RIP to a Ripper Bloke, Bob Hawke

Australia’s last man of the people to become prime minister is no longer.

Robert James Lee “Bob” Hawke died earlier this week, just two days before his beloved Australian Labor Party is expected to re-take office in the May 18 federal election following six years of misrule by an incompetent Liberal–National Party coalition government.

Hawke was 89. He was a popular prime minister whose time in office went from 1983 to 1991.

He remains the longest-serving Labor prime minister in Australian history.

Hawkey didn’t really have much to do with Japan during his time in office. Perhaps the closest project involving Japan was the disastrous Multifunction Polis proposal that sparked widespread outrage at a time when there was popular discord against Japanese investment in Australia.