Bob Hawke a tribute

Bob was a complex and intelligent man, below is a look at his life.

• Born - Robert James Lee Hawke 9 December 1929 Bordertown, South Australia, Australia.
• Education - Robert was educated at Perth Modern School and the University of Western Australia, graduating in 1952 with a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws. He was also president of the university's guild during the same year. The following year, Hawke won a Rhodes Scholarship to attend University College, Oxford, where he undertook a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy, politics and economics
• Australian Council of Trade Unions - Not long after Hawke began work at the ACTU, he became responsible for the presentation of its annual case for higher wages to the national wages tribunal, the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. He was first appointed as an ACTU advocate in 1959. The 1958 case, under previous advocate R.L. Eggleston, had yielded only a five-shilling increase. The 1959 case found for a fifteen-shilling increase, and was regarded as a personal triumph for Hawke. He went on to attain such success and prominence in his role as an ACTU advocate that, in 1969, he was encouraged to run for the position of ACTU President, despite the fact that he had never held elected office in a trade union.
• Prime Minister of Australia (1983–1991) - Hawke led Labor to a landslide election in may 1983 victory, achieving a 24-seat swing—still the worst defeat that a sitting non-Labor Government has ever suffered—and ending seven years of Liberal Party rule. Unlike his predecessor, Hawke's authority within the Labor Party was absolute. This enabled him to persuade his MPs to support a substantial set of policy changes. Individual accounts from ministers indicate that while Hawke was not usually the driving force behind individual reforms, he took on the role of achieving consensus and providing political guidance on what was electorally feasible and how best to sell it to the public, tasks at which he proved highly successful. Hawke took on a very public role as prime minister, proving to be incredibly popular with the Australian electorate; to this date he still holds the highest ever AC Nielsen approval rating.
• Social policy - In spite of the criticisms levelled against the Hawke Government, it succeeded in enacting a wide range of social reforms during its time in office. Deflecting arguments that the Hawke Government had failed as a reform government, Neville Wran, John Dawkins, Bill Hayden and Paul Keating made a number of speeches throughout the 1980s arguing that the Hawke Government had been a recognisably reformist government, drawing attention to Hawke's achievements as prime minister during his first five years in office. As well as the reintroduction of Medibank, under the new name Medicare, these included the doubling of the number of childcare places, the introduction of occupational superannuation, a boost in school retention rates, a focus on young people's job skills, a doubling of subsidised homecare services, the elimination of poverty traps in the welfare system, a 50% increase in public housing funds, an increase in the real value of the old-age pension, the development of a new youth support program, the reintroduction of six-monthly indexation of single-person unemployment benefits, and significant improvements in social security provisions.
• Final moments - Hawke died on 16 May 2019, aged 89, two days before the 2019 federal election, at his home in Northbridge. Hawke's family held a private cremation on 27 May at Macquarie Park Cemetery and Crematorium where he will be interred. A state memorial was held at the Sydney Opera House on 14 June; speakers included Craig Emerson as master of ceremonies and Kim Beazley reading the eulogy; Paul Keating, Bill Kelty, Ross Garnaut and incumbent Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese.

If you have time, you should read more about Bob Hawke on his Wikipedia entry.