Bob Hawke as Prime Minister
Professor John Wanna
Bob Hawke as Prime minister from March 1983 to December 1991 has many achievements and the government he led has an enviable record in public policy, especially in economic reform. He is Labor’s longest serving prime minister, and won four successive elections, a record only Howard (4) can match and Menzies (6) better.
He was also the very public and popular face of Labor who chaired a talented, high-performing cabinet, which introduced many economic and social reforms in a period of intense global restructuring. Like Menzies before him, Hawke as PM effectively stole the policies of his opponents while taking the hard ideological edge off them (the one big exception is the introduction of Medicare). Hawke never lost an election as leader but was spectacularly pulled down by his own party in December 1991 and replaced by Paul Keating after losing his mojo. His removal was in many ways a harbinger of many subsequent removals of PMs from Kevin Rudd down to Malcolm Turnbull.
Arguably, Hawke’s reputation as a great reformer rested more squarely on the shoulders of his lieutenants like Treasurer Paul Keating, ACTU secretary Bill Kelty, and economic adviser Ross Garnaut, as well as some competent ministers such as Peter Walsh, John Dawkins and Neal Blewett.
Accordingly, we could ask whether Hawke really deserves his impressive reputation as a reformer. In reality, many with a close knowledge of the Hawke era, consider his main leadership qualities were in serving as chair of the board of a reforming Labor government. we should also reflect a bit more discerningly on his time in office, just short of nine years in total.
He came to the prime ministership after orchestrating a coup against the well-respected Bill Hayden, managing to defeat the Fraser government with more conciliatory language.
Hawke was generally a poor election campaigner and, after his sizeable defeat of the unpopular Fraser government, his lacklustre campaigning in the 1984 election was almost a disaster for Labor. Hawke called the election early (after the government governed for just 21 months). He was convinced of his own impregnability, called a campaign lasting almost 2 months (7 weeks and four days) and was largely out-campaigned by Andrew Peacock on tax.
The 1987 campaign (45 days) was not much better, where Labor largely won because of the impact of the ‘Joh for PM’ campaign run out of Queensland, and Hawke was often missing in action throughout the campaign. In fact after 1983 Labor’s two-party preferred vote declined at every subsequent election, dropping from 53.2% to 49.9%. More worrying for the ALP was that its primary vote declined from 49.5% in 1983 to just 39.4% in 1990 — almost the same level of support as the party received in the wipe-out election of 1996.
On important decisions Hawke often became indecisive and dithered. Examples include his wavering over the mining of uranium, the debacle of the MX missiles dispute with his own cabinet, his deceitfulness over the indirect tax option ‘C’ which he had promised to back, and mismanaging the pilots’ strike of 1989 when pilots were trying to break out of the pay freeze as well vacillation over Ansett Airlines restructuring with Air NZ which heralded the company’s demise in 2001.
While the economic summit of 1983 was perceived as a success, there was not much of an agenda other than industrial reconciliation, and subsequent summits into tax and drugs were abject failures.
One of Hawke’s most respected ministers, Peter Walsh in Finance, famously termed the PM ‘Jellyback’ because he would not stand up for anything important. Other ministers were scathing of his lack of leadership in an ABC expose of Labor in Power shown after the 1993 election. Hawke had also signed the ‘Kirribilli Agreement’ in 1988 in which he promised to step down after the 1990 election, but then refused to so do.
At other times Hawke could be mercurial and off the cuff. Remember ‘no child shall live in poverty’ made off the cuff in the 1987 with no idea how to implement it, also the decision in 1991 for Australia to join the US in the first Gulf War on Iraq. He also indicated to his Industry minister John Button that Australia would not float the dollar, the very same day that he announced in in late 1983 (Button found out by hearing it on the car radio!).
Perhaps somewhat paradoxically, Hawke did not govern for his own constituency — the labour movement. Real wages fell under his government year on year, largely due to the various self-imposed income policies known as the Accords. Corporatism supposedly ruled, but while unions were not often at the table, Hawke managed to unify big business — which formed the Business Council of Australia. Union membership fell especially among manual workers, with union density falling from 50% in the early 1980s to mid-30%s by 1992 (and then continuing to fall to 15% today). Unemployment after declining throughout the 1980s, also rose dramatically after 1988 to close on 11%.
The Hawke government presided over the decline in manufacturing. The much-vaunted ‘Button car plan’ was nothing more than an expensive temporary fix, which did not achieve its objective — to keep car manufacturing here.
Hawke also championed privatisation of banks and airlines and other federal organisations against union wishes. But unions were more supportive of the ‘social wage’ which introduced various government payments to the lower paid households.
While Hawke was undeniably popular and well-liked, the so-called ‘love affair with the public’ (unless you were that ‘silly old bugger’ in Whyalla), he had many flaws both politically and personally. Despite this, he is still regularly regarded by Australians as one of the better prime ministers. His legacy will undoubtedly rest on his government’s record of economic management, but perhaps some balancing of the ledger may more appropriate.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOHN WANNA
Professor John Wanna is Sir John Bunting Chair of Public Administration at the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG). He holds a joint appointment with Griffith University and Australian National University (ANU), Canberra.
Author of over fifty books, Professor Wanna is a regular political commentator on TV (ABC, SBS, Sky, Channels 9 and 7) and the print media (The Australian, The Courier-Mail, The Saturday Paper, the Australian Financial Review, and The Conversation). He regularly appears as an Australian politics expert on other media outlets (Bloomberg, the New York Times, the Daily Mail, AFP, Reuters, Fairfax media).
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