Quote

I went along with it, and wanted to appoint a significant figure in Malcolm Fraser. I didn't have high hopes that they'd be able to do anything, but something was worth a try.

Bob Hawke

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Bob Hawke
Age: 89 †
Born: 1929
Born: December 9
Died: 2019
Died: May 16
Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Politician
Trade Unionist
Union Organizer
Bordertown
South Australia
Australia
Robert James Lee Hawke
The Honourable Bob Hawke
Robert James Lee Bob Hawke
Wanted
Figures
Trying
Along
Something
Worth
Fraser
Went
Appoint
High
Malcolm
Didn
Hopes
Anything
Significant
Able
Figure

More quotes by Bob Hawke

Image
Don't talk to me about what's happened since [Nelson] Mandela! His successor was absolutely hopeless - no such thing as AIDS - and this present President... It's a tragedy, you know, what's happened there post-Mandela, because he was an iconic figure.
Bob Hawke
Image
My point was that the war was intrinsically wrong, and as a result of our participation we haven't improved Australia's security but created a greater danger at home and abroad.
Bob Hawke
Image
The personality of the Queen [ Elizabeth II]... For instance, once she goes - if she's ever going to die, it seems to be questionable - if Charles [of Wales] were there, whether there'd be the same sort of cement is very questionable, I think.
Bob Hawke
Image
I really had very little to do with Pierre Trudeau. He was off the scene very soon.
Bob Hawke
Image
I had a very close relationship with [Brian] Mulroney.
Bob Hawke
Image
I led the fight here against apartheid as President of the ACTU, including particularly the Springbok tour in 1971. And that led to the banning of the South African cricket tour which had been scheduled - that was something that I sorted out with Sir Donald Bradman. That was interesting.
Bob Hawke
Image
I had no time for Indira Gandhi. She was too much in the Russian camp for my liking.
Bob Hawke
Image
We [ with Brian Mulroney and Rajiv Gandhi] went to the meeting in Canada [the 1987 Vancouver CHOGM] and I said to them there that sanctions weren't working they were just being busted. And it did seem to me that one way that we could bring the apartheid regime down would be if we did mount an effective investment sanction.
Bob Hawke
Image
In fact, soon after that [South African sanctions], I was going on an official visit to the UK and Margaret Thatcher instructed every minister to clear the decks of any outstanding matters between us - Australia and the Brits. And she went out of her way to make sure that that was as successful a visit as it possibly could be.
Bob Hawke
Image
[ Rajiv Gandhi] was such an infinitely more attractive leader than his mother.
Bob Hawke
Image
Peoples have come to experience that political structures and divisions of power are not immutable. Nor will they perceive the distribution of wealth and resources between nations to be unalterably ordained by heaven and incapable of drastic rearrangement by the less than gentle manipulation of man.
Bob Hawke
Image
I assumed the leadership within the Commonwealth for the fight against apartheid. I was very much assisted by Brian Mulroney, the Prime Minister of Canada, [and] Rajiv Gandhi, when he became the Prime Minister of India. And there were trade sanctions.
Bob Hawke
Image
We will not allow to become a political issue in this country the question of Asianisation.
Bob Hawke
Image
I rang Brian [Mulroney] up. I said, What's this bloody nonsense. You've got a wheat trade with Iraq and you won't come aboard? I said, We've got a bloody big wheat trade too, so get your priorities right. And he said, Okay, Bob. I'll come. I rang George and he was very appreciative.
Bob Hawke
Image
While society cannot provide employment for its members, the production/work/income nexus has to be abandoned as a justification for our present parsimony to the unemployed. An assumption cannot be used to justify making second-class citizens of those who are unfortunate enough to constitute living proof of the inaccuracy of that assumption.
Bob Hawke
Image
Do you know why I have credibility? Because I don't exude morality.
Bob Hawke
Image
One of the features of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings was [that] she [ Elizabeth II] would have a meeting with each of them. You'd have an allotted time.
Bob Hawke
Image
The concept there was that the small number of developed countries within the Commonwealth should provide assistance. This was not just financial but personal, providing experts and so on, to assist less developed members of the Commonwealth to get on the growing path. And that was part of what we did with South Africa.
Bob Hawke
Image
I respected [Margaret Thatcher] enormously. She had great integrity in that respect.
Bob Hawke
Image
You've got to remember the Cold War was a very real thing then, so the relationship with the United States was very, very important. As was the relationship that I was developing with China: that was something I did very much. And they weren't conflicting things.
Bob Hawke