Bob Hawke in a brief interview

Press, 22 September 1977, Page 1

Bob Hawke in a brief interview

It must be reassuring for the Australian business community to know that their strongest critic is himself firmly wedded to their system.

“Capitalism is decaying. It is in a state of crisis, and the crisis is getting worse,” said Mr Bob Hawke, president of both the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Australian Labour Party. But Mr Hawke is a capitalist himself. He made the comment in a luxury hotel, while puffing on a cigar, after spending the week-end relaxing at Mount Cook.

The hotel where Mr Hawke was staying was sumptuous, the cigar was pungent, his wife was reading in bed. the sun was shining, and Mr Hawke is not one to be put out by the men from news media.

During his brief interlude in New Zealand he has managed to evade them to a large extent, and granted an interview to ‘The Press" with reluctant indifference. “All right, for a few minutes.” he had said the dav before. The appointed time was 4 p.m.. and this reporter arrived a few minutes before time. A tap on the door, a terse greeting, a perfuncton- shake of the hand, and it began.

Mr Hawke was in his singlet and underpants, with his stockinged feet firmly entrenched on a stool in front of him. This is Mr Hawke, the man who runs Australia.

Well, not quite. Mr Fraser runs the country, as Prime Minister. But Mr Hawke often calls the tune. Would he like to run the country’ as Prime Minister?

Not for the moment, thank you, said Mr Hawke. He was quite happy in his present post—it gave him money, power, and job satisfaction. At 47, he is not too old

By

GLENN HASZARD

to run for Parliament, and was recently quoted as saying that he would make a move in that direction only if offered party leadership, which is at present held by the former Prime Minister, Mr Gough Whitlam.

Mr Hawke denies having said this.

"I am quite happy where I am,” he said. “The matter is quite simple. If the party in the Parliamentary aspect offered me the position, then at that point of time I would consider it in the light of the circumstances prevailing.”

Bob Hawke has been described as a socialist intellectual. There is no doubting that he is an intellectual, for he is a former Rhodes Scholar and bachelor of literature from Oxford University, as well as a graduate in law and economics.

But the socialist label is a misnomer, unless socialism is taken in the broader sense, akin to that espoused by the Labour Party in New Zealand. Mr Hawke made it clear yesterday that he has no sympathy with Marxist or any of the other anti-

capitalist philosophies. Those who wanted to overthrow the system were like “medicine-men” whose main appeal was to the young. Mr Hawke said he did not know of any country where “true socialism” existed. His form of “socialism” seeks an equitable distribution of the nation’s wealth, rather than the upheaval of society to attain worker control of the means of production and distribution. He confirmed that the Australian trade-union

movement had promised its support to the Federation of Labour over its opposition to what have been described by both movements as repressive industrial legislation. Asked whether the Australian unions would go as far as to strike to show support, Mr Hawke said that if a request for support was received, the request would have to be considered by the unions themselves, in a democratic manner.

Australia has ratified the International Labour Organisation conventions on freedom of association, and freedom to bargain collectively, and Mr Hawke said that the ratifications had been useful. “We have succeeded in getting the Government to wait and see before proceeding with some of its more repressive legislation,” he said. (The Federation of Labour has asked the New Zealand Government to ratify the conventions.) Did Mr Hawke have advice for tradesmen thinking of emigrating to Australia?

They should either have a job already arranged, or be skilled in an occupation which had a labour shortage in Australia, he said.