-1970s when he announced that he
would give up the grog if he decided to enter Parliament,
Hawke also promised to swear off swearing if he made a run
for the Prime Ministership. A newspaper editorial said with
considerable prescience at the time, a non-drinking Hawke is
conceivable but a non-swearing Hawke is not bloody likely.
But from the moment he got the Labor leadership Hawke
underwent what amounted almost to a personality change.
It wasn't only the drinking though. You changed the way you
dressed, you changed your grooming.
BOB HAWKE: I was never very flash on fashion everyone tells
me and the fact that I was colour blind didn't help. Now I
get a bit more guidance about it and I probably take a bit
more notice because I am not just Bob Hawke. I am
representing the country. I think Australians would want me
to look pretty respectable.
I
TONY EGGLETON: The tribute I would pay to Bob Hawke has
been in fact his capacity to discipline himself since he
became Prime Minister. I think the way he changed his
style, his approach to life and disciplined himself was
really quite amazing.
BOB HAWKE: I am saying that I made that statement that I
will not be making a challenge and I adhere to that
statement. If you want to make your speculation, do it
without me. I have made my position clear.
REPORTER: But you could cut it stone dead right now.
BOB HAWKE: I have made it quite clear. I have said it three
times. You are just being a bloody pest. I have made it
quite clear and you know it. Play that program to yourself.
I have said it three times.
LAURIE OAKES: That side of the old Hawke has come through
much less often since he decided to act with Prime
Ministerial dignity and got a group of minders around him to
keep him on the straight and narrow. But Liberal Party
research shows that when he lapses the effect on his
standing in the electorate is noticeable.
TONY EGGLETON: The angry, aggressive abrasive side of Mr
Hawke is not an attractive aspect in the community and
whenever he has lost that discipline the blip that shows up
in the research is quite immediate. You will see an angry
outburst and a moment of lost control and because the
electorate really just like him as a person basically they
feel he would make quite a nice chap to live next door and
he seems quite a nice fellow but as soon as that image
changes by an angry outburst it does have an immediate
effect in the polls.
BARRY COHEN: He can show tears, he can cry and he can also
do his lolly. He also, incidentally, is oversensitive on
some issues and sometimes you know he is wrong because it is
bluster. You know he is in trouble.
RICHARD CARLETON: Mr Hawke, can I ask you if you feel a
little bit embarrassed tonight at the blood bits on your
hands?
BOB HAWKE: You're not improving are you? I thought you
would make a better start to the year than that. It is a
ridiculous question and you know it is ridiculous. I have
no blood on my hands.
RICHARD CARLETON: Do you expect people to believe that you
didn't know that meeting was taking place?
BOB HAWKE: I would expect them to believe that you are a
damned impertinent.
BARRY COHEN: You will find that is one of his not-so-nice
qualities. That he can be a bully. The only answer with
Bob when he is doing his bullying is to call his bluff. I
have seen those that do and he backs off.
LAURIE OAKES: Hawke didn't follow the traditional
parliamentary path to leadership. He was an MP for less
than three years before getting the top job. He believes
that has affected the media coverage of his Prime
Ministership. BOB HAWKE: When I came to Canberra I was unique as far as
the Press was concerned because I was already a national
figure having been President of the ACTU for a decade. I
owed nothing to the Canberra gallery. Not a thing. I
didn't need them. I didn't go to them. I didn't use them.
I became Prime Minister without them. I think and I am
not saying this in a bitchy way or a complaining way that
subconsciously that has been something that the Canberra
gallery has been aware of.
LAURIE OAKES: He did owe a great deal to Bill Hayden, worn
down by constant sniping and pressure until he agreed to
step aside as the Labor leader and hand over to Hawke on the
very day in February 1983 that Malcolm Fraser made his
fateful decision to call an election.
BILL HAYDEN: I am not convinced that the Labor Party would
not win under my leadership. I think that a drover's dog
could lead the Labor Party to victory.
TONY EGGLETON: I think Mr Hawke actually has been a very
lucky Prime Minister in many ways from the very moment he
came in and how he came in as leader because I think Mr
Hawke would have made a very poor Opposition Leader.
LAURIE OAKES: Leaders of the bloodless coup that put Hawke
into the leadership and the Lodge thought he would act as a
popular figurehead while more serious politicians got on
with the business of Government. But Hawke's new deputy,
the heir apparent, and briefly a rival for the leadership
two years ago says he has turned out to be a very serious
Prime Minister.
PAUL KEATING: The Prime Ministership is a serious job. I
am not for a moment implying that anyone who has had it
hasn't for a moment been serious about it but none in the
post-War years have really been as serious about reestablishing
the basis of Australian wealth. If you
actually look for the Prime Minister who actually faced real
problems squarely, and adjusted the nation accordingly, I
think you have probably got to go back to Curtin.
TOM UREN: I think there are too many of his Ministers that
are, in fact,, economic rationalists first and Labor
politicians secondly and I think that Hawke fills the gap
that they don't really understand and that is the great
thing about Hawke.
LAURIE OAKES: Twenty years at the ACTU did breed in him the
feel for a constituency far broader than any Parliamentary
seat. An identification with ordinary Australians few
contemporary politicians can match.
BOB HAWKE: I feel still very close to them but you are
right in the sense that I don't have the same amount of time
to be as close as I was.
LAURIE OAKES: Do you feel cut off. For instance, in the
election when you didn't know the price of beer which I
suppose is understandable for a teetotaller but that kind of
thing. Knowing the price of bread and butter.
BOB HAWKE: You certainly don't have the same knowledge of
detail because you are isolated from a lot of it. That is
true but the real question is are you isolated from what
people are thinking and the concerns and do they write to
you and do you write back to them. You have a look at my
correspondence and people are writing to me all the time and
I am responding to them particularly young people. I know
what their concerns are.
LAURIE OAKES: What some Labor colleagues find hard to
accept is that Hawke is also able to get close to people at
the top of the wealth and social scale.
TOM UREN: I would say that the thing that irks me more
about Hawke at present, apart from our ideological
differences, is his interests with some of the captains of
industry. I think that some of his relationships with some
of those people would curdle a Labor man a little bit
because you can't have all things. You can't represent the
whole of the people. That's all Irish. Labor Parties were
elected to represent the class and I think that imprint
should be made a bit more clearly.
LAURIE OAKES: There must be some regrets and
disappointments. BOB HAWKE: I must say that I am terribly disappointed about
the child poverty issue. I made a mistake in not using the
exact language in the delivered policy speech that was in
the document.
' By 1990 no Australian child will be living in poverty'.
What we were going to do was to remove the financial need
for any child to live in poverty. But that enormous
achievement of which I am inordinately proud has been
unquestionably clouded by the shorthand language that was
used and that's a disappointment.
LAURIE OAKES: After more than 7 years the constant
pressure, media attention, lose of privacy might be expected
to be taking its toll but this Prime Minister the positives
easily outweigh the negatives.
BOB HAWKE: Laurie, it is impossible for me to convey to you
or to your viewers out there the sense of pride and the
pleasure that goes with this job. Those costs are there but
when you do the balance sheet it is overwhelmingly that
side. LAURIE OAKES: Does the milestone matter?
PAUL KEATING: No, it doesn't matter a bit. It is only
about the quality, never the time.
LAURIE OAKES: Do you now start thinking about winding down
or hanging up the gloves or do you look at the next one and
look at Menzies record?
BOB HAWKE: I am not looking at Menzies record but I am in
no sense winding down. To do so would be an insult to the
Australian people. If I were to say now that I have passed
some record milestone I will start to take it easy, I
wouldn't deserve to be Prime Minister for another day.
LAURIE OAKES: How will you celebrate on the day?
BOB HAWKE: I might have an extra cup of tea, Laurie.
Jim Waley: Laurie Oakes reporting on Bob Hawke's record.
In case you wondered we did invite Gough Whitlam to
contribute his view on the subject. An offer he politely
declined. For 0rivate rese~ amb ority. Wkiitst.: every effort is fnade~ to ensure accu~ racy for the beAef. Tv
bf 9ur ctimets, no teqat or other res pnstbil1ty is taken ror errors and otoissions.
( Transcript by Monitair Pty Limited)
Inquiries to Peter Harvey, Press Gallery, Parliament
House, Canberra.