SYDNEY—Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke says he's finally got over his bitterness towards his successor Paul Keating.
As a special guest on Andrew Denton's Enough Rope Elders special, Hawke has revealed that the two are now friends.
"Obviously, when Paul challenged me and finally won, we weren't bosom buddies," Hawke said in the interview to air on the ABC tomorrow night.
"We didn't get into lengthy social intercourse for some time but we're friends now and he's coming to dinner here shortly."
Hawke was left devastated when Keating successfully challenged him for the Labor Party leadership in 1991.
He resigned from parliament and publicly criticised Keating, but says he doesn't want to let hatred and envy rule his life.
"I see people destroyed or enormously diminished by envy and by hatred. Life is short," Hawke said.
Hawke said he now looked on the situation positively because it led to his marriage to his lover, biographer Blanche d'Apulget, whom he describes as an "indescribable joy".
Hawke and first wife Hazel divorced after almost 40 years of marriage in 1995.
"I don't want in any sense to diminish what had gone before but I must be honest, this is something that has brought me in every sense of love all that I can imagine any human being could ever imagine," he says.
"It's physical love, of course, is important but emotional and intellectual communion that we have."
Hawke also used the interview to speak about his battle to get over alcoholism, his upbringing and regrets of not being a better father to his three children with Hazel.
"I think you're entitled to enter into the balance sheet the pluses that you were able to give to the family as a result of all these things that wouldn't otherwise have been available," he said.
"But that can't eliminate some of the sadness that comes from feeling that you know you could have been a better father."
Now 78, Hawke says he "feels good" and likes to keep his mind going by doing a couple of cryptic crosswords and "difficult" Sudoku puzzles a day "'cause I genuinely believe that intellectual exercise is important".
Looking ahead he says he's concerned about the population increase, and global warming.
"There are not many grounds for optimism," he said.
"I feel terribly sorry in so many ways for young kids that are coming and the kids that are going to come.
"It's such it's such a difficult world for them."
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