Federal Election 1984

“In 1984, in Hawke’s Long March election, Button told an audience in Launceston he ffelt like Burke and Wills wandering around across Australia and every now and then being told to dig. It was that sort of aimless, never ending campaign. The effect on minsters was profound. They did not forgive Hawke his complacency nor his error of judgment in making the formal campaign an eight-week test of endurance. They forgave him even less the shock of the Government’s relatively narrow win in political circumstances in which it should have bolted in.”

Ramsey, A. 1987. On the Road with John. SMH, 20 June.

(Ramsey, 2009:12)