Australian former Prime Minister Bob Hawke dead

Australia’s longest-serving Labor prime minister Bob Hawke died Thursday aged 89.

“Today we lost Bob Hawke, a great Australian — many would say the greatest Australian of the post-war era,” his second wife Blanche d’Alpuget said in a statement.

“He died peacefully at home.”
The son of a preacher, Hawke led his country during the 1980s, a period during which he seduced the nation with his everyman appeal while beginning deregulation of the economy, including floating the dollar.