Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is not my inaugural speech. Firstly, I'd like to extend by condolences to Blanche d'Alpuget and Bob Hawke's family. Many of us were and are great fans of Bob Hawke, as was my father, Neil Sheldon, who passed away many years ago. He was a great admirer of Bob and, on the few occasions my dad, a staunch Labor man, met Bob at Labor and community functions, he told wonderful stories of a man with great intellect, a thirst for knowledge, and a great love of sport and his fellow man.

Bob Hawke was a man of great skills, used to settle some of the country's most adverse, seemingly intractable disputes whilst leader of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and, of course, later Prime Minister. But, friends, I'll take you back to Frank Sinatra's tour of Australia in 1974 to briefly tell the story of when Bob saved 'Ol' Blue Eyes' during the siege of Sydney. In July 1974, Frank Sinatra took the stage at Festival Hall in Melbourne, singing his opening number to great applause. As was his way after the first few songs, he sat on a stool, sipping honeyed tea to relax his throat before the next number and chatted with the audience. Of course, on this night the audience, as it had been on previous occasions, was in the palm of his hand. He was beloved in Australia, and we were happy to see him in person.

Frank Sinatra had been in Australia for a week or so and had been hounded by the press for the entire time. He was tired and had clearly had enough. He dropped a bombshell that turned into a symphony of counter-emotional explosions over the coming days. Referring to Australian journalists from the stage, he said:

They keep chasing after us. We have to run all day long. They're parasites who take everything and give nothing.

He later went on to say, 'They're bums and they're always going to be bums.' It was turning his tour into a public relations disaster. Not a guy to support women's liberation, he dropped the atom bomb and said:

… the broads who work for the press, they're the hookers of the press. I might offer them a buck and a half I'm not sure.

The Australian Journalists Association immediately demanded an apology, and Sinatra refused. Industrial action was taken by working people across Melbourne, Sydney and the country against Sinatra—and his shows, his flights and even serving him meals. Eventually he was stranded in the presidential suite on the 23rd floor of the Boulevard Hotel in Sydney. He demanded to speak to the Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, and Gough simply said that the man to speak to was the head of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Bob Hawke.

Subsequently, Bob went on to point out the following and said to Frank:

If you don't apologise your stay in this country could be indefinite. You won't be allowed to leave Australia unless you can walk on water.

Of course, Sinatra's personal outrage caused him to turn to even the US admiral stationed in Tokyo Bay with the Pacific Fleet, asking him to send a Navy SEALs team in to extract him by helicopter from the roof of the Boulevard Hotel in a further attempt to fly home without an apology. Sinatra was turned down by the admiral, so he then called upon the Teamsters of the USA to come to his aid—a union heavily involved in port trucking and distribution across America. He asked them to put a trade embargo on Australia. The Teamsters rejected this request to get embroiled.

Desperate, as his last resort he decided to talk to the great Australian negotiator Bob Hawke. As it's told, Bob arrived on the 23rd floor and was met with a dishevelled Frank Sinatra and his team in a room that smelled of stale cigarettes and sweat, which hadn't been serviced by hotel staff for many days. In the middle of that pungent room stood, on a pristine dining table, a bottle of fine brandy and fine cigars. After many drafts of the statement—and many more draughts of brandy—Bob Hawke, Frank Sinatra and Mickey Rudin, Frank's lawyer, managed to hammer out a deal. Ultimately, the joint statement of regret by the crooner and Australia's unionists was read out by Bob Hawke on the steps of Sinatra's hotel. While unions had their win for feminism, Sinatra had his payday by completing his Sydney show and having it televised to Melbourne. Bob Hawke, the master negotiator, lifted the siege of Sydney. The crooner left after the Sydney show. He returned to Australia on numerous occasions over the coming decades, forever respecting feminism's vanguard in Australia and Bob Hawke's skill as a negotiator. Vale, Bob Hawke, a unionist, a father, a husband, an Aussie through and through. We'll all miss you.