Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the condolence motion for Robert James Lee Hawke. He was born on 9 December 1929 and, sadly, passed away on 16 May this year, just two days before this year's federal election. Looking around the room, I suspect that I have known Bob Hawke longer than just about all the current senators. I would like to share a few anecdotes about his life and my and my family's connection with it. Bob Hawke was born in Bordertown in my home state of South Australia. His mother, Edith, known as Elly, was a school teacher and his father, Arthur, known as Clem, was a Congregationalist minister. Politics was in Bob's family. In 1924, his uncle Albert had become South Australia's youngest-ever member of parliament when he won the seat of Burra Burra in the mid-north of South Australia, which included, interestingly enough, the town of Farrell Flat, not far from my vineyard. He was elected for Labor in the House of Assembly at the tender age of 23. After losing the seat by just 11 votes in 1927, he moved to Western Australia where he would later become Premier, serving in that role from 1953 to 1959. When Bob's older brother, Neil, died of meningitis in his late teens, the family also moved to Western Australia.

Of course, Bob Hawke's early years in Bordertown means we proudly claim him as a South Australian, the only Prime Minister who was born in South Australia. Julia Gillard, that other great South Australian Prime Minister was, of course, born in Wales but grew up in Adelaide. From humble beginnings, Bob Hawke grew to become a giant of the labour movement and of the Labor Party. First, though, he had to complete his studies as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. It was there that he famously established a world record for sculling a yard of ale. In 2015 I took my grandson Edward Mallacher, who was born in Oxford, to see the memorial to Bob at the Turf Tavern where that particular event occurred.

Bob joined the Australian Council of Trade Unions in 1956, as a research officer, replacing Harold Souter, the ACTU's first-ever research officer, who then became acting secretary. For the next 13 years, he ran the national wage cases, lifting the wages and living standards of all Australians. In 1969 he narrowly defeated Souter, who was the right-wing candidate, to become elected ACTU president. I first met Bob Hawke in 1979 at the ACTU Congress in Melbourne at the now knocked down Dallas Brooks Hall in East Melbourne. By this time, his support base in the labour movement had shifted from the left to the right. The big debate of the conference was on the banning of uranium mining at Jabiluka in the Northern Territory—which you might recall, Mr Acting Deputy President. Bob spoke cogently and passionately on the issue for hours, only to lose the debate.

He left the ACTU and entered parliament in 1980. In 1983, as the recently elected Labor leader, he won a smashing victory and never lost a federal election as Prime Minister. In 1984, in order to provide extra support to Bob as the new Labor leader, my union, the SDA, which had not been affiliated to the ALP in Victoria since the split in the 1950s, rejoined the party. My predecessor as national president of the SDA, Jim Maher, was pelted with tomatoes at the Victorian conference when they were readmitted to the ALP, thus creating the name 'tomato left' in that state. In 1988 I was preselected as Labor's candidate for the federal seat of Adelaide in the by-election following Chris Hurford's resignation and appointment as consul-general in New York. In what became known as 'the timed telephone call by-election', Bob got the message that the public didn't like the idea, and I lost the first of many political battles.

I still remember the day very vividly. I was travelling with Bob and the then Premier of South Australia, John Bannon, to launch the new Mitsubishi Magna at Tonsley Park. Bob got a call, and after he'd hung up he said, 'We've got an election issue.' I said, 'What is it?' Bob said, 'The Libs are silly enough to support Telstra's call for timed telephone calls.' Later that day, after a successful campaign launch at the North Adelaide Football Club, Bob did a press conference. In the final question, and out of the blue, he was asked, 'Will you support timed telephone calls?' Bob said yes. In the car later, taking Bob to the airport, I said, 'I thought we were going to oppose timed telephone calls,' and he said, 'Well, it's too late now; I've said it,' and, of course, it was too late.

Bob Hawke was Prime Minister from 11 March 1983 to 20 December 1991, and he was a great Prime Minister. Among his achievements—many already recognised today, as I'm sure many more will be—it's worth highlighting that it was Bob Hawke who floated the Australian dollar; opened the Australian economy to the world, creating to this day 28 years of continuous economic growth; founded the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, APEC; created Medicare; gave the Commonwealth power over World Heritage sites; stopped the damming of the Tasmanian Franklin River; prioritised and started World Heritage listing of Kakadu; and adopted green and gold as our national colours.

After he left the prime ministership, I caught up with Bob again in Vienna in 1995. It was only a week or so before he was due to marry his second wife, Blanche d'Alpuget. Bob was back amongst his old union mates and was happy to share yarns, cigars and a few glasses of beer, but I'm not sure that Blanche approved.

In 2007, Bob Hawke was in Adelaide supporting the now member for Spence, Nick Champion, who was at the time Labor's candidate in what was then the federal seat of Wakefield. My daughter Teresa volunteered to help out and was given the job of being Bob's driver. He declared her the best driver that he'd ever had. On the way back into town, he did get a little bit upset when he thought Blanche had forgotten to ring the Hyatt Hotel, where he was staying that night, to put in an order for parmesan cheese on his spaghetti that night. Blanche hadn't forgotten, of course; it was just that Bob couldn't hear her calling. My eldest daughter, who's got a rather famous photograph with Bob from the time she was three years old, also used to serve Bob at George's Fish Cafe on Gouger Street when he came to Adelaide for meetings of the Hawke foundation.

Like many in this place and the other place, I was honoured to attend the memorial at the Sydney Opera House with my wife and daughter last month. That memorial—appropriately, I believe—focused on Bob Hawke's achievements and hard work, rather than his charisma or his larrikinism. Australia owes much to Bob Hawke to this day, from the establishment of Medicare to the protection of our unique and precious environment and the adoption of our national sporting colours. He was a Prime Minister who worked for Australians and for Australia's future. He will be greatly missed.