Blanche d’Alpuget and Bob Hawke’s secret romance - and what brought it into the open after two decades

“Our highest calling and greatest achievement is love, the rule of life. Love one another.”

Those are the parting words of Blanche d’Alpuget, as shared by her family following her death aged 82. It’s a fitting message from the acclaimed Australian writer, who was famous not only for her work but for her own love story with former prime minister Bob Hawke.

d’Alpuget and Hawke were married for 24 years until the politician’s death in 2019 – a romance that sparked enormous scandal when it was publicly revealed in 1995.

At the time, the pair had been in a secret love affair for nearly two decades. They came clean after the author was in a plane crash and Hawke – who was married to wife Hazel Hawke at the time – thought he’d lost the love of his life.

A secret love story

Hawke and d’Alpuget met in 1970 at a party in Jakarta.

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Blanche d’Alpuget, writer and widow of Bob Hawke, dies aged 82

She was living and working as a journalist in the Indonesian capital, and married to diplomat Tony Pratt, with whom she shared a son.

They didn’t meet again for six years, when d’Alpuget interviewed Hawke for a biography she was writing on Sir Richard Kirby. From there, the pair began an affair.

Hawke asked her to marry him in 1979, but withdrew his offer when he decided to focus on his political career.

“His relationship with Hazel more or less split up that year - she’s written about it in her book. They were living under one roof, but contemplating divorce,” d’Alpuget later told The Sydney Morning Herald.

“Bob wanted me to move to Melbourne but I wouldn’t leave my son, Louis, who was only six, and Bob had three growing kids. We tried hard, but realised it was impossible; the timing was hopeless.”

Their affair ended after a few years, which she described as a “traumatic parting”. Both remained with their respective spouses.

In 1980, d’Alpuget started researching and writing a book on the politician. The award-winning Robert J Hawke- A Biography was published in 1982, months before he became prime minister.

The pair had no contact for the next few years. d’Alpuget divorced Pratt in 1986, and one day, out of the blue, Hawke called and asked to meet up. Their affair recommenced immediately.

They continued meeting in secret for years until 1992, when d’Alpuget was in a light plane crash in Queensland.

For a while, Hawke – whose time as prime minister had ended the year before – believed she was dead, and was devastated. The biographer was fine, but it was a wake-up call for the politician, who finally had to confront his feelings.

The fallout

Hawke told Hazel about his relationship with d’Alpuget. They separated in 1994, after 38 years of marriage, and divorced the following year, making Hawke the first Prime Minister in Australian history to divorce.

The couple shared four children – Susan, Stephen, Roslyn, and Robert, who died shortly after his birth.

However, they didn’t have an easy marriage. By all accounts, Hawke’s heavy drinking and continuous infidelity caused problems. In 1971, when he was named Victorian Father of the Year, Hazel publicly disputed the honour due to his drinking and womanising.

After her death in 2013, Hawke said: "I remember Hazel with deep affection and gratitude. She was more than a wife and mother, being father as well during my frequent absences as I pursued an industrial then political career."

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In 1995, the former PM went public with his two-decade-long affair, sparking one of the biggest scandals in Australian political history.

The country was shocked when Hawke announced was leaving Hazel for d’Alpuget, and the journalist faced a wave of public hostility and disapproval.

“I figured that was their problem. They were acting in prejudice and ignorance,” she told ABC Nightlife years later.

"If you're very in love with somebody, that love so enhances your life and your attitude, that negativity doesn't have much chance of getting a foothold."

A new life together

Hawke and d’Alpuget married at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Sydney in 1995 before enjoying a reception at the Botticelli restaurant.

d’Alpuget wore a gown with a high-necked lace bodice and a satin taffeta skirt, and opted not to take her second husband’s surname.

Per The Age, the newlyweds described their wedding as “magnificent”, “wonderful” and “a great service” to reporters outside.

The couple remained married until Hawke’s death aged 89 in 2019.

Reflecting on their love story in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald that year, d’Alpuget said they were instantly attracted to each other.

However, she did realise, over the course of time, that Hawke was simultaneously “having affairs with women all over the country, that his love life was a kind of free-wheeling, decentralised harem, with four or five favourites and a shoe-sale queue of one-night stands”.

In another interview, d’Alpuget said the public’s response to their love story evolved through the years, and was eventually “seen differently”.

“The number of women who come up and say, ‘I so admire what you did’ – I get that a lot now, and for some years now, even before Bob died,” she told the Australian Financial Review in 2025.

Confirming the news of her death today, d’Alpuget’s family said they will miss “her force, her humour, her curiosity and her love beyond measure”.

“She was full of vitality, generosity and curiosity, with an extraordinary appetite for beauty, ideas, history, new places and spirited conversation,” they said.

“She refused to be confined by convention or by other people’s expectations of who she should be.”