Blanche d'Alpuget, the biographer and second wife of former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke, has died aged 82. Her death has prompted renewed attention to their decades-long affair, which began in secret in the 1970s while both were married to other people and eventually became a marriage of almost 25 years, offering a window into one of Australian politics' most talked-about personal scandals.

The pair first met at a party in Jakarta in April 1970, when d'Alpuget was married to diplomat Tony Pratt and Hawke, then a leading trade union figure, was married to Hazel. They became lovers around 1976 and conducted an affair for roughly two decades, an open secret in Canberra, before marrying in July 1995. Hawke proposed as early as 1978 but later withdrew the offer, reportedly fearing divorce would damage his political prospects; d'Alpuget said in her 2018 book that his decision ultimately proved right "for himself, for me… and, as became obvious, for the nation." The couple remained married until Hawke's death in May 2019, aged 89.