Canberra Raiders chairman and respected public servant Dr Allan Hawke dies

Dr Hawke held senior roles in the public service, leading the departments of Veterans' Affairs, Transport and Regional Services, and Defence before he was appointed High Commissioner to New Zealand, a role he held from 2003 to 2006.

He was also chief of staff to prime minister Paul Keating, was chancellor of the Australian National University from 2006 to 2008, and was made a companion of the Order of Australia in 2010. Dr Hawke died on Wednesday night after a long battle with cancer.

Friends and colleagues on Thursday described Dr Hawke as a community-minded "people person" who placed a strong emphasis on workplace culture and the training of staff, and as someone who believed strongly in the public service as a profession.

Former senior public servant Andrew Podger said Dr Hawke was a superb manager of people, whose legacies included nurturing the institutions of the public service and enhancing the capability of staff. Dr Hawke was a frequent public speaker and mentored many public servants.

"He always saw organisational capability in terms of the people involved and how they work together," Professor Podger said.

Dr Hawke had opposed performance pay from the beginning, saying it was undermining not enhancing teamwork and organisational capability.

Among Dr Hawke's major contributions to the public service were to the management improvement advisory board in the 1990s, the management advisory board in the 2000s, and in policy, particularly in the defence portfolio.

Ric Smith, who succeeded Dr Hawke in the role of Defence Department secretary, said his friend was an instinctive public servant who believed in the professional service.

"He was a people person, he placed very strong emphasis on the culture of the workplace in the organisations he was running," Mr Smith said.

"While he was in the job, and in his retirement, he spoke and wrote about the public service and its management in a way that reflected that instinctive touch that he had for it."

Dr Hawke was a local man to his roots, born in Canberra on February 18, 1948 and educated at Queanbeyan High School. He achieved first class honours in his undergraduate degree at the ANU before a Doctorate of Philosophy.

Mr Smith and Professor Podger said the public servant was attached to and identified closely with the Canberra-Queanbeyan community, a quality reflected in his commitment to the Canberra Raiders, where he served as chairman.

ANU vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt said Australia and the university had lost a true leader.

"Dr Hawke made significant contributions in areas vital to our national interest, including defence and our regions, as well as in our relations across the globe," Professor Schmidt said.

"He will be missed."

Raiders chief executive Don Furner described Dr Hawke as "much loved".

"He led an extraordinary public and private life and was on many boards, but I can say that the board he loved being on the most was the Canberra Raiders. He was still watching us win against Manly on the weekend and was wearing his Raiders jersey in his hospital bed," Mr Furner said.

John McIntyre, who preceded Dr Hawke as chairman of the Raiders and who nominated him for the role, said he was a wonderful man. The two grew up on Bruce Street in Queanbeyan.

"We were in Number 10 and he was Number 13," Mr McIntyre said.

"He was very, very bright."

They owned race-horses together. Mr McIntyre said that Dr Hawke was a humble man despite his great achievements.

The Raiders chairman was well regarded in many fields.

Last year, he gave a talk to ACT members of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, of which he was a lifelong fellow.

The institute said afterwards: "Over the many decades of his distinguished public career, Canberra Raiders chairman Dr Allan Hawke has been outspoken on a number of issues. These include the lack of women in the public service and on boards, the need for people-focused leadership, the lack of consequences from the financial services royal commission and how greed on CEO pay is out of step with what is seen as fair by society."

Rugby league was his great sporting love, along with golf.

In his youth, he played on the wing for the Queanbeyan Blues "so I've had lifelong association with rugby league".

He took over as chairman of the Raiders just over 10 years ago and, by all accounts, helped transform it.

"He raised eyebrows, for example, when he chaired a subcommittee set up to select a new coach - the group eventually choosing Ricky Stuart," according to the profile for the Institute of Company Directors.

The changes he instituted were thought to be radical at the time but later adopted throughout the sport.

The number of women on the board increased under his chairmanship.

Dr Hawke said: "I think we now have a very good diverse board to oversee what happens at the Raiders. If you look at their qualifications and contributions you can readily see that this is not tokenism."

Reflecting on the many roles he had held, Dr Hawke said that public servants should consider active staffer roles in politics to really understand how government works.

"I learned more about how government really works from the inside in the six months I was with Keating than I had previously learned from 1974 to 1993," he told the Institute of Company Directors.

"I often explain to people that their experience and career will benefit if they get an opportunity to spend time in a ministerial office and learn about the issues. I was in the Keating office during a period when amazing things were achieved for Australia including the Mabo legislation."

As he underwent sessions of treatment in 2019, Dr Hawke thanked people for the support they had given him.

"I couldn't have more support, not only from the Raiders, but from people I know in all walks of life," he said.

"It's actually a bit of a revelation - about how many people have gone out of their way to contact me and offer me support.

"It's pretty heart-warming. It's a bit of a lesson to you that people out there do care."

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