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We had a very good relationship. Very good. I liked [Sonny Ramphal]. I thought he was a genuine man.

Bob Hawke

She [ Elizabeth II] is, you know, “Do-what-you’re-told, Lady”. But in the Commonwealth, she is much more than just a figurehead.
BOB HAWKE

Commonwealth Lady Old
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

Basically First Meeting
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

Country Developing Nothing Soviet Truth
George Bush Junior [George W Bush] was a religious fanatic, and Tony Blair wasn’t far behind in a way.
BOB HAWKE

Behind Fanatic Juniors Religious Way
I don’t know who described Mahathir [bin Mohamad] as a pillar of the Commonwealth, but they don’t know what they’re talking about.
BOB HAWKE

Commonwealth Country Describe Pillars Talking
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

Final Finance Investment Record Regime Sanction
I respected [Margaret Thatcher] enormously. She had great integrity in that respect.
BOB HAWKE

Enormously Great Integrity Respect
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

Class Employment Income Leadership Society
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

Gentle Incapable Manipulation Men Rearrangements Resources
Peoples have come to experience that political structures and divisions of power are not immutable.
BOB HAWKE

Distribution Diversion Heaven Men Political
I hated [Robert Mugabe]. He’s one of the worst human beings I’ve ever met. He treated black and white with equal contempt. He was a horrible human being.
BOB HAWKE

Black Mets Mugabe White
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

Commonwealth Conversation Economics Impressed
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 HAWKE

Australia Personal Relationship White Yew
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.
BOB HAWKE

Country Home Minister People Prime Two Visit
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.
BOB HAWKE

Commonwealth Country Important Intelligent Meeting Queen
Bill Heseltine had been at university with me, at the University of Western Australia. I knew him well.
BOB HAWKE

Bills Country University Wells
I find a fence a very uncomfortable place to squat my bottom.
BOB HAWKE

Fence Squat Uncomfortable
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

Country People President Trade Trouble Vice Wheat
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

Cold Important Real Remember War
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

Commonwealth Elizabeth Ii Feature Government Meetings
My point was that the war was intrinsically wrong, and as a result of our participation we haven’t improved Australia’s security but created a greater danger at home and abroad.
BOB HAWKE

Country Dangerous Home Participation War
We had a very good relationship. Very good. I liked [Sonny Ramphal]. I thought he was a genuine man.
BOB HAWKE

Genuine Good Relationships Men
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.”
BOB HAWKE

Come Commercial Country Running Senior
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,
BOB HAWKE

Achievement Achievements Commonwealth Country South Thinking Time
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

Belive Brotherhood Necessarily Religious Truth
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

Commonwealth Economic People Plan Prepared Senior
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.
BOB HAWKE

Elizabeth Number Numbers Queens Thinking

We had a very good relationship. Very good. I liked [Sonny Ramphal]. I thought he was a genuine man.

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We had a very good relationship. Very good. I liked [Sonny Ramphal]. I thought he was a genuine man.

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Popular Authors

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