Bob Hawke’s widow Blanche D’Alpuget dies aged 82: Her final message for Australia

Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke’s widow and a prolific Australian writer Blanche D’Alpuget has died at the age of 82.

The award-winning author asked her family to share her final message to Australia.

‘Our highest calling and greatest achievement is love, the rule of life. Love one another,’ it read.
She is survived by her son Louis Pratt, from her first marriage to diplomat and journalist Tony Pratt, three step-children and multiple step-grandchildren

D’Alpuget died seven years after Hawke, who was Australia’s longest serving Labor prime minister.

Hawke married his biographer d’Alpuget – with whom he had conducted a long-running affair – in 1995 after divorcing Hazel, his first wife of 38 years.

D’Alpuget grew up as an only child in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and first worked as a journalist before travelling the world.

She returned to Australia at the age of 30 to begin working as a novelist.

More to come