William George Hayden AC (23 January 1933 – 21 October 2023) was an Australian politician who served as the 21st governor-general of Australia from 1989 to 1996.

[5] Hayden's father was an American seaman, probably born in California,[6] who jumped ship in Sydney a few years before World War I.

[9] Hayden spent his first year at a boardinghouse in Fortitude Valley, before the family moved to a rented cottage in the working-class area of Highgate Hill.

[18] Hayden held far-left views as a young man and attempted to join the Communist Party of Australia, but was refused membership due to his police ties.

[20] Hayden became "an active and energetic party worker, closely aligned with the left-wing Trades Hall faction that now controlled the Queensland ALP".

[24] At the 1961 federal election he unexpectedly defeated incumbent Liberal MP and cabinet minister Donald Cameron, winning 53 percent of the primary vote on an 11-point swing.

Overcoming initial resistance to his membership of the Labor party, Hayden was soon popularly elected as one of the then youngest members of the federal parliament (only 28 years old at the time he entered it).

[27] When Labor won the 1972 election under Gough Whitlam, Hayden was appointed Minister for Social Security, and in that capacity, among other efforts to promoting reform, introduced the single mothers pension and Medibank, Australia's first system of universal health insurance.

On 6 June 1975, he succeeded Jim Cairns as Treasurer, a position he held until the Whitlam government was dismissed by the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, on 11 November 1975.

[citation needed] His political views had become more moderate, and he advocated economic policies which encompassed the private sector and the American alliance.

Yet, due to the geographically uneven nature of the swing (strong in Victoria and, to a lesser degree, Western Australia and New South Wales, but comparatively weak everywhere else), Labor fell 12 seats short of making Hayden Prime Minister.

Bob Hawke, a former union leader who had been elected to Parliament two years earlier, began mobilising his supporters to challenge Hayden's leadership.

[29] In December, Labor surprised many pundits by its failure to win the vital Flinders by-election in Victoria, further raising doubts about Hayden's ability to lead the ALP to power.

[30] On 3 February 1983, in a meeting in Brisbane, various leading Labor figures, including Paul Keating and Senator John Button, told Hayden that he must resign.

[citation needed] Fraser had been well aware of the infighting within Labor and wanted to call an election before the party could replace Hayden with Hawke.

He believed that if he put Parliament into "caretaker mode" early enough, Labor would essentially be frozen with Hayden as its leader.

At a press conference that afternoon Hayden, still chagrined, said that "a drover's dog could lead the Labor Party to victory, the way the country is".

"[33] Labor won the 1983 election in a rout, handing the Coalition what is still the worst defeat of a sitting non-Labor government since Federation.

[36] The main recommendations of the report, which were directed at improving the professional quality of the Australian aid program, were accepted by the Government.

This was widely viewed as a consolation on Hawke's part for replacing Hayden earlier as Labor Leader in 1983 and thus denying him the chance to become prime minister.

In the debate preceding the 1999 republic referendum, he rejected the specific proposal and sided with the monarchists,[44] stating he supported the direct election of a president.

[46] He also continued to write opinion and comment pieces for other magazines and newspapers in Australia about current social, economic and political issues including foreign affairs.

Hayden died in Queensland on 21 October 2023, after a long illness at the age of 90;[52][53] nine years to the day after Gough Whitlam's death.

His death was commemorated by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who announced Hayden would be honoured with a state funeral.

[58] Hayden received an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of Queensland in 1990 for his distinguished contributions to Australian life.

"Those great reforms", Keating said, "began with the frameworks Bill Hayden brought to the front bench, the day he became Leader of the Labor Party.