Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

I loved Bob. I loved him as an Australian, I loved him as a Labor leader and I loved him because, over the last 10 years, we became friends. We became quite close. We've already heard from people the way Bob Hawke, as an Australian, knew us and was of us and loved us. But there was also—what no speech can do to bring it together—the way Bob Hawke would fill a room.

Bob Hawke was not a tall man and every time the political barb was thrown at John Howard with the term 'little Johnny Howard', John Howard would protest that he was actually taller than Bob Hawke. But there was something in a small person's body that created this human giant the moment he walked into a room or the moment he spoke. I remember as a member of Young Labor, as a delegate at the New South Wales conference at Town Hall, when Bob Hawke would come in to address us. The beginning of the speech was always dreadful. Bob was not good at reading a fully written out speech. At some point about 10 minutes in, he'd get bored with what had been written and he would just take off. There are a number of people who can walk into a small meeting room and fill it, but not many people can fill the Town Hall. But that was the measure of Bob.

But he also loved the things that we loved. One of the only moments of tension between me and Bob was one time when he offered me one of his Bob Hawke beers. Now, of course, as is common for people of Irish heritage, I'm coeliac, so there's only a couple of brands of beer that I can have that don't wreck me. And when I said no, there was a movement in Bob Hawke's eyebrows. They sharpened. I started to try to explain, and as the eyebrows got sharper and sharper I had that moment when, for the first time, I saw Bob as he looked when Andrew Peacock and John Howard looked at him—that complete 'I do not understand what you are saying to me'. And from that moment on, every time I caught up with Bob, I made sure I had some gluten-free beer that I had brought with me so that the challenge wouldn't be quite the same.

We've talked a lot about Bob's prime ministership, but it's important that we as Australians realise the way he represented us on the world stage and, even after he stopped being in this room, kept representing us on the world stage. The Boao Forum for Asia is what China has always wanted to be the Davos of Asia—a large international conference. Bob himself was asked to be the chair of that. He had the view that, no, you needed to have an Asian leader as well, and the job was shared with Fidel Ramos. But Bob would go every year to Boao, as have senior ministers on each side of this House over the years.

When he was there, there would be one night when all the Australians were called to the stage. Australians from all different businesses—everyone from a foreign minister from Liberal or Labor through to Twiggy Forrest or whoever was there—would be called up onto the stage, and they would be obliged to sing 'Waltzing Matilda' with Bob. But there was a rule: he would hand the microphone to everyone when it came to the choruses but the moment it got to the verses he would seize it back, because only Bob was allowed to sing the verses. If anyone, even though they didn't have the microphone, tried to join in, they'd get a sharp look and they'd be told that was for him. That 'Waltzing Matilda' would be heard at events throughout Australia and the world.

I think one of the testaments to Bob's legacy is the fact that today we want to pretend so much of it was bipartisan. And that's a good thing. That's good that we want to remember the world as it is now. But Bob was always amused about the number of fights he had to have for things now considered bipartisan. He was okay with it. If people want to own the legacy, go for it. The truth is, he always had the view that if you were going to deregulate the economy you had to increase the security in people's lives.

That is why Medicare was fought for, and that wasn't bipartisan. That is why superannuation was fought for, which still isn't bipartisan. That is why one of the great achievements and great honours for all members of this House, and one that will always rest with Bill Shorten, is the fact that a resolution on race—that Bill Shorten had the privilege to move last year—was carried without dissent in this parliament. It was, with only one word change, exactly what had been moved by Bob Hawke years earlier, with John Howard as Leader of the Opposition insisting that it be opposed and divided on, and people like Philip Ruddock crossing the floor. I don't say that to draw back the pain of the past but to simply say let's not pretend this was easy for Bob at the time and there was sudden bipartisanship. Where Australia has got to now is so much of what Bob was fighting for then.

As an Australian, Bob understood so well the concept of mateship. In conversations with him late last year, when he was tired and he was frail, there was one moment where he particularly lit up. He said, 'You know, Paul and I are mates again. We've sorted it out. We've fixed it.' And he beamed. It meant so much to him, that the years of tension and difference with Paul Keating had gone full circle and the friendship was there again.

I love Bob because I'm Labor. For me, I joined the Labor Party because of the saving of the Daintree rainforest. It was the campaign for the Daintree that caused me to become a member of the Labor Party in the first place. We can rattle off, very quickly, the Franklin, the Daintree, Kakadu and Antarctica. Bob and I started to become friends in the years when I held the environment portfolio. We need to remember, with Antarctica, it wasn't just a simple decision. It had got to the cabinet papers. As Bob was reading his cabinet papers, on the weekend, it was already there as a recommendation that Australia would agree to mining in Antarctica.

Bob read it and responded with a term that is certainly not parliamentary and took it to cabinet. The advice from everyone around cabinet and all the smart people was, 'It's too late; it's done. Every other country has signed on.' Bob said, 'No, we're not doing this.' He got onto his friend Jacques Cousteau, and both Paul and Bob were involved in conversations with Michel Rocard, then the Prime Minister of France. They turned it all around.

It was a great privilege for the 20th anniversary of that treaty to be in Hobart with Bob Hawke and Michel Rocard, celebrating the 20th anniversary of what was and always will be the largest conservation decision in the history of our planet. There never has been before, and there won't be again, an occasion when a conservation decision of that size is made on this planet. That belongs to two men, who have both now passed away: Bob Hawke and Michel Rocard.

Bob had never been to any of our bases in Antarctica, even though he was responsible for them. So as environment minister I managed to get him onto one of the planes. I was so happy and surprised, because I had never seen the photos, that at his Opera House memorial service one of the photos that came up was of Bob in Antarctica. I was worried at the time of him going to Antarctica as to whether or not we might get in trouble for having sent him there and whether it might become a partisan thing. It never did but, just to make sure, I made sure that the shadow minister for the environment, the member for Flinders, was also invited on the trip to Antarctica, which he didn't take up, and I've not let him know why until now. That was back when we got Bob there.

Warren Snowdon referred to the Kakadu decision. One of the arguments that Bob used—and this was public at the time—against his own cabinet's decisions, when the traditional beliefs of the Jawoyn people were being mocked, was saying: 'How can you expect respect for your Christian faith and not respect the faith of the people who have always been on this land on this particular issue? How can you do that?' Bob would often talk about his cabinet. He loved his cabinet. There were many times he would say to me, 'You have a good cabinet.' That was when we were in government. He was very complimentary of the frontbench that we took to the last election. But he would always pause after that and say, 'But it's not as good as my cabinet.' But notwithstanding how much he loved his cabinet, even though a majority said to go the other way, he put his authority on the line. His view was that that was the final straw in losing the prime ministership.

When stage 3 of Kakadu was added to the World Heritage area, there was a gap within the boundary. It was an area called Koongarra. The reason there was that gap, Koongarra, was that the traditional owners, the Djok clan, at that point were divided as to whether they wanted it permanently protected or whether they might want it mined at some point in time. Twenty years later, the Djok clan was down to one member. There is today only one surviving member of the Djok clan, Jeffrey Lee. For all the different moments I have had in this chamber, the most special one for me, I suspect, will always be when we put through the legislation to add Koongarra to the World Heritage area and add it to the national park. Harry Jenkins was in the chair. I was the minister moving the motion. The shadow minister was in here for it. Sitting side by side, on those public gallery chairs just over there, were Bob Hawke and Jeffrey Lee. They were there to watch the next stage of the Kakadu legacy take place. When we had a media conference later that day—which never made it to evening news, but that's life—Bob took no credit for himself. His entire speech to the press gallery was about Jeffrey Lee. He is a man who could have become a multimillionaire, yet had decided to preserve his land forever by adding it to World Heritage area.

Finally, as I referred to at the start, Bob and I became friends and quite close. I've never known anybody so ready to die. He was not wishing it on, but he believed that, yes, it was imminent. At the Woodford Folk Festival over summer, he said this to me many times: 'You know, mate, I won't be back. This is my last one.' He was relaxed about it. For a lot of us who were friends of his, we found this really challenging. We weren't quite as relaxed about it as he was. But he was convinced, and right, that he wouldn't be coming back.

He would sit and do his cryptic crosswords each day, because he was determined to always keep his mind sharp. He would do his cryptic crossword each time. As Linda Burney mentioned, the room where it was done at the Woodford Folk Festival is their head office and, as only the Woodford Folk Festival can do, is called the Kremlin. Sitting at the Kremlin each day, Bob would be there doing his cryptic crossword. There was a view that he was probably too frail to go out to the festival this time. Instead of leading the festival in Waltzing Matilda, they recorded some and played it on the big screen. The crowd went wild. While he would sing Waltzing Matildafor the crowd outside, within the Kremlin it was always Solidarity Forever. The rule was the same: don't try to join in in the verses. Our role was to help with the chorus, with fists raised, and he would take the verses for himself.

Towards the end of the festival, Bob turned to his great friend Bill Hauritz who, together with Amanda Jackes, runs the festival. They went out on the buggy for Bob to have a look at the festival. They went from the private area to the public area, and no-one looked. They drove the full length of the first street, and no-one had noticed. Bob was quite crestfallen and he turned to Bill and he said, 'They've forgotten.' And Bill thought, 'Well, we'll turn the corner and we'll go back.' And as they turned the corner, one person at quite a distance pointed and at the top of his voice said, 'There's Hawky.' And from that moment he was mobbed. Nothing had changed. The love that you would have seen 20 or 30 years earlier was there at the festival, with people taking selfies, people wanting to talk to him and people just wanting to say, 'Thank you, Bob.' After about 40 minutes, he said to Bill, 'Please take me back.' He'd had enough. But that moment, where he thought maybe the relationship with Australia had changed, showed that it hadn't and, even with his passing, it never will.

I'm grateful for his friendship and grateful, through those festivals, that I got to know Blanche, Louis and Bri. I didn't get to know Hazel at any point in her life nor do I know very well Sue, Stephen and Rosslyn, but, obviously, to everybody, my condolences. I'll miss a great Australian, I'll miss a Labor leader and I'll miss my friend.

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