Lionel Bowen

And then at the end of it, there was no National Union of Students and I had quite a national profile.

And then, you know, got a phone call from Lionel Bowen, the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, and he said, son, with your name and with what you've done, you've got a big future in the Labor Party.

Yeah.

And then I went and locked myself at Fisher Library and thought, you know, I've got to believe in what I'm about to dedicate myself to and recognise, even though obviously the Labor Party is not a socialist party anymore, although that's arguable these days, but...

Because, um, when that was going through the parliament, and I, I know this because I read it in John Howard's, uh, memoirs, Lazarus, uh, Rising.

He talks about, um, how he was a fairly new member of parliament in 1976, and, uh, Lionel Bowen, the then Labor attorney general, quite a radical, um, person, uh, probably a socialist, a radical reformer.

He introduced no-fault divorce.

And, um, the law as it was passed only allows a 12-month separation period before a marriage can be dissolved for, for any reason, for no fault.

it is now.

And this story was told to me by his former deputy, Lionel Bowen, because Lionel knew we both had met Hawke and had some dealings with him.

So it was a kind of a mutual joke appreciation about it.

Bob was notoriously stingy.