Desmond Robert Leak (1956-2017), William George Hayden (detail), 1992, Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collection. View full image

Governor-General, 16 February 1989 to 16 February 1996

William ‘Bill’ Hayden (b.1933) became Australia’s 21st Governor-General after more than a quarter-century of service in the federal Parliament.¹ His seven-year term as Governor-General, ‘conducted with an egalitarian dignity and with only minor controversy’,² remains the second longest after Alexander Hore-Ruthven (Lord Gowrie).

In his own words, Hayden ‘was a product of the Great Depression’, born to a working-class Brisbane family.³ After leaving school he worked as a public service clerk but found it unsatisfying and joined the police. There his observations and experiences of poverty, violence, and suffering led him ‘to feel a great anger at the injustices some people had to bear’.⁴ In 1960, he married Dallas Broadfoot and they had four children.

In the 1961 federal election, Hayden won the Queensland seat of Oxley for the ALP, becoming the youngest member of the 24th Parliament.⁵ While on the Opposition backbench he completed an economics degree via correspondence. When Gough Whitlam⁶ led Labor to government in 1972 Hayden became Minister for Social Security and later Treasurer, and was instrumental in introducing Australia’s first universal health insurance scheme.

Hayden succeeded Whitlam as leader of the Labor Party in 1977, holding the position for the next five years. Paul Keating, who served under Hayden’s leadership, would later acknowledge that the economic and cultural reforms of the Hawke-Keating years ‘began with the frameworks Bill Hayden brought to the front bench’.⁷ Hayden resigned the party leadership just before the 1983 election amid pressure from Bob Hawke,⁸ despite lamenting that ‘a drover’s dog could lead the Labor Party to victory’.⁹ He subsequently became Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Hawke Government, adding the Trade portfolio in 1987.¹⁰

Hayden resigned from Parliament in August 1988 and was sworn in as Governor-General six months later. He had previously stated that he saw ‘the role in contemporary terms ... as one for an Australian serving on behalf of Australia and one’s fellow Australians. I believe I can do that task effectively, I believe well, but that will be measured up in the course of experience’.¹¹ On his retirement, commentators paid tribute to his public service and to a ‘man of self-improvement, hard work, idealism and aspiration’.¹²

As an atheist, Hayden was the first Governor-General to make an affirmation rather than swear an oath on the Bible. Once named Humanist of the Year, he chose to be baptised into the Catholic Church in 2018, reconciling his lifelong concern for social justice with a recognition of a ‘gnawing pain in my heart and soul about what is the meaning of life'¹³

Desmond Robert (Bill) Leak
An alumnus of the Julian Ashton Art School, Bill Leak (1956-2017) was best known for his prolific work as a political cartoonist. Adelaide-born, Leak was a regular contributor to some of Australia’s leading publications. After an eclectic beginning, he travelled to Europe to focus on his career as a portraitist. Returning to Australia in 1982 with intentions of continuing on this path, he instead became a cartoonist for the Bulletin and regularly contributed to other magazines. Leak subsequently worked as a cartoonist for the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review and the Australian. Leak won nine Walkley awards, 20 Stanley Awards from the Australian Black and White Artists’ Society (of which eight were gold awards for Cartoonist of the Year), and he was twice awarded News Corp’s Cartoonist of the Year. An Archibald Prize finalist 12 times, Leak took out the Packing Room Prize twice, and, with Malcolm Turnbull as the subject, was also a People’s Choice winner.¹⁴

William George Hayden
by Desmond Robert Leak
1993
Oil on canvas
110.5 x 100.5 cm
Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collection

References
1. Information in this biography has been taken from: B Carroll, Australia’s Governors-General: From Hopetoun to Jeffery, Rosenberg Publishing Pty Ltd, Kenthurst, NSW, 2004; D Murphy, Hayden: A Political Biography, Angus & Robertson, London, 1980; B Hayden, Hayden: An Autobiography, Angus & Robertson, London, 1996; ‘; ‘The Honourable William (Bill) George Hayden AC: Citation Doctor of Laws honoris causa’, The University of Queensland, accessed 30 April 2021.
2. 'Bill Hayden retires from public life’, Australian, 17 February 1996.
3. Hayden, op. cit., p. 376.
4. Ibid., p. 59.
5. ‘Hayden, the Hon. William George’, Parliamentary Library, Parliamentary Handbook Online, accessed 26 August 2021.
6. T Stephens, ‘Whitlam, Edward Gough (1916–2014)’, Obituaries Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, accessed 12 August 2021.
7. P Keating, ‘The Hayden Oration: speech to the University of Southern Queensland, Ipswich’, 29 September 2017, accessed 12 October 2021.
8. P Kelly, ‘Hawke, Robert James (Bob) (1929–2019)’, Obituaries Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, accessed 12 August 2021.
9. G Haywood, ‘Hayden sets his price in unprecedented coup’, The Australian Financial Review, 4 February 1983, p. 3; Atkins, ‘Returning to the fold’, The Courier-Mail, 19 September 2018, p. 23.
10. ‘Biography for Hayden, the Hon. William George’, Parliamentary Library, accessed 12 October 2021.
11. B Hayden, ‘Media conference’, 18 August 1988, p. 1, accessed 12 August 2021.
12. ‘Bill Hayden retires from public life’, op. cit.
13. D Atkins, ‘Returning to the fold’, TheCourier-Mail,19 September 2018, p. 23; M Bowling, ‘Former atheist and political leader Bill Hayden baptised at age 85 at St Mary’s Church, Ipswich’, The Catholic Leader, 18 September 2018, accessed 26 August 2021.
14. Information in this biography has been taken from: W Brown, ‘Bill Leak’, The Australian Media Hall of Fame, Melbourne Press Club; L Foyle, ‘Desmond (Bill) Robert Leak‘, Stanley Hall of Fame, Australian Cartoonists Association; ‘Leak, Bill’, A McCulloch, S McCulloch and E McCulloch Childs, eds, The New McCulloch’s Encyclopedia of Australian Art, Aus Art Editions in association with The Miegunyah Press, 2006, p. 603. Websites accessed 25 March 2021.