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Inside the Hawke-Keating Government: A Cabinet Diary
As good as it gets in Australian politics. That's how the Hawke–Keating Government is now widely regarded. But how did this highly able, ambitious, strong-willed group work through its crises and rivalries, and achieve what it did?
Gareth Evans' diary, written in the mid-1980s and published now for the first time, is the consummate insider's account. It not only adds much new material to the historical record, but is perceptive, sharp and unvarnished in its judgments, lucidly written, and often highly entertaining.
Gareth Evans' diary, written in the mid-1980s and published now for the first time, is the consummate insider's account. It not only adds much new material to the historical record, but is perceptive, sharp and unvarnished in its judgments, lucidly written, and often highly entertaining.
Unknown Binding
First published August 27, 2014
About the author
Gareth Evans
12 booksLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Gareth Evans AC QC was a Cabinet minister throughout the Hawke–Keating governments, including as foreign minister from 1988 to 1996. In his 21-year parliamentary career, he served as both leader of the government in the Senate and deputy leader of the Opposition. After leaving politics, he was president of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group from 2000 to 2009, and chancellor of the Australian National University from 2010 to 2019, where he is now Distinguished Honorary Professor.
Gareth Evans AC QC was a Cabinet minister throughout the Hawke–Keating governments, including as foreign minister from 1988 to 1996. In his 21-year parliamentary career, he served as both leader of the government in the Senate and deputy leader of the Opposition. After leaving politics, he was president of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group from 2000 to 2009, and chancellor of the Australian National University from 2010 to 2019, where he is now Distinguished Honorary Professor.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 26, 2014
‘The Hawke-Keating Government is often now seen, even by non-Labor people, as the Australian gold standard: as good as it gets in terms of effective leadership; the strength, depth and diversity of the talent in its ranks; and the quality of its achievements. Certainly it did not always feel that way on the inside, as this diary will make very clear.’
Gareth John Evans AC, QC (born 5 September 1944), is an Australian international policymaker and former politician. Gareth Evans has been Chancellor of the Australian National University since January 2010. Gareth Evans served as a Cabinet Minister in the Hawke and Keating governments from 1983 to 1996 as Attorney-General, Minister for Resources and Energy, Minister for Transport and Communications and, from 1988 to 1996, as Foreign Minister. This diary covers a two year period from September 1984 to October 1986.
‘These were the years when tensions – easily contained at this time, but eventually explosive – began to build between Bob Hawke and Paul Keating.’
Gareth Evans began this diary just three months before Bob Hawke fired him as Attorney-General. The diary finishes with the death of Lionel Murphy. These dates were not chosen for any particular reason, but they represent the beginning and end of Gareth Evans’s impulse to write up at length his ministerial experiences.
For students of government, and for those of us who worked for this government, the diary makes for interesting reading. There are plenty of insights into the operation of Cabinet under Bob Hawke’s prime ministership, and some (at times) less than flattering comments about Cabinet colleagues. Gareth Evans’s downfall as Attorney-General may in part have been a consequence of his decision to authorise a RAAF flight over Tasmania’s wilderness in April 1983 to take photographs of the Gordon-below - Franklin Dam site (’Whatever you do, don’t call me Biggles’), but his zeal for legal and social reform is likely to have been another factor. During this period, the Hawke government was much more focussed on economic reform.
‘But it’s a miracle that any of us retain any kind of sense of the impact of what we are doing, given the artificial life that we lead.’
At least some of Evans’s disdain for his successor as Attorney-General, Lionel Bowen, is surely attributable to the fact that the Bill of Rights proposed by Evans together with other legal reforms withered and died during this period. Evans also mourns the treatment of High Court Justice (and former Labor Senator) Lionel Murphy who was convicted, and then subsequently acquitted, of attempting to pervert the course of justice.
There are also some regrets, on the impact of a political life on family life:
‘That question from my kids I recorded nearly thirty years ago – why couldn’t I spend the same amount of time with them ‘as the other kids dads’? - is one that will forever stay with me.’
I found this a fascinating look inside the Cabinet process during two years early in the Hawke-Keating Government. While I wish that Gareth Evans had continued his diary (and published) a similar record of his experience as Foreign Minister, it’s the focus on internal Cabinet processes and the dynamics of the Hawke-Keating government that held my attention.
‘They say, after all, that a statesman is a dead politician.’
My thanks to NetGalley and the Melbourne University Press for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Gareth John Evans AC, QC (born 5 September 1944), is an Australian international policymaker and former politician. Gareth Evans has been Chancellor of the Australian National University since January 2010. Gareth Evans served as a Cabinet Minister in the Hawke and Keating governments from 1983 to 1996 as Attorney-General, Minister for Resources and Energy, Minister for Transport and Communications and, from 1988 to 1996, as Foreign Minister. This diary covers a two year period from September 1984 to October 1986.
‘These were the years when tensions – easily contained at this time, but eventually explosive – began to build between Bob Hawke and Paul Keating.’
Gareth Evans began this diary just three months before Bob Hawke fired him as Attorney-General. The diary finishes with the death of Lionel Murphy. These dates were not chosen for any particular reason, but they represent the beginning and end of Gareth Evans’s impulse to write up at length his ministerial experiences.
For students of government, and for those of us who worked for this government, the diary makes for interesting reading. There are plenty of insights into the operation of Cabinet under Bob Hawke’s prime ministership, and some (at times) less than flattering comments about Cabinet colleagues. Gareth Evans’s downfall as Attorney-General may in part have been a consequence of his decision to authorise a RAAF flight over Tasmania’s wilderness in April 1983 to take photographs of the Gordon-below - Franklin Dam site (’Whatever you do, don’t call me Biggles’), but his zeal for legal and social reform is likely to have been another factor. During this period, the Hawke government was much more focussed on economic reform.
‘But it’s a miracle that any of us retain any kind of sense of the impact of what we are doing, given the artificial life that we lead.’
At least some of Evans’s disdain for his successor as Attorney-General, Lionel Bowen, is surely attributable to the fact that the Bill of Rights proposed by Evans together with other legal reforms withered and died during this period. Evans also mourns the treatment of High Court Justice (and former Labor Senator) Lionel Murphy who was convicted, and then subsequently acquitted, of attempting to pervert the course of justice.
There are also some regrets, on the impact of a political life on family life:
‘That question from my kids I recorded nearly thirty years ago – why couldn’t I spend the same amount of time with them ‘as the other kids dads’? - is one that will forever stay with me.’
I found this a fascinating look inside the Cabinet process during two years early in the Hawke-Keating Government. While I wish that Gareth Evans had continued his diary (and published) a similar record of his experience as Foreign Minister, it’s the focus on internal Cabinet processes and the dynamics of the Hawke-Keating government that held my attention.
‘They say, after all, that a statesman is a dead politician.’
My thanks to NetGalley and the Melbourne University Press for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
February 1, 2023
Evan's diary provides a multitude of insights into the life of a cabinet Minister. Not just any cabinet Minister but a cabinet Minister in the most successful Labor government. The entries provide a glimpse into the revolving lifestyle that leaves little time for family, friends or leisure. Even by reading the book one becomes nauseated with the extent of the travelling, stress and fraught working conditions.
Before the diary begin, Evan forewarns that since it is a diary the book will be at times incoherent. For him the incoherence of the diary provides the reader with a much more immersive experience, and it is a position that I found myself believing in such. At times the book does become rather dense but I finds this only adds to such experience by expressing the mundanity at times of a minister.
Unfortunately, Evans reeks a sense of elitism throughout the book. Much of his time is spent with industry leaders, wealthy tycoons and others of those elk. It seems he only comes into contact with regular people when he visits the mines, which is only for a cursory time. You could give him the benefit of the doubt by saying that is what the minister job entails or that he meets representatives of such people through the trade union movement. Regardless it leaves one feeling a sense of disenchantment with the political systems predisposition to not serve those that elect them - a trend that can only have been accelerated.
Before the diary begin, Evan forewarns that since it is a diary the book will be at times incoherent. For him the incoherence of the diary provides the reader with a much more immersive experience, and it is a position that I found myself believing in such. At times the book does become rather dense but I finds this only adds to such experience by expressing the mundanity at times of a minister.
Unfortunately, Evans reeks a sense of elitism throughout the book. Much of his time is spent with industry leaders, wealthy tycoons and others of those elk. It seems he only comes into contact with regular people when he visits the mines, which is only for a cursory time. You could give him the benefit of the doubt by saying that is what the minister job entails or that he meets representatives of such people through the trade union movement. Regardless it leaves one feeling a sense of disenchantment with the political systems predisposition to not serve those that elect them - a trend that can only have been accelerated.
July 4, 2017
A very interesting, personal, 'window' into the Hawke-Keating era. The behind the scenes insights and the references to Lionel Murphy were facinating. Gareth always used too many words, when fewer were needed...and this book is guilty of that at times. Well worth a read though for anyone interested in the dynamics of the Hawke-Keating Government.
November 30, 2018
It's a bit of an understatement to write that in 2018 Australian politics is in a state of turmoil. Like a lot of representative democracies, Australia at both the State and Federal level has been subject to the splintering of both the Right and Left of politics, with the two main parties, Labor and Liberal, variously beset with the evils of populism and careerism, both of which corrupt the ability of any party to perform effectively. The rise of social media, where every problem needs to be solved instantly, militates against long-term decisions that can steer a country toward prosperity.
So, it is a salutary exercise to dip into our political past and to find that in some ways, it was ever thus. Gareth Evans was by turn Attorney-General, Minister for Resources, and Foreign Minister in the Labor Governments of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, and Inside the Hawke Keating Government is a chronicle of two years of his political life, from just after the 1984 election, through to the death of Lionel Murphy in October 1986. In fact the travails of Lionel Murphy are one of the themes of Evans' diary, which he started dictating in a kind of homage to one of his political heroes Richard Crossman (he records in this book walking past Crossman's home in England on one of his visits).
Evans, during his time in parliament, was known as an acerbic performer, but one who cut through on occasions. We get an insight into the softer side of his character in this diary, and also into the amount of argument and work involved in trying to steer a path through the pillars of vested interest and politics to achieve good policy outcomes. The diary begins with Evans being devastated at losing the Attorney-General portfolio, and with it his dreams of Constitutional reform, and a Bill of Rights. He is particularly scathing of his successor in the role, Lionel Bowen, who he in turns labels dim, thick-witted and stubborn. The Constitutional reform and Bill of Rights Evans hoped for still haven't been enacted - the polity was not ready for them at the time, and it seems is still not, so perhaps Lionel had a better finger on the pulse of the Australian people than Evans.
It's fair to state that Evans was never a man of the people, and never bothered even with the pretence, on a couple of occasions wondering what the "average" Australian thought about an issue, but never bothering to talk to any. His outlook, not useful in the A-G role, suited very much the resources role, where his intelligence, ability to work through problems and find the best solution got the government out of a few sticky situations. He often had the weight of opinion against him in Cabinet as well, although the time span covered by this diary shows Evans gaining in appreciation of the intelligence and hard-headedness of Keating as Treasurer, and they often found themselves on the same side of an argument, especially when dealing with economic policy.
As for Hawke, Evans paints him as certainly intelligent, but a complete narcissist, and someone who was not interested in opposing views, unless that view showed him his popularity might be in trouble, in which case he was prepared to listen to alternatives. His combination of insecurity and hubris as laid out in these diaries is quite depressing to read about, and the stability of the government for so long with two such fragile characters (Evans shows Keating to be one who was ever-sensitive to a slight as well) at the helm is shown to be even more remarkable than it seemed at the time.
Much of the diary, as one might expect, is taken up with factional maneuverings and Party activity, which Evans found at times troubling, depressing, and annoying. He had little time for some of his fellow Ministers, finding John Button a man impossible to pin down, Don Grimes ineffectual, Bill Hayden irascible, and many on the Left irrational and out-dated. Of course Evans was a part of all the intrigue, and he spends a bit of time in the diaries talking about the possibility of his becoming Deputy Leader in the Senate, as well as the speculation that he would take on the Foreign Minister's job from Bill Hayden, which he eventually did.
For the aficionado of Australian politics, especially for those of us who remember the Hawke government, Inside the Hawke Keating Government is worth reading.
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
So, it is a salutary exercise to dip into our political past and to find that in some ways, it was ever thus. Gareth Evans was by turn Attorney-General, Minister for Resources, and Foreign Minister in the Labor Governments of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, and Inside the Hawke Keating Government is a chronicle of two years of his political life, from just after the 1984 election, through to the death of Lionel Murphy in October 1986. In fact the travails of Lionel Murphy are one of the themes of Evans' diary, which he started dictating in a kind of homage to one of his political heroes Richard Crossman (he records in this book walking past Crossman's home in England on one of his visits).
Evans, during his time in parliament, was known as an acerbic performer, but one who cut through on occasions. We get an insight into the softer side of his character in this diary, and also into the amount of argument and work involved in trying to steer a path through the pillars of vested interest and politics to achieve good policy outcomes. The diary begins with Evans being devastated at losing the Attorney-General portfolio, and with it his dreams of Constitutional reform, and a Bill of Rights. He is particularly scathing of his successor in the role, Lionel Bowen, who he in turns labels dim, thick-witted and stubborn. The Constitutional reform and Bill of Rights Evans hoped for still haven't been enacted - the polity was not ready for them at the time, and it seems is still not, so perhaps Lionel had a better finger on the pulse of the Australian people than Evans.
It's fair to state that Evans was never a man of the people, and never bothered even with the pretence, on a couple of occasions wondering what the "average" Australian thought about an issue, but never bothering to talk to any. His outlook, not useful in the A-G role, suited very much the resources role, where his intelligence, ability to work through problems and find the best solution got the government out of a few sticky situations. He often had the weight of opinion against him in Cabinet as well, although the time span covered by this diary shows Evans gaining in appreciation of the intelligence and hard-headedness of Keating as Treasurer, and they often found themselves on the same side of an argument, especially when dealing with economic policy.
As for Hawke, Evans paints him as certainly intelligent, but a complete narcissist, and someone who was not interested in opposing views, unless that view showed him his popularity might be in trouble, in which case he was prepared to listen to alternatives. His combination of insecurity and hubris as laid out in these diaries is quite depressing to read about, and the stability of the government for so long with two such fragile characters (Evans shows Keating to be one who was ever-sensitive to a slight as well) at the helm is shown to be even more remarkable than it seemed at the time.
Much of the diary, as one might expect, is taken up with factional maneuverings and Party activity, which Evans found at times troubling, depressing, and annoying. He had little time for some of his fellow Ministers, finding John Button a man impossible to pin down, Don Grimes ineffectual, Bill Hayden irascible, and many on the Left irrational and out-dated. Of course Evans was a part of all the intrigue, and he spends a bit of time in the diaries talking about the possibility of his becoming Deputy Leader in the Senate, as well as the speculation that he would take on the Foreign Minister's job from Bill Hayden, which he eventually did.
For the aficionado of Australian politics, especially for those of us who remember the Hawke government, Inside the Hawke Keating Government is worth reading.
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
September 22, 2016
At times slightly like Diary of a Nobody. Worth reading for the bits on the Lionel Murphy affair and Marilinga. It also shook my perception of the Hawke Cabinet being and exemplary one. The tardiness, tantrums etc remind me of a later Labor PM. Worth reading for those with a strong enthusiasm for Australian politics and probably informative for current Commonwealth public servants.
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February 18, 2018Technically, I haven’t read this book as I didn’t finish it. Maybe I need a different shelf for those. It couldn’t keep my interest pass the first few pages, and I’ve read a lot of political autobiographies.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews