Bob Hawke Quotes

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.

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.

George Bush Junior [George W Bush] was a religious fanatic, and Tony Blair wasn’t far behind in a way.

Peoples have come to experience that political structures and divisions of power are not immutable.

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.”

I only travel with a carry-on suitcase in most instances.

I said, “Will you help us?” He said, “Yes.” So, I set aside senior people in our treasury and they worked with Wolfensohn and the investment sanctions were applied.

“If Australia keeps going the way it is, it will finish up the poor, white trash of Asia.” And he was right, because we were just going backwards.

[ Rajiv Gandhi] was such an infinitely more attractive leader than his mother.

People often wondered why. What I see as a possible explanation is [that] he came from a very wealthy family – a ‘squattocracy’ – and he had private education at home and then he went to boarding school at Melbourne Grammar School, one of those lead schools in Australia.