Two days out from the 2019 Federal Election and former Prime Minister Bob Hawke dies at the age of 89.
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One of course shows respect for the departed. But I can't forget that I stood at a ralley for Hawke in 1983, cheering, along with the rest. So many hopes. I'll never have them again. Hawke elected and within weeks there was a labor government I didn't vote for. All promises ignored - budget problems, don't you know. Now it was deregulation, privatisation, free markets, floating this and that, ordinary people have to expect less, the big end of town cheering wildly, and Hawke sucking up to the elites. Keating running the show. All to save us from ruin and a banana republic. A health system never universal. Free education, not a chance. Greater and greater concentration of wealth in fewer hands. On it went for a decade. And in the end the political system moved to the Right, to the advantage of the conservatives for decades. Still it lingers. A new labor government from Saturday, maybe. Nicely on the Right, though, because that's all we can get now.
I'm sorry for his family and loved ones. But I can't feel any grief or loss or gratitude, not like when Gough passed. I still miss him.
Gough was before my time but having seen the mess of Medicare administration and hidden taxation system of 3 prices for the same hospital bed and service (medicare, third party road accident and highest price worker's compensation), his failure to support E. Timor or W. Papua. . . I'm glad that I missed the dismissal. The wee bodgy and his bovver boy Keating became legends in their own lunchboxes and eventually brought down, like their successor, by their hubris. I lost count of the number corrupt and prosecuted criminals in the parties. I have not encountered any worthy of holding up as role models for children.
@FrayedBear certainly Gough made mistakes. Some were through doing too much too quickly, others were forced errors, the opposition he faced. You had to live through that time to appreciate the right wing mobilization against Whitlam, going back to and including the UK and the US, and all he was doing was modernizing Aus and putting us on a more independent footing. Yes, foreign policy errors were made too. Medibank, as the first system was called, was a work in progress. Health systems take time. Frasier then scrapped it, typical right wing response. But people wanted it and Gough did that. Despite faults, his was a progressive government. Hawke's was not. Successive Labor govts have been Hawke-like clones. So will Shorten's.
This was Hawke's last publicity stunt. (personally I thought Keating the most entertaining politician) I'm not even going to try looking for the 'best'. If they make me laugh, they're of some use
At least @Triphid he endorsed Shorten and the unions the day before he died.
Australia's second best ever P.M. next to Gough Whitlam in my opinion.
Not hard to accomplish in 118 years. Just look at the rest - if not already dead they fall into the classification of largely brain dead.
@FrayedBear Yeah, well Abbott, for one in my opinion, has been 'brain-dead' since conception.
@Triphid the priesthood missed a great opportunity!
@Triphid And some little boys the opportunity for compo?
@FrayedBear their 'loss' was most definitely NOT anyone else's gain.
@FrayedBear I wouldn't say that, NO compensation can help ease the suffering, etc, from that kind of trauma.
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