Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is not my first speech, and I thank the Senate for allowing me this contribution to this important condolence debate in advance of my first speech. I don't mind saying that I wept when I heard that Bob Hawke had died. I think that my kids were a little mystified when they saw this sudden and unexplained outburst of emotion from their dad. I wept because Bob Hawke's tenure as Prime Minister was the soundtrack to my teenage years. It was impossible for my adolescent experience to conceive of the Australia that went before Hawke—of the enormous feat of imagination, courage and leadership that it took to drag the country from the torpor of conflict and stagnation after the nation-building phase of the postwar years into a new Australia.

Hawke conjured a modern Australia where working- and middle-class people's lives were chained by the power of government. His four election victories between 1983 and 1991 cemented Labor social democratic achievements. Transformative change, the kind that is felt in the lived experiences of all Australians, takes not just winning government but long-term government to make reform durable. Hawke taught Labor and the labour movement about the value of national consensus and governing in the interests of all Australians as the core propositions of Labor governments. That lesson is vital.

There has been an enormous effort by conservative commentators and Hawke's erstwhile political opponents to rewrite history. The endless column inches about the 'Hawke-Keating era of reform' are rarely written by people who are genuinely motivated by the same principles that underpinned Hawke's achievements. It is as if the conservatives at the time supported all or any of Hawke's efforts to reform our economy, our society and our democracy or his conception of modern Australia's place in the world. These were all hard things to do, and his opponents were much more venal and opportunistic then than they now claim.

The consensus that Bob sought was built out of a radical proposition that transformative change required genuine consultation with every Australian and with the organisations that they formed. It was a deep egalitarianism, a commitment to inclusion that must surely have been forged in his years in the trade union movement. In practice, this meant governing in cooperation with the institutions that were capable of representing and consulting with ordinary Australians. Kim Beazley set it out best in his eulogy at Hawke's grand memorial at the Sydney Opera House just a few weeks ago:

… he governed with the peak organisations—the unions of course, but also the employer groups—Indigenous, environmental and rural groups—multicultural, arts, sporting, social, religious groups. For him they were the transmission belts of change to the community, feedback and adjustment.

It was the legitimacy of the institutions that represented people, and Hawke's ability to work constructively with them, that was core to the changes that the Hawke government made. He summarised this approach in his 1988 Boyer lecture:

Within Australia we have together I think found the secret of a successful society. It is simple and it is powerful. It is to formulate policies with maximum input from those likely to be affected, to take account of the aspirations of all significant groups and to seek to harmonise as far as possible the actions of those groups.

Hawke understood the value of democratic participation, that democracy doesn't begin and end at the ballot box, electing representative governments that implement policy to individual consumers of government services.

Our democracy is, or should be, built on the fundamental belief that citizens are capable of understanding and interacting with power, and that the expression of that belief is collective organisation. Active participation in unions and associations, migrant organisations, environment groups, churches and RSLs is a core feature of a healthy democracy, and it's government's job to encourage and facilitate that vital democratic work. Democracy doesn't stop at the factory gate, and it should flourish in our workplaces and communities. Hawke's vision of a healthy pluralist social democracy, as much about the way that change is delivered as the outcome of the change itself, puts his opponents' tepid neoliberal version of consumer democracy in the shade. It was core to the achievements of that period of successful reform in government.

I don't think it's possible to talk about Bob Hawke without mentioning his commitment to internationalism and racial equality. His mobilisation of CHOGM sanctions against the racist apartheid regime in South Africa—against significant opposition, including here in Australia—was crucial to deposing that fascist, racist regime. His commitment to democracy is surely reflected in his brave and principled decision to allow more than 40,000 Chinese students to stay in Australia in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

I met Bob Hawke many times in my career as a trade union official. All of them were memorable, and I'll treasure those memories. I'll never forget finishing a dinner with him on the Gold Coast. We were interrupted by people all the way to the restaurant and by passers-by all the way through the dinner. Bob would have been in his early 80s and he was generous, genuine and spontaneous with all of them. To be around him was to experience a mix of charm, principle and raw intelligence. We returned very late to our hotel that night to find that the bar had sensibly closed. I convinced the manager to reopen it, essentially using Bob's name to open the bar, and we kept the bar humming for more hours than was sensible. A crowd of patrons sat to hear Bob sing, tell terrific stories and make jokes that will not bear repeating in this place.

I was also there as a young industrial relations student at the University of Sydney in 1993 when Hawke gave the inaugural Kingsley Laffer lecture, hosted by Professor Russell Lansbury. That in large part inspired my commitment to industrial relations as a field of study and work and my commitment to workplace democracy and the great potential of the Australian labour movement to effect lasting beneficial change for all Australians. Vale Robert James Lee Hawke, Australian unionist, politician, Prime Minister, larrikin and leader.