Posted on 05/16/2019 2:56:40 AM PDT by naturalman1975
Bob Hawke, Australia's 23rd prime minister and former Labor Party leader, has died at the age of 89.
Mr Hawke led the country and his party from 1983 to 1991, and his contribution to public life helped shape modern Australia.
(Excerpt) Read more at abc.net.au ...
He stood up for his country as he saw things.
And he valued the alliance with the United States more than most.
I do have to wonder if the old bastard timed it to give his party a boost in Saturday’s federal election... I would not put it past him at all.
Might have had issues with some of his politics, but he was an affable bloke and pretty much an icon in Oz politics. Wasn’t too thrilled about him dumping Hazel though. His death coming just before the Saturday fed election will garner a sympathy vote for short ass Shorten.
RIP, was the prime minister when me and my family lived in Sydney in 1984-85.
Despite my several visits I know basically nothing about Australia's politics or culture.But if Australia was founded on principles at all similar to our founding principles I'm confused to hear a socialist described as a "patriot".
For example,of all the words I could use to describe Osama Obama and ILLary,"patriot" is the last one I'd use.
I know my comment might sound disrespectful or even insulting to a truly patriotic Aussie like yourself (I've "known" you long enough to see you as patriotic). Chastise me if you wish...maybe Churchill's analysis of the relationship between Britain and the US applies to us..."two nations separated by a common language".
When is Howard going to croak?
Hey,c'mon...be nice! If you research John Howard (I've done so a bit) he'd strike you as a pretty impressive man.
Haha I did think that when I heard it on the radio. I agree with your sentiments. He loved the people of Australia and was happy to talk to anyone whether rich or poor, I met him once : he had no problem giving me a little time even though he was rushing to a limo. I didn’t agree with a lot of the things he did but I never felt he put the country second. Since then more and more Labour seem to be more interested in what International Socialism ,via the UN, says.
Bloody autocorrect:Labor not Labour
Different history maybe.
Australia is a younger country and the Australian Labor Party has been part of our history at least as a single nation for virtually of it - we federated as a single nation on 1st January 1901 - the ALP was founded on the 8th of May of that year but had its origins with parties in each of the colonies formed about 10 years earlier. There were Labour delegates at the two Constitutional Conventions held in the 1890s that lead to Federation and thus they were included among our founding fathers. They had seats in our first Parliament and actually formed part of that first government (it was a Coalition between the Protectionists and the Labour Party (still had the British spelling then), versus the opposition formed by the Free Trade Party. In 1904, Labour under Prime Minister Chris Watson formed the first socialist government elected at a national level in the world.
So there’s no inherent conflict between Labor and a patriot in Australia. It’s not something that appeared only later in our history after the norms were in place, in conflict with those.
That doesn’t mean all Labor PMs have been patriots. Twelve of our thirty Prime Ministers have been Labor - I’ll call Hawke and Curtin the only two true clear patriots among them (and I think Curtin may have only been so because he was leading the country during World War II and national survival took precedence over everything). Billy Hughes - yes, I’ll pay him as well, but he switched from Labor to become a conservative. So two - call it two and a half - out of twelve.
A true Australian there :)
Howard wasn’t good on guns.
But he was brilliant on many other issues.
RIP.
How was Hawke on importing Muslims?
Wasn’t really an issue back then that I can recall, so I don’t know where he would have stood on it. Most of the refugees arriving in Australia back then were from Vietnam and other nearby parts of southeast Asia - there wouldn’t have been many Muslims trying to get in.
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