Bob Hawke Quotes
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Bill Heseltine had been at university with me, at the University of Western Australia. I knew him well.
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[John Howard] led the Government. They had the numbers, and just basically automatically went along with the Americans.
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I find a fence a very uncomfortable place to squat my bottom.
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We were great mates [with Rajiv Gandhi]: very, very, very close friends. In fact, on my visit to India as Prime Minister, we were going to his home for dinner. There were two aspects I remember: one is him saying how he had trouble with his security people, because they insisted he wears a vest. He said it was very uncomfortable and he often took it off, but of course, in the end, it wouldn't have mattered if he'd been wearing three vests - he would have been gone.
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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.
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I think it is just stupid economics for a government to approach economic management from a strand of thinking regarding unions as enemies.
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There is a reciprocal respect for [ Elizabeth II], for her interest in the Commonwealth. The members of the Commonwealth recognise that here is a genuine interest from the top. So, that's one reason. I'm not putting it necessarily in order of importance.
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I hated [Robert Mugabe]. He's one of the worst human beings I've ever met. He treated black and white with equal contempt. He was a horrible human being.
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[Malcolm Fraser] went straight from Melbourne Grammar to Oxford. And he would have been a very lonely person, and I think he probably met a lot of black students there who were also probably lonely. I think he formed friendships with them, which established his judgement about the question of colour. That’s my theory. I don’t know whether it’s right or not, but that’s what I always respected about Malcolm. He was absolutely, totally impeccable on the question of race and colour.
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Brian Mulroney, myself, [and] Rajiv Gandhi; I think that was the real core [of the Commonwealth ]. That was the engine room, I reckon.
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I said to my people, "We're knocking apartheid off but we've got to be prepared to assist them." And I sent senior people over there to assist the incoming South African regime to go about the economic plan.
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I believe [ Rajiv Gandhi] had a real sense that he would be assassinated.
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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.
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[ Elizabeth II] has immersed herself, in the sense [that] she can speak intelligently about any and all members of the Commonwealth and she has played a role.
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[ Rajiv Gandhi] was very reflective and rueful and regretful about the fact that his children's education...He wanted them to get educated outside of India, but he said to me the only place that he found where they would be safe was in Russia, and he didn't really want them to be educated there! So, I said, "Well, send them to Australia. I'll look after them." And my security bloke went absolutely bloody bananas, and I said, "We'll look after them." But, in the end, he didn't send them.
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Institutions do live on their history.
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It [also] lives on its history, now, to some extent: its achievements [ of the Commonwealth] in Rhodesia and South Africa, which were enormous. And they'll live on that for some time, I guess. And there is still - I'm out of touch with it now, of course - but I still think there is a degree of cooperation at the economic level, to some extent, with the more developed countries helping the less developed. How substantial that is now, I simply am not versed.
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I don't know who described Mahathir [bin Mohamad] as a pillar of the Commonwealth, but they don't know what they're talking about.
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George Bush Junior [George W Bush] was a religious fanatic, and Tony Blair wasn't far behind in a way.
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One other thing: at the meeting in Canada, [there was] the coup in Fiji. This comes to an important part of the Commonwealth: the role of the Queen [Elizabeth II]. I had absolutely just enormous respect for her as leader of the Commonwealth. You could talk to her about any of the fifty-one countries of the Commonwealth and you could have an intelligent conversation with her about the economics, the politics. She really immersed herself in the Commonwealth.
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By 1990, no Australian child will be living in poverty.
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Do you know why I have credibility? Because I don't exude morality.
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I had no time for Indira Gandhi. She was too much in the Russian camp for my liking.
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[ Rajiv Gandhi] was such an infinitely more attractive leader than his mother.
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All the arguments there are against Malcolm [Turnbull] - and there are many - the one thing in which he is impeccable and why I would support him in this is that he has an absolutely impeccable record on the question of colour and race. People often wondered why. What I see as a possible explanation is [that] he came from a very wealthy family - a 'squattocracy' - and he had private education at home and then he went to boarding school at Melbourne Grammar School, one of those lead schools in Australia.
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Geoffrey [Howe] and I were mates, and he disagreed with [ Margaret Thatcher] position. So, we cooperated surreptitiously.
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I can't speak with authority about Emeka Anyaoku. I just didn't know him that well.
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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.
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I wrote a letter to our Australian newspaper about three weeks before the invasion and I said, "Osama bin Laden must be on his knees morning and night praying to Allah that the Americans will invade." And, of course, he was, because nothing more advanced his cause - the cause of terrorism - than the invasion of Iraq. It was an absurdity.
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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.
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