WORLD : Hawke Called ‘Spineless Wimp’

The former Australian finance minister, Peter Walsh, was reported today to have quit the government last month because he could not bear working with Prime Minister Bob Hawke, whom he called a “wimp” in need of a “spine transplant.”

Walsh has persistently criticized the Labor government since leaving the Cabinet after the March 24 election.

In a weekly column in the Australian Financial Review newspaper he recently warned that the economy was in a grave state, ethnic groups had forced the government to take too many immigrants and the government pandered to environmentalists.

But, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, Walsh has been even more outspoken in the corridors of Parliament where he remains in the Senate, the upper house.

Walsh, accusing Hawke of balking at hard decisions, has been describing him to political colleagues as “old jelly back” and a “wimp” who needs “a spine transplant,” wrote the Herald’s political correspondent, Tom Burton.