Bob Hawke: a re-thinking

To begin with, you can find some official commentaries on Bob Hawke at the links in Note 1 below.

Back in the 80s, I voted for the ALP because I liked their policies - and that has generally been my principle throughout life: vote for policies, not personalities unless there are aspects of the latter which impede the ability to govern (such as being beholden to foreign powers, elites, etc). The US-style rubbish we’ve started following in recent decades is, in my opinion, a sign of weak-mindedness on the part of voters, incompetence of the part of journalists, and lack of courage/self belief in ourselves as Australians - a reinvention of the notorious Australian cultural cringe which started to die out in the 70s. 

Voting Fraser out from the position of Prime Minister in 1983 was a bonus - but then, that is largely because of the backward policies he was pushing: if that personality had been pushing progressive policies, and could be trusted to those policies, I would have considered voting for him. 

As far as how Fraser and Hawke were as human beings, neither appealed to me - Hawke’s drinking, evident-even-then womanising, and “matey-ness” didn’t cut it with me, as I received far too much discrimination and abuse from Australians who were proud of being "ocker" yobs, and Fraser was ruthless to the point of underhanded. 

(I also didn’t like Keating’s arrogance or potty mouth [he was like a schoolyard bully with a University vocabulary] either, but Keating did deliver the apology.)

There were quite a few things that the Hawke government - and it was a government, where Ministers were also seen to be making valuable contributions - did that I approved of and still do. Examples of that (see here) include Medicare, environmental protections, taking action against gender discrimination, and adopting a consensus approach to industrial matters - more on that shortly. 

I also considered the Hawke Governments foreign policy  actions (e.g., supporting APEC, supporting Chinese students here after the Tiananmen Square massacre) to be reasonable (and I always thought Gareth Evans was and still is excellent on foreign affairs and human rights).

On the other hand, I considered some of the economic changes were bad (e.g., floating the dollar, and unrestrained & too rapid opening of the economy, and HECS - which was always clearly going to be the wedge opening the door to more fees) - and I still do, around four decades later, although others aimed at addressing poverty were and still are good, and I approved of actions to improve our sovereignty, consider Treaty, and multiculturalism. 

So, from my perspective, Hawke is a mixed bag of good, bad, and neutral. 

Now we come to what I didn’t know at the time - or didn’t give enough weight to, if I had come across it: 

Bob Hawke was a US lackey 

That is mentioned in the Wikipedia article, at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bob_Hawke&oldid=1128295473#Informer_for_the_United_States, and I am also reading about it in Chapter Six of John  Pilger’s book “A  Secret  Country” (which I bought because of Chapter Five, which alleges that the Dismissal was actually a US coup - and presents sufficient evidence for that view to require genuine consideration, IMO). On top of that, an article was published recently on this, at https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/the-secret-life-of-bob-hawke-us-informant,15262 - and it is reading the latter which spurred this post. 

So, let me summarise what these sources are reporting: 

• While at the ACTU, Hawke effectively spied for the USA, and was exposed to US economic and other views, including through paid-for-trips to the USA; 
• Hawke was going to split away from the ALP and create a party, but didn’t proceed with that because of the Dismissal; 
• Hawke stopped a national strike to protest against the Dismissal (given the apparent potential for violence, at that time I approved of that - now, I don’t); 
• the consensus (Accord) that I favoured at the time now is considered by some to have been the start of the undermining of Australian wages as a share of the overall economy; 
• Hawke’s connections to the US appear to have gone beyond spying to, at times, actively being a lackey - or agent, if you prefer that term.
  

I am staggered - and, frankly, appalled. I am still reeling a little, so I am still thinking through the evidence presented and formulating my position on what I have read, but ... at this stage:

• I consider the information presented by John Pilger that the Dismissal was a US (non-military) coup to be possible, and I am erring towards likely - especially as the USA “has form” with such abhorrent behaviour; 
• the information on Hawke being a US spy to be true and being a US lackey to be probable; which leads to ... 
  
• Whitlam remains a hero of mine, Keating looks better than he did at the time, and Hawke has now wound up on the history manure pile beside the manure pile that Kerr, Thatcher, Pinochet, Somoza, and other  US  puppet leaders and  states are on (together with Reagan, Nixon, Bush, Bush, and #45 - who came to power because of the harms of the casually implemented globalisation/neoliberalism that Hawke and Keating started here).
  

OK, so I was not aware of all this in 1983. Would I have changed my vote if I had known that Hawke was beholden to a foreign government? 

No. 

As I wrote above, the ALP had policies I favoured, and I considered (and still do) the conservative party’s policies presented for the 1983 election (and many since then) to be dangerous and damaging. I already knew enough of Hawke as a person to know he was someone I wouldn’t want to socialise with - this whole matter shows the compromises voters sometimes have to make ... but more information at that time would have allowed voters to better weigh their options. And the ALP didn’t need to be led by Hawke to win - when Bill Hayden was deposed by Hawke as leader of the ALP, a famous comment then or soon after was that a drover’s dog could have led the party to power. 

Also, Fraser was equally beholden - to elites who were aligned with a different foreign power (the UK).

So, if this knowledge had been available, it is likely, IMO, that the ALP would still have won, albeit possibly under Bill Hayden’s leadership, but the government would have been different - still progressive, but perhaps less ambitious, especially economically, and certainly better aligned with traditional ALP values.

But still better than a Fraser-led government. 

 

Notes 

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bob_Hawke&oldid=1128295473#Prime_Minister_of_Australia_(1983%E2%80%931991); 
• https://www.nma.gov.au/explore/features/prime-ministers/bob-hawke; 
• https://apm-origin.moadoph.gov.au/prime-ministers/bob-hawke; 
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hawke_government&oldid=1126758165.
  

 

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:

• there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend to Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”; 
  
• I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
  

 

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Finally, remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing.