Hawke was a Rhodes scholar, educated in three universities, before rejecting an academic career to commit himself to a trade Union movement. Son of devout Christian parents, he had been reared to public duty and to the ambition of political leadership.
He first came to prominence in 1959 as the new union wages advocate, and before the age of thirty he had established a reputation for brilliance in that arena. To unionists he was a giant killer, employers saw him as a crypto-Communist bent upon their destruction.
In his decade as the Australian Council of Trades Unions advocate, he confronted the inadequacies of Australia’s wage fixing system, forcing reform upon that central sphere of economic life. The same role took him to Papua New Guinea, where he helped germinate the seeds of Independence.
As President of the ACTU from 1970 to 1980 he was a master negotiator and peacemaker in industrial life. He agitated for social and economic reforms, ecoming a folk hero and the most popular Australian of his time.nIn the International Labour Organisation he led the workers of the Western World in opposition To atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in the Pacific, and was acclaimed as a fighter for human rights - and, champion of his great love, Israel. Hawke’s devotion to Israel nearly destroyed his career.
While he was president of the Australian Labour Party he sought to heal its wounds after the sacking of the Whitlam government - and in his capacity as Union leader he held back potentially violent industrial action over this most divisive issue.
