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 HAWKEThe things which are most important don’t always scream the loudest.
More Bob Hawke Quotes
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Peoples have come to experience that political structures and divisions of power are not immutable.
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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.
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There is no doubt that this government and this country are benefiting from the reforms that we brought in the 1980s, and that couldn’t have been done without the co-operation of the trade union movement.
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She [ Elizabeth II] is, you know, “Do-what-you’re-told, Lady”. But in the Commonwealth, she is much more than just a figurehead.
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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.
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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,
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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.
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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.
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By 1990, no Australian child will be living in poverty.
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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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The first meeting in 1983 was held in India and I was very off put by her. I just couldn’t abide her, basically.
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Brian Mulroney, myself, [and] Rajiv Gandhi; I think that was the real core [of the Commonwealth ]. That was the engine room, I reckon.
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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.
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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.
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George Bush Junior [George W Bush] was a religious fanatic, and Tony Blair wasn’t far behind in a way.
BOB HAWKE