Do we like them?

Do we like Bob Hawke?

Our score: 6 out of 10. Strong on people and the environment, but the personal side is mixed and one serious claim from his own family was never answered.

Bob Hawke was the Labor prime minister from 1983 to 1991, and he died in May 2019. Before that he was a Rhodes Scholar and the head of the ACTU, the unions' peak body, through the 1970s. That union background is why he could sell a deal to both bosses and workers, and why he ended up the most popular PM on record.

On the planet, he's close to a hero. His 1983 government stopped the Franklin River dam in Tasmania, and he fought a treaty that would have allowed mining in Antarctica. Of that treaty he said “I just couldn't believe it.” The Australia Institute also credits him with saving the Daintree from becoming a timber plantation.

For LGBTQ+ readers, the clearest mark is later in life. In 2012 he said he was very much in favour of changing the law to allow gay marriage, and in 2017 he and his wife backed Yes in the postal survey. Tony Abbott called him a ‘silly old bugger’ over it. Reporting on his actual role in law reform while PM is thinner, so that's a fair gap to flag.

The harm check comes up clean. No campaigning against anyone's rights, no conspiracy streak, no dodgy company turned up, and his late-life stands were on the side of gay marriage and Palestinian recognition, which some people will weigh differently. Some critics of his Israel and Palestine remarks in 1988 found them offensive, and where you land depends on how you read them.

The good-person test is a close call. Public life: a bloke who cut deals that raised living standards and took in Chinese students after Tiananmen. Private life: a messy marriage story and that one serious claim from his own child. That's honestly a mixed result, not a fail, and the record is thin on the details because I couldn't open every article.