V o L u m e I : a d

Australia. He joined the Labour Party in 1947 and in 1953 was selected as a

Rhodes Scholar to Oxford University, where he completed a Bachelor of

Letters at University College in 1955.

Returning to Australia, in 1958 Hawke was offered a post as research offi-

cer at the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) headquarters in Mel-

bourne. He was selected as the ACTU’s president in 1959 despite the fact

that he had never held office in a trade union, and in 1973 he became federal

president of the Labour Party.

In March 1983 Hawke was elected Australia’s twenty-third prime minis-

ter. He went on to become one of the most successful Australian leaders of

the twentieth century. His policies were moderate and center-leftist, both

internationally and domestically. The Hawke government reflected its leader’s

personal traits of moderation, consensus, and pragmatic compromise. Domes-

tically, the Hawke government enacted several initiatives of the traditional

labor Left, such as the restoration of universal health insurance, various en-

vironmental initiatives, and the continuation of the reconciliation process

between the Australian government and its indigenous constituents. Yet

consistent with many reforms associated with rightist governments, he also

allowed the Australian dollar to float, privatized state sector industries, over-

hauled the tariff system, and implemented widespread industrial deregulation.

Hawke’s sense for attaining the middle ground became most evident in

Australia’s foreign policy. Although he was elected with the support of the

unionist Left, including unions controlled by the Communist Party, he did

not share their anti-American views and never pursued purely socialist posi-

tions. He was a strong supporter of both Israel and the U.S.-Australian

alliance, and he maintained cordial relations with U.S. Presidents Ronald

Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

The demise of the Hawke government came by way of a severe eco-

nomic recession in 1991. Hawke’s popularity declined, and he lost a no-

confidence vote on 20 December 1991. He resigned from parliament shortly

thereafter and retired from public life, although he has since supported several

Labour figures in federal elections.

Josh Ushay

See also

Australia

References

D’Alpuget, Blanche. Robert Hawke: A Biography. Ringwood, Victoria: Schwartz/

Penguin, 1984.

Hurst John. Hawke PM. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1983.

British Labour Party politician, defense minister (1964–1970), and chancellor

of the exchequer (1974–1979). Born on 30 August 1917 in Etham, Kent, Denis

902

Healey, Denis

Healey, Denis

(1917–)

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Healey moved to Keighley, Yorkshire, at age five. He studied at Oxford dur-

ing 1936–1940. After a brief flirtation with communism in the 1930s, Healey

took a center-rightist position in the Labour Party. He saw active service in

the British Army during World War II, leaving as a major.

Having joined the Labour Party during the war, from 1945 to 1951

Healey worked as its international secretary. He opposed the spread of com-

munism at home and abroad, and at the same time he sought to assist and

encourage European social democratic movements. He was elected to Par-

liament on the Labour Party ticket in a by-election in 1952.

In the internecine political conflicts of the 1950s, Healey firmly sup-

ported Hugh Gaitskell, who was an opponent of the leftist faction led by

Aneurin Bevan. In 1959, Healey assumed a spot in the opposition shadow

cabinet, concentrating on colonial affairs and defense issues.

After thirteen years in opposition, the Labour Party achieved power in

October 1984, and Healey was appointed minister of defense. Serving in that

post during 1964–1970, he was compelled to institute large cuts in defense

spending, which forced him to cancel the purchase of U.S. F-111 aircraft and

the construction of a new aircraft carrier. Continuing economic pressures

similarly prompted his July 1967 policy statement, which precipitated the

withdrawal of British troops from their traditional role east of the Suez, an

announcement that had been delayed by British involvement in the 1963–

1966 confrontation between Indonesia and Malaysia.

In 1968 Healey, along with other Western defense ministers, agreed to

the new defense doctrine of flexible response, designed to give the Allies

more leeway in responding to potential confrontations. Upon the fall of the

James Harold Wilson government in 1970, Healey resigned his ministry and

became shadow foreign secretary during 1970–1972 and then shadow chan-

cellor in 1972–1974.

Upon Labour’s return to power in 1974, Healey was appointed chan-

cellor of the exchequer, holding that post until the fall of the Labour

government in 1979. In this role, Healey steered Britain through a period

of profound economic difficulty and was obliged to accept credits from

the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in late 1976. Defeated for his

party’s leadership by Michael Foot in 1980, Healey was deputy leader dur-

ing 1980–1983. He left the House of Commons in 1992. He also wrote an

amusing, if slightly pompous, memoir, The Time of My Life, published in

1989.

Paul Wingrove

See also

Bevin, Ernest; Gaitskell, Hugh; International Monetary Fund; United Kingdom

References

Healey, Denis. The Time of My Life. London: Michael Joseph, 1989.

Morgan, Kenneth. Britain since 1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Pearce, Edward. Denis Healey: A Life in Our Times. New York: Little, Brown/Time

Warner, 2002.

Healey, Denis

903

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