Bob Hawke Quotes About South Africa

Quotes about: South Africa

• I led the fight here against apartheid as President of the ACTU, including particularly the Springbok tour in 1971. And that led to the banning of the South African cricket tour which had been scheduled - that was something that I sorted out with Sir Donald Bradman. That was interesting.

  Bob Hawke

  Fighting, Interesting, President

  Source: www.commonwealthoralhistories.org

• It was a remarkable relationship. Margaret [Thatcher] and I had a love/hate relationship. She was always defending the South African regime and we had some terrible fights, including an enormous one in Canada.

  Bob Hawke

  Hate, Fighting, Canada

  Source: www.commonwealthoralhistories.org

• In fact, soon after that [South African sanctions], I was going on an official visit to the UK and Margaret Thatcher instructed every minister to clear the decks of any outstanding matters between us - Australia and the Brits. And she went out of her way to make sure that that was as successful a visit as it possibly could be.

  Bob Hawke

  Successful, Australia, Matter

  Source: www.commonwealthoralhistories.org

• The concept there was that the small number of developed countries within the Commonwealth should provide assistance. This was not just financial but personal, providing experts and so on, to assist less developed members of the Commonwealth to get on the growing path. And that was part of what we did with South Africa.

  Bob Hawke

  Country, Numbers, Growing

  Source: www.commonwealthoralhistories.org

• I said to my people, "We're knocking apartheid off but we've got to be prepared to assist them." And I sent senior people over there to assist the incoming South African regime to go about the economic plan.

  Bob Hawke

  Senior, People, Economic

  Source: www.commonwealthoralhistories.org

• It had things that it could do and which I thought were worthwhile: one would be South Africa, of course. And, as I said, I assumed a leadership role within the Commonwealth on that.

  Bob Hawke

  Would Be, Roles, Worthwhile

  Source: www.commonwealthoralhistories.org

• It was the South African Government that has introduced politics into sport by decreeing politically that no non-white person will represent their country. They introduced politics into sport." And Don [Bradman] was a very shrewd old bloke, and he looked at me for about thirty seconds and then he said, "Bob, I've got no answer to that." And that was it.

  Bob Hawke

  Sports, Country, Government

  Source: www.commonwealthoralhistories.org

• It [also] lives on its history, now, to some extent: its achievements [ of the Commonwealth] in Rhodesia and South Africa, which were enormous. And they'll live on that for some time, I guess. And there is still - I'm out of touch with it now, of course - but I still think there is a degree of cooperation at the economic level, to some extent, with the more developed countries helping the less developed. How substantial that is now, I simply am not versed.

  Bob Hawke

  Country, Thinking, Achievement

  Source: www.commonwealthoralhistories.org

• As far as we're concerned, there was no sporting organisation [that] should have anything to do with the sport in South Africa.

  Bob Hawke

  Sports, Should Have, Organisation

  Source: www.commonwealthoralhistories.org

• I rang my friend Jim Wolfensohn, who was then running a private commercial bank in New York. I said, "Come up to Vancouver", and he did. I put my proposition to him. He said, "I think it could work." I said, "Will you help us?" He said, "Yes." So, I set aside senior people in our treasury and they worked with Wolfensohn and the investment sanctions were applied. And that's what brought the regime down. The last South African Finance Minister, Barend du Plessis, went on record as saying that it was the investment sanctions that put the final nail in the coffin of apartheid.

  Bob Hawke

  Senior, Running, New York

  Source: www.commonwealthoralhistories.org

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