Blanche d’Alpuget has spoken candidly about one of the most difficult moments of her early relationship with former prime minister Bob Hawke, revealing she once briefly considered killing him during a period of emotional turmoil in the late 1970s.
In a strikingly honest interview on the podcast Neil Mitchell Asks Why, d’Alpuget said she had planned the act after Hawke, drunk, proposed to her, prompting her to leave her husband, only for him to later withdraw the promise to avoid political fallout.
“I was going to stab him,” she said.
“I was going to see him and I had a very nice shoulder bag and in it I would have a Sabatier kitchen knife with a 10-inch blade and I’d give him a hug and then from behind.
“No, no, from the front. I don’t believe in stabbing people in the back.”
She said the idea lasted no longer than a day, and she abandoned it because of her young son, Louis, “It was really out of consideration for my son that I dropped the whole lot.”
The incident happened in 1978–79, years before Hawke became prime minister in 1983.
“He had asked me to marry him and then reneged. Very sensibly, I might say,” she said. “Thank God he did, for everybody’s sake, especially Australia’s. And I was terribly hurt. That was all.
“I think I thought of suicide and then I thought, no, it would be better that he died rather than I died. I mean, this is love, you know. It can be turmoil.”
Hawke stayed with his wife Hazel due to the political damage a separation could cause. D’Alpuget now believes it was the right decision.
“I think politics was a very big part of it. Probably the main part of it, actually. It was good for Australia. He was very good for Australia. It was the tension between love and duty. And he obeyed the call to duty.”
Hawke eventually left Hazel almost two decades later, marrying d’Alpuget in 1995. The pair had continued a long, private relationship in the years between, meeting at the Lodge and even on his official aircraft.
Hazel Hawke remained widely admired for her warmth, humour and resilience, and many sympathised with her through Hawke’s infidelity.
“Although Bob had been an absolute philanderer and had hundreds of women during his time married to Hazel, I was the one blamed for the breakup of their marriage,” d’Alpuget said.
In her new biography Fridays With Blanche, the author also opens up about other major events in her life, from being raped by a real estate agent, to her belief in spiritualism, as well as the couple’s financial struggles in Hawke’s final days.
She also reflects on Hawke’s battle with alcohol.
“As with all alcoholics, he had an on button and no off button,” she said.
“He could drink and drink and drink but he couldn’t stop drinking once he started. He asked me to be the parole officer to watch his drinking, which I really hated.”
Despite the rocky beginnings, d’Alpuget says she and Hawke later spoke openly about her moment of despair.
When the podcast host asked: “Did you ever tell Bob that you had planned to kill him?” d’Alpuget responded: “Oh yes, I think I did. We laughed. We laughed. He’d laugh and say, ‘If you decided you were going to do it, I wouldn’t want to be in the way.’”
Image: 60 Minutes
