Quotes by Bob Hawke - Page 2

I said to my people, "We're knocking apartheid off but we've got to be prepared to assist them." And I sent senior people over there to assist the incoming South African regime to go about the economic plan.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Economic
People
Senior
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It was a remarkable relationship. Margaret [Thatcher] and I had a love/hate relationship. She was always defending the South African regime and we had some terrible fights, including an enormous one in Canada.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Canada
Fighting
Hate
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One fundamental issue which Trump did take advantage of was the increasing disparities of income in the United States. So many people saw the rich getting richer and it not being spread around. It's affecting European politics, too, now.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Income
Spread
Affecting
Richer
So Many People
Take Advantage
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The personality of the Queen [ Elizabeth II]... For instance, once she goes - if she's ever going to die, it seems to be questionable - if Charles [of Wales] were there, whether there'd be the same sort of cement is very questionable, I think.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Queens
Personality
Thinking
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It was Indira Gandhi who very much lined up with the Russians. And she was, you know, within the Commonwealth, basically one out on that. The first meeting in 1983 was held in India and I was very off put by her. I just couldn't abide her, basically.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Commonwealth
Firsts
India
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I assumed the leadership within the Commonwealth for the fight against apartheid. I was very much assisted by Brian Mulroney, the Prime Minister of Canada, [and] Rajiv Gandhi, when he became the Prime Minister of India. And there were trade sanctions.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Canada
Fighting
India
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Don't talk to me about what's happened since [Nelson] Mandela! His successor was absolutely hopeless - "no such thing as AIDS" - and this present President... It's a tragedy, you know, what's happened there post-Mandela, because he was an iconic figure.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Hopeless
President
Tragedy
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There is a reciprocal respect for [ Elizabeth II], for her interest in the Commonwealth. The members of the Commonwealth recognise that here is a genuine interest from the top. So, that's one reason. I'm not putting it necessarily in order of importance.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Genuine
Order
Reason
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You've got to remember the Cold War was a very real thing then, so the relationship with the United States was very, very important. As was the relationship that I was developing with China: that was something I did very much. And they weren't conflicting things.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
War
Important
Real
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The essence of power is the knowledge that what you do is going to have an effect not just an immediate but perhaps a lifelong effect on the happiness and wellbeing of millions of people and so I think the essence of power is to be conscious of what it can mean for others.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Leadership
Essence
Mean
Thinking
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I led the fight here against apartheid as President of the ACTU, including particularly the Springbok tour in 1971. And that led to the banning of the South African cricket tour which had been scheduled - that was something that I sorted out with Sir Donald Bradman. That was interesting.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Fighting
Interesting
President
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I rang Brian [Mulroney] up. I said, "What's this bloody nonsense. You've got a wheat trade with Iraq and you won't come aboard?" I said, "We've got a bloody big wheat trade too, so get your priorities right." And he said, "Okay, Bob. I'll come." I rang George and he was very appreciative.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Bob
Iraq
Priorities
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The greatest stain upon this great Australian nation's character, without any question, is the great gaps that exist between our Aboriginal brothers and sisters in terms of their health, their education, their living conditions, their incarceration rates and life expectancy. It's a great stain.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Aboriginal
Australian
Brothers And Sisters
Conditions
Expectancy
Gaps
Incarceration
Life Expectancy
Living Conditions
Life Education Health
Sisters
Rates
Stain
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I told [ David Lange] he was crazy, because you can't have an alliance relationship if you refuse access to their ships. And the Americans wanted to punish him very severely and I intervened there and softened them somewhat. They wanted to really take some tough, reactive measures to New Zealand.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Alliances
Crazy
Ships
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Peoples have come to experience that political structures and divisions of power are not immutable. Nor will they perceive the distribution of wealth and resources between nations to be unalterably ordained by heaven and incapable of drastic rearrangement by the less than gentle manipulation of man.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Men
Heaven
Political
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I had a good personal relationship with Lee Kuan Yew and I used him, in the sense, that he... He made a statement in 1980, and he said in that statement that, "If Australia keeps going the way it is, it will finish up the poor, white trash of Asia." And he was right, because we were just going backwards.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Australia
White
Yew
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Is there some reason why the quality of people going into the parliament is not as high? I don't know the complete answer, but I think - in fact, I'm sure - that part of it is the increasing intrusiveness of the media - the general media and social media - into the private lives of politicians and their families.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Parliament
Increasing
Private Lives
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The concept there was that the small number of developed countries within the Commonwealth should provide assistance. This was not just financial but personal, providing experts and so on, to assist less developed members of the Commonwealth to get on the growing path. And that was part of what we did with South Africa.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Country
Growing
Numbers
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We [ with Brian Mulroney and Rajiv Gandhi] went to the meeting in Canada [the 1987 Vancouver CHOGM] and I said to them there that sanctions weren't working; they were just being busted. And it did seem to me that one way that we could bring the apartheid regime down would be if we did mount an effective investment sanction.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Canada
Vancouver
Would Be
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In fact, soon after that [South African sanctions], I was going on an official visit to the UK and Margaret Thatcher instructed every minister to clear the decks of any outstanding matters between us - Australia and the Brits. And she went out of her way to make sure that that was as successful a visit as it possibly could be.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Australia
Matter
Successful
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I wrote a letter to our Australian newspaper about three weeks before the invasion and I said, "Osama bin Laden must be on his knees morning and night praying to Allah that the Americans will invade." And, of course, he was, because nothing more advanced his cause - the cause of terrorism - than the invasion of Iraq. It was an absurdity.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Morning
Iraq
Night
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While society cannot provide employment for its members, the production/work/income nexus has to be abandoned as a justification for our present parsimony to the unemployed. An assumption cannot be used to justify making second-class citizens of those who are unfortunate enough to constitute living proof of the inaccuracy of that assumption.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Leadership
Citizens
Class
Income
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I think there are a number of reasons, not least of which is the personality of the Queen [ Elizabeth II]. It's very easy to underrate her significance. I think she finds the Commonwealth and her position as Head of the Commonwealth infinitely more interesting than being the Queen of England, because she has no significant role in the latter.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Queens
Numbers
Thinking
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I believed in the goodness of the Australian people; I believed they did not want to be attacking each other, and from those thoughts, I got the idea of Reconciliation in the campaign slogan and of turning this into something practical by calling a summit to bring representatives of all sections of society together, from the wealthiest to the poor.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Attacking
Australian
Calling
Goodness
Reconciliation
Representatives
Sections
Summit
Slogan
Turning
Practical
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It was the South African Government that has introduced politics into sport by decreeing politically that no non-white person will represent their country. They introduced politics into sport." And Don [Bradman] was a very shrewd old bloke, and he looked at me for about thirty seconds and then he said, "Bob, I've got no answer to that." And that was it.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Government
Sports
Country
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It was very much an Australian/New Zealand initiative to have a nuclear free South Pacific. And the Americans were very apprehensive about this. So, I explained to them that, as far as I was concerned, this didn't involve any diminution in our commitment to the ANZUS relationship. But David Lange took it further and he barred visits of US nuclear warships to New Zealand.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Commitment
Initiative
Nuclear
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I was used on a number of occasions by the United States and China as a conduit. For instance, I was up there talking with the Chinese leadership and they said to me that they were a bit concerned that the Americans had a misunderstanding about their relationship with the Soviets. There was some suggestion that there was a rapprochement developing between China and the Soviets, but nothing could have been further from the truth.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Chinese
Numbers
Talking
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In sum, the truth is that we luxuriate in the comfortable assertion that women enjoy equality. We have salved our consciences by eliminating the more obvious discriminations like unequal rates of pay for work of equal value. But, in fact, we have not eliminated the inheritance of the millennia that women are lesser beings, an inheritance which still manifests itself in a whole range of prejudice and other forms of discrimination.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Leadership
Facts
Prejudice
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I just loved him and he loved me... He was a most humble man, the most decent man I've ever met in my life and he always looked for the best in people to find positives and he said something to me that always remained with me. He said if you believe in the fatherhood of God you must necessarily believe in the brotherhood of man, it follows necessarily and even though I left the church and was not religious, that truth remained with me.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Love
Believe
Religious
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When George Bush Senior [George HW Bush] was getting his alliance together to go into Iraq - to kick the Iraqis out of Kuwait - he rang me up. I was very close to George Bush Senior; I got to know him well as Vice President to Ronald Reagan. And George rang me up and said, "Oh, Bob," he said, "I'm having trouble with Brian [Mulroney]." He said, "He's got a big wheat trade with Iraq, and he doesn't want to upset that." I said, "You leave it with me."
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Iraq
Kuwait
Senior
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One other thing: at the meeting in Canada, [there was] the coup in Fiji. This comes to an important part of the Commonwealth: the role of the Queen [Elizabeth II]. I had absolutely just enormous respect for her as leader of the Commonwealth. You could talk to her about any of the fifty-one countries of the Commonwealth and you could have an intelligent conversation with her about the economics, the politics. She really immersed herself in the Commonwealth.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Queens
Country
Intelligent
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It [also] lives on its history, now, to some extent: its achievements [ of the Commonwealth] in Rhodesia and South Africa, which were enormous. And they'll live on that for some time, I guess. And there is still - I'm out of touch with it now, of course - but I still think there is a degree of cooperation at the economic level, to some extent, with the more developed countries helping the less developed. How substantial that is now, I simply am not versed.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Achievement
Country
Thinking
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We were great mates [with Rajiv Gandhi]: very, very, very close friends. In fact, on my visit to India as Prime Minister, we were going to his home for dinner. There were two aspects I remember: one is him saying how he had trouble with his security people, because they insisted he wears a vest. He said it was very uncomfortable and he often took it off, but of course, in the end, it wouldn't have mattered if he'd been wearing three vests - he would have been gone.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Home
People
Two
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[Malcolm Fraser] went straight from Melbourne Grammar to Oxford. And he would have been a very lonely person, and I think he probably met a lot of black students there who were also probably lonely. I think he formed friendships with them, which established his judgement about the question of colour. That’s my theory. I don’t know whether it’s right or not, but that’s what I always respected about Malcolm. He was absolutely, totally impeccable on the question of race and colour.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Lonely
Race
Thinking
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[ Rajiv Gandhi] was very reflective and rueful and regretful about the fact that his children's education...He wanted them to get educated outside of India, but he said to me the only place that he found where they would be safe was in Russia, and he didn't really want them to be educated there! So, I said, "Well, send them to Australia. I'll look after them." And my security bloke went absolutely bloody bananas, and I said, "We'll look after them." But, in the end, he didn't send them.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Australia
Children
Russia
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All the arguments there are against Malcolm [Turnbull] - and there are many - the one thing in which he is impeccable and why I would support him in this is that he has an absolutely impeccable record on the question of colour and race. People often wondered why. What I see as a possible explanation is [that] he came from a very wealthy family - a 'squattocracy' - and he had private education at home and then he went to boarding school at Melbourne Grammar School, one of those lead schools in Australia.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
Home
Race
School
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I rang my friend Jim Wolfensohn, who was then running a private commercial bank in New York. I said, "Come up to Vancouver", and he did. I put my proposition to him. He said, "I think it could work." I said, "Will you help us?" He said, "Yes." So, I set aside senior people in our treasury and they worked with Wolfensohn and the investment sanctions were applied. And that's what brought the regime down. The last South African Finance Minister, Barend du Plessis, went on record as saying that it was the investment sanctions that put the final nail in the coffin of apartheid.
Bob Hawke / Former Prime Minister Of Australia
New York
Running
Senior
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Bob Hawke Quotes - Page 2

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