Hawke and the Eagle

US officials were right to pinpoint Hawke as a key part of protecting their economic and political interests overseas. Before he reached high office, he was President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) from 1969-1980, after starting work as their first paid researcher over a decade before. As a ‘modernising’ figure, Hawke faced fierce opposition from union left-wingers due to his anti-Communism and aversion to industrial conflict.

Hawke’s approach was controversial. At the time, Australia had some of the highest rates of industrial action in the developed world, with the year 1974 seeing over 6,300,000 working days lost to strike action. Unions such as the Building Labourers Federation (BLF) were holding up billions of dollars in redevelopment projects in defence of working-class neighbourhoods, while other unions were winning yearly wage increases and enjoying significant workplace power.

However, the right-wing of the trade union bureaucracy and the Australian Labor Party (ALP) wanted to resist this unfettered collective strength. Against the backdrop of the ‘stagflation crisis’ and growing economic instability, Hawke was deemed a moderating influence on radical trade union activity and bridged the gap between the two forces when he was elected as President of the Federal Australian Labor Party in 1973.

Though Hawke was firmly on the right of the labour movement, he maintained some radical positions, including opposing apartheid in South Africa and supporting equal pay campaigns. But behind the scenes, as Hawke began to gather political power, he turned unions into a scapegoat for Australia’s economic downturn and divulged information on the Australian working-class movement to America.

The Informer Prime Minister

Between 1973 and 1979, Hawke provided vital information to American officials via diplomatic cables on industrial relations, the labour movement, the Whitlam and Fraser governments, and union activity. Though it wasn’t unusual for Australian political figures to have communications with US diplomats, Hawke was a unique source of information due to his intimate relationship with the Australian labour movement.

A series of diplomatic cables published in the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in the United States show that Hawke informed officials of American manufacturers and businesses under threat from Australian trade unionists. In 1973, he informed American sources about a possible dispute at a naval communications base in Western Australia. In what he playfully referred to as ‘my eloquence’, Hawke offered to use his negotiating skills and influence to informally intervene to avoid a dispute and raised concerns around the militancy of the workers at the base.

In another instance, Hawke warned Ambassador Marshall Green of possible industrial action at Ford Motor Company. Hawke held cosy and regular contact with Green, who in his role as US Ambassador to Indonesia had played a role in the 1965 genocide of up to 1,000,000 Indonesians alleged to be Communists or fellow travellers.

Undermining union activity and protecting US interests wasn’t the only benefit of Hawke’s close relationship with the Americans. Officials had communicated a desire for the Australian government to abandon Keynesian economics – a process which was well underway by the time Hawke reached high office in 1983. Their influence on Hawke’s progression to a fully-fledged neoliberal is documented by cables.

In the early 1970s, Hawke had opposed the suggestion to use unemployment to fight against rising inflation, citing full employment as a key demand of the labour movement. However, by the end of the decade and after years of clandestine communications with US officials, Hawke backed wage restraint as a means to control inflation and sought to restrict trade unions from making wage demands. In communications with the Americans as early as 1974, Hawke disclosed that he believed unions were responsible for rising inflation and sought to soften the ACTU’s position on wage restraint.

American influence remained powerful while Hawke climbed through the ranks of Labor, coming fully to fruition upon the implementation of the Prices and Incomes Accord in 1983. The Accord was an agreement between unions, the ACTU and the Hawke administration to reduce inflation in exchange for restrictions on wage demands as agreed by trade union leaders. Initially, the Accord promised changes to social security mechanisms, such as the rolling out of superannuation and the reintroduction of Medicare, but soon developed almost entirely around wage suppression.

By the time he was elected Prime Minister in a landslide victory, Hawke had succeeded in convincing many trade union leaders to curb their own ability to demand higher wages. Once in power, he introduced a series of neoliberal reforms alongside the Accord, such as floating the Australian dollar and privatising government services. Alongside these reforms, Hawke’s support for deregistering the radical BLF, as well as an overall crackdown on union militancy, paved the way for the introduction of restrictive anti-union legislation.

By the end of his term as Prime Minister, Hawke had overseen the transformation of the Australian economy and the labour movement, no doubt influenced by his experience with US officials. Declassified CIA reports show that his success was met with positivity from American officials, with one report from 1984 stating that Hawke had demonstrated ‘moderation and pragmatism’ in his first year as leader and praising his economic policies aimed at pleasing the ‘domestic and international business communities’.

In addition to his economic reforms, Hawke was also key in easing the anti-American sentiment which had gained popularity in the mid-1970s. His efforts to quell negative attitudes towards the United States would come to a head in an incident that entangled both his relationship with US officials, his public role as the boisterous defender of blue-collar Australians and a short-tempered American crooner.

Ol’ Blue Eyes in Trouble

Frank Sinatra had long passed the peak of his career and had already enjoyed a short-lived retirement when he reached the Australian leg of his ‘Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back’ comeback tour in July 1974. Nevertheless, his previous visits to Australia had proven his popularity, and he was set to embark on a five-date tour, with two shows in Melbourne and three in Sydney.

The Australian press sought to cover the tour with ferocity, yet Sinatra refused to grant any interviews or press conferences after he arrived. The singer already had a long-held hatred of the press, frequently making claims about the invasion of his privacy and sometimes engaging in violent confrontations with journalists. His anger was particularly directed to those who confronted him over his well-established ties to the mafia, with female journalists becoming particular targets for misogynistic slurs and outbursts from the singer.

His unwillingness to provide comment upon one of the biggest musical events of the year led to the publication of several stories regarding his mafia ties and the documentation of his various affairs, with the headline ‘Sinatra’s Molls’. Infuriated, Sinatra opened his first Melbourne show with scathing remarks directed at the Australian press:

They keep chasing after us. We have to run all day long. They’re parasites who take everything and give nothing… And as for the broads who work for the press, they’re the hookers of the press. I might offer them a buck and a half. I’m not sure.

Sinatra’s comments immediately reached the press and caught the attention of the union movement, and for good reason. The women’s liberation movement had taken off in Australia, with support from many unions and Hawke himself, in the fight for equal pay. Unsurprisingly, the Australian Journalists Union (AJU) demanded Sinatra apologise for his remarks.

Upon hearing of this dispute, theatrical workers from the Australian Theatrical and Amusement Employees Association cancelled his second Melbourne show immediately. Unionised workers at the hotel where Sinatra was staying refused to touch his luggage or serve anyone in the Sinatra party, in solidarity with their comrades in the AJU.

With no venue and the hostility from hotel workers, Sinatra and his crew tried to get to Sydney but found that the Transport Workers Union (TWU) had refused to refuel his private jet until he apologised. Eventually, they managed to fly into Sydney secretly under assumed names, but upon arrival discovered that their Sydney dates had also been cancelled by unionised theatre workers. Hearing of Sinatra’s travel, the TWU then refused to fuel any plane, commercial or pilot, that may carry Sinatra, effectively leaving him stranded.

Hawke, seemingly maintaining a firm position in the press, cemented the severity of the hostage-like situation, warning Sinatra that ‘if you don’t apologise, your stay in this country could be indefinite. You won’t be allowed to leave Australia unless you can walk on water.’

What began as a relatively minor industrial dispute had developed into a full-blown diplomatic crisis. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Hawke was deemed the only man to solve the dispute and sent to negotiate with Sinatra’s lawyer and US Consul General Norman Hannah. The separate parties met at the hotel Sinatra was bunkered down in and began negotiations.

A tale of Hawke’s charm and persuasion seemed to play out perfectly in the media reports of negotiations. Talks continued for over four hours and they were joined by up to fifteen union representatives. Aided only by a box of cigars and a bottle of Courvoisier, negotiations ended when Sinatra agreed to sign a statement, concluding he ‘did not intend any general reflection upon the moral character of working members of the Australian media’. Though it was not an explicit apology, a conclusion had been reached, and the unions ended their action.

It seemed like a successful scenario for the popular Hawke, ensuring no damage would come to the bilateral relationship as well as ensuring insulted workers received some justice. However, diplomatic cables shed light on reality. An apology was never sought by Hawke, as US officials had already agreed with him to end the strike hours before the negotiations.

The ‘negotiations’ and statement of regret appear to be added for dramatic flair, with Hawke reading out the statement on the steps of Sinatra’s hotel. It is unclear whether negotiations did in fact take place, or whether an agreement had been secured beforehand as a result of Hawke’s cosy relationship with American diplomats, which remains the likely scenario.

Australia’s modern struggle to protect workers against casualisation and precarity has been undermined by the lack of trade union power. Though it is widely understood that Hawke’s interventions as both a union figure and later as Prime Minister helped to solidify neoliberalism in Australia, these cables revealed that Hawke was part of a broader global initiative led by the United States with the intent of crushing the possibility of the self-confidence of national working classes.

American officials may have played a significant role in putting Australia on the pathway towards the fractured and insecure workplaces that are common today. Just years after taking on a role as a supposed defender of workers, Bob Hawke had reneged on his own social democratic policies to usher in a new neoliberal era. It is no surprise that public trust with the labour movement has been shattered over the decades following, as those who were set to protect workers were turned informers instead.