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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

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
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
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

Commonwealth Country Defend Enormous Fighting Hate
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 had no time for Indira Gandhi. She was too much in the Russian camp for my liking.
BOB HAWKE

Camps Fighter Freedom Liking Much Too
I respected [Margaret Thatcher] enormously. She had great integrity in that respect.
BOB HAWKE

Enormously Great Integrity Respect
I find a fence a very uncomfortable place to squat my bottom.
BOB HAWKE

Fence Squat Uncomfortable
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.
BOB HAWKE

Commonwealth Country Firsts India People
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
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
Bill Heseltine had been at university with me, at the University of Western Australia. I knew him well.
BOB HAWKE

Bills Country University Wells
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

Charles Elizabeth Personality Queens Question Think Thinking
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
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
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

Commonwealth Real Rooms Thinking
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
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
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.
BOB HAWKE

Benefiting Country Doubt Government Reform
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

Absurdity Advanced Cause Country Invasion Terrorism
Peoples have come to experience that political structures and divisions of power are not immutable.
BOB HAWKE

Distribution Diversion Heaven Men Political
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
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
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

Country Meeting Vancouver Working
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
Institutions do live on their history.
BOB HAWKE

History Institutions Live
Geoffrey [Howe] and I were mates, and he disagreed with [ Margaret Thatcher] position. So, we cooperated surreptitiously.
BOB HAWKE

Mates Position Surreptitiously
It had things that it could do and which I thought were worthwhile: one would be South Africa, of course. And, as I said, I assumed a leadership role within the Commonwealth on that.
BOB HAWKE

Commonwealth Leadership Roles Worthwhile

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Bob Hawke Quotes