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,
BOB HAWKEI respected [Margaret Thatcher] enormously. She had great integrity in that respect.
More Bob Hawke Quotes
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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 -
[John Howard] led the Government. They had the numbers, and just basically automatically went along with the Americans.
BOB HAWKE -
We had a very good relationship. Very good. I liked [Sonny Ramphal]. I thought he was a genuine man.
BOB HAWKE -
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 -
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.
BOB HAWKE -
I find a fence a very uncomfortable place to squat my bottom.
BOB HAWKE -
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.
BOB HAWKE -
Bill Heseltine had been at university with me, at the University of Western Australia. I knew him well.
BOB HAWKE -
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 -
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 -
Brian Mulroney, myself, [and] Rajiv Gandhi; I think that was the real core [of the Commonwealth ]. That was the engine room, I reckon.
BOB HAWKE -
Peoples have come to experience that political structures and divisions of power are not immutable.
BOB HAWKE -
By 1990, no Australian child will be living in poverty.
BOB HAWKE -
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.
BOB HAWKE -
One of the features of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings was [that] she [ Elizabeth II] would have a meeting with each of them. You’d have an allotted time.
BOB HAWKE