Bob Hawke: New book claims ex-PM had FOUR affairs while Australian leader and was a sex addict

Bob Hawke had four affairs while prime minister and was addicted to sex, a bombshell new biography has claimed.

The revered politician – who died in 2019 aged 89 – had about four ‘serious affairs’ while national leader from 1983 until 1991, his widow Blanche d’Alpuget told a new biography called Bob Hawke: Demons and Destiny.

Former tourism minister John Brown also recalled how Hawke ‘constantly’ chased women – and wasn’t remotely discreet, according to excepts from the book seen by The Australian.   

Ex-union secretary Bill Kelty, who worked with Hawke at the Australian Council of Trade Unions, said the politician would routinely sleep with women during drinking benders which lasted until the early hours of the morning.

‘Bob would drink, he would f**k somebody, and he would gamble until 2.30am or 3.30am in the morning – and then when the ACTU executive started at 9am in the morning, he was the second one there and he was fine,’ Mr Kelty recalled.

Hawke famously gave up alcohol throughout his leadership despite being a heavy drinker in his trade union days. 

The book also included accounts from the former prime minister’s children Susan Pieters-Hawke and Stephen Hawke, as well as those who worked on Hawke’s security detail.

His VIP protection chief Roger Martindale said his officers would often secretly drive Hawke to see his lovers to avoid attracting the attention of the press.   

The book claims even federal police officers helped facilitate his affair with Ms d’Alpuget at The Lodge, the sitting prime minister’s official residence in Canberra. 

Hawke was married to his wife Hazel from 1956 until their divorce in 1995; the affair with Ms d’Alpuget began in 1976 and went on and off before starting again in 1988. 

She said Hawke’s behaviour would be classed as a sex addiction.

‘At the end of a day of intense activity, he somehow had to let off steam, as it were, and there’s nothing like a roll in the hay or five to do that,’ Ms d’Alpuget said. 

Australia’s 23rd Prime Minister was also a highly functional alcoholic in his early trade union days (pictured, with parliament secretary Glenda Bowden at the Australian Labor Party conference in Terrigal, on the NSW Central Coast in 1975)

Hawke would routinely sleep with women during drinking benders which lasted until the early hours of the morning, an ex-union official claimed 

The book claims Hawke’s charm saw countless women mesmerised, with women throwing themselves at him in the 1960s and 70s.

If rejected, Hawke was known to be brutal. 

The new accounts come after it emerged the popular prime minister did not leave a cent to the three children he raised with first wife Hazel in his will.

Hawke married his biographer Blanche d’Alpuget (pictured) after his divorce from first wife Hazel. Mrs Hawke, who died aged 83 in 2013, had been a widely admired figure

Cricket spin bowling great Shane Warne celebrates with Hawke after Australia won the World Cup final against Pakistan at Lord’s in 1999

Hawke gave up alcohol throughout his prime ministership but had been a heavy drinker in his trade union days. He is pictured skulling a beer on day two of the fifth Ashes Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground in 2018 

Mr Hawke’s entire estate – including most of the $9.2million proceeds of selling a Sydney harbourfront home – instead went to his second wife and former mistress Ms d’Alpuget.

His death exposed divisions in his family and led to fights over the distribution of his wealth – estimated to be at least $18million.

There were squabbles over his personal belongings being put up for public auction, which led to items disappearing from the catalogue and being withdrawn from sale. 

Robert James Lee Hawke was Australia’s longest serving Labor prime minister, winning federal elections in 1983, 1984, 1987 and 1990 before going on to be a successful businessman.