When Bob Hawke romped home in the Australian federal election last March, becoming the first Labor Prime Minister since 1975, a colleague remarked drily that the election could have been won by a drover's dog. Another colleague, Bill Hayden, said it could have been won by a cripple. Hayden, now Australia's Foreign Minister, had reasons to be less than wholly delighted by Hawke's triumph. Until the very day that the election was called, Hayden was the Labor leader. He was dumped after years of loyal service on the grounds that he was uninspiring whereas Hawke, although he had been an MP for only three years, was a born vote-getter. Hawke's rise has been phenomenal. Before he became an MP, with his hooded eyes firmly fixed on the Prime Minister's job, he had been president for a decade of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. It was as if Len Murray had decided to have a go at politics and had suddenly been propelled into Downing Street.

LRB 6 October 1983 | PDF Download