CHARLES WOOLEY: After Blanche D’Apluget sensuously rubbed oil into Bob Hawke’s back, I asked: ‘when did the sex begin?’ It sparked a firestorm that haunts me to this day
Charles Wooley, a former 60 Minutes reporter, recalls the fallout from a mid-1990s interview with recently separated Australian prime minister Bob Hawke and his then-partner (later wife) Blanche d'Alpuget. Under pressure from his producer, Wooley put an indirect but pointed question to the couple about when their physical relationship began, a moment that generated significant public controversy and has stayed with him ever since. The piece reflects on the pressures of tabloid-style commercial television and the ethical discomfort of probing public figures' private lives for ratings.
Filmed for a substantial fee funded by Kerry Packer, the segment featured d'Alpuget applying suntan lotion to Hawke at a secluded location on Sydney's Pittwater, images the production had specifically sought. Wooley recounts his reluctance to ask about the start of their sexual relationship, given Hawke's marriage to the widely respected Hazel Hawke, but was pushed by his producer to do so regardless of how the couple might respond. Neither Hawke nor d'Alpuget directly answered the question, but the resulting media storm over the interview's framing left a lasting impression on Wooley's career.
- Wooley recalls asking Hawke and d'Alpuget about their affair's timing
- The 1990s 60 Minutes interview sparked lasting public controversy
- Neither Hawke nor d'Alpuget gave a direct answer on air
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Bob Hawke was one of Australia's most popular prime ministers, serving from 1983 to 1991. In the early 1990s his marriage to Hazel Hawke, a widely admired public figure in her own right, ended after it became known he was involved with the writer and biographer Blanche d'Alpuget, whom he later married. Their relationship attracted heavy media interest at the time.
Charles Wooley is a veteran Australian journalist who spent decades with the current affairs programme 60 Minutes, known for high-profile interviews with public figures. In the mid-1990s he interviewed Hawke and d'Alpuget together for the programme, made under the ownership of media proprietor Kerry Packer, whose commercial television operation was known for pursuing ratings with pointed, sometimes intrusive questioning of celebrities and politicians.
This piece is a personal reflection by Wooley, looking back on that interview and a question he asked the couple about their relationship, and the controversy it caused at the time. It touches on broader questions about the pressures journalists face from producers and networks, and the ethics of asking public figures about their private lives on television.