The Order of Mates celebrated beside Sydney Harbour the other day. This is a venerable masonry in Australian political life that unites the Labor Party with the rich elite known as the big end of town. They shake hands, not hug, though the Silver Bodgie now hugs. In his prime, the Silver Bodgie, aka Bob Hawke or Hawkie, wore suits that shone, wide-bottomed trousers and shirts with the buttons undone. A bodgie is an Australian version of the 1950s English Teddy Boy, and Hawke's thick, gray-black coiffure added inches to his abbreviated stature.

Hawke also talked out of the corner of his mouth in an accent that was said to be "ocker," or working class, although he himself was of the middle class and Oxford educated. As president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, his popularity rested on his reputation as a hard-drinking larrikin, an Australian sobriquet once prized almost as much as an imperial honor. For Hawke, it was the disguise of one whose heart belonged to the big end of town, who cooled the struggles of working Australians during the rise to power of the new property sharks, minerals barons and tax avoiders.

Indeed, as Labor Prime Minister in the 1980s, Hawke and his Treasurer Paul Keating eliminated the most equitable spread of personal income on earth: a model for the Blairites. And the great Mate across the Pacific loved Hawkie. Victor Marchetti, the CIA strategist who helped draft the treaty that gave America control over its most important spy base in the southern hemisphere, told me, "When Hawke came along ... he immediately sent signals that he knew how the game was played and who was buttering his bread. He became very co-operative, and even obsequious."

The party overlooking Sydney Harbour on 12 July was to launch a book by Hawke's wife, Blanche d'Alpuget, whose effusions about the Silver Bodgie include his single-handed rescue of Nelson Mandela from apartheid's clutches. A highlight of the occasion was the arrival of the brand new Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who proclaimed Hawke her "role model" and the "gold standard" for running Australia.

The New Warlord of Oz

To fully appreciate the silver bodgie's wisdom that combines deeply held values with a sturdy political realism one only has to hark back to 1974:

"The ACTU president, Mr Hawke, said yesterday that if he were the Israeli Prime Minister he would drop an atomic bomb on invading Arabs. This outburst by Mr Hawke, who is also federal president of the ALP has astonished Labor Party chiefs... Mr Hawke said, 'If I had 18-year-old, 15-year-old and 11-year-old kids like mine and saw these Arab tanks coming over the hill to push them into the sea, I would use the atomic bomb to stop them'... Mr Hawke argued with Mr Hartley and Mr McMullin. Slamming the table in emphasis, Mr Hawke reportedly told them, 'If I were the Israeli Prime Minister I would use the bomb on the Arabs.

Mr McMullin... told him: 'You cannot justify the use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances'. Mr Hawke replied heatedly: 'Why? Because of world morality - the world has stood by for 25 years and watched attempts to push Israelis into the sea without lifting a finger. If I were the Israeli prime minister I wouldn't give a damn about world morality - I would use the atomic bomb to protect my own'." (Hawke: I'd A-Bomb Arabs, Chris Forsyth, The Daily Telegraph, 16/2/74)