CHARLES WOOLEY: The truth about the firestorm over my Bob Hawke sex question

When did the sex begin?

I never actually said those five words to Bob Hawke and Blanche dAlpuget as snappily as they went to air, but more about that later.

My introduction to the pitfalls of prime-time commercial television dates back to the mid-90s and this 60 Minutes interview with the recently separated former prime minister and his bride-to-be.

Me: Blanche, tell me about the first time you met him.

DAlpuget: It was at a party in Jakarta. I had been living outside Australia for a long time and didnt know who he was. But I was most impressed because that night we had lots of fun and the party went on until four in the morning.

Me: Bob, how do you remember first meeting Blanche?

Hawke: It was 1970. I was visiting Indonesia and having drinks in the Australian embassy when this young lady walked around the corner. I remember her white dress and being struck by her physical attractiveness and by her vivacity as well.

Twenty long years passed. The couple remained in different orbits, but the remorseless gravity of planetary attraction somehow predestined them to eventually become worlds in collision.

Charles Wooley was a 60 Minutes reporter when he asked recently separated former prime minister Bob Hawke and his bride-to-be Blanche dAlpuget, When did the sex begin? (above)

Neither Hawke nor dAlpuget answered Wooleys question about when they first had sex.  What mattered was the publicity furore those five words generated, Wooley says

And $200,000 of Kerry Packers money gave me exclusive access to the fireworks when the passion exploded.

I had always been reticent about joining 60 Minutes because of what, in my high-minded youth at the ABC, I considered to be the popular shows tabloid prurience.

But prurience was not a word in the dictionary of the legendary Peter Meakin, Channel Nines master of rat-baggery and ratings.

He re-assured me, Mate travel the world up the front of the plane. Enjoy the money and remember, you can always take a shower after the show.

Oh s**t, I said to my producer. Do I really have to ask them when they first started to have sex? 

I know we are paying but Bob will just tell me to get stuffed and you cant blame him. God, sometimes I hate this job.

Dont go all ABC on me, she replied. You are in the commercial world now. We dont make "television programs", we sell Toyotas.

I was ordered not to get all ABC on my superiors by refusing to ask the former PM the sex question, Wooley says. Above, Hawke and DAlpuget at Sussex Inlet, on the NSW South Coast, in December 1994

I was learning that in the world of commercial television producers, as so often in nature, the female is the more deadly of the species.

We had sequestered the amorous couple at a hideaway on Scotland Island in Sydneys Pittwater, far from the prying lenses of all the other envious media whom we had outbid for our exclusive interview.

Slowly and sensuously, Blanche was rubbing suntan lotion onto Bobs body. She got the giggles and collapsed. 

Bob, besotted in his budgie smugglers told our camera: Shes mad of course, quite mad.

They hugged, kissed, stroked and laughed. Clearly they were in love. But for me there was a massive dark cloud in the warm clear air. 

Blanche DApluget tenderly applies lotion to Hawke, above, during the segment in question

The toxic question I had to ask was whether the physical relationship had started before Bob left his wife Hazel, a woman much beloved by the Australian public and by our viewers.

My deadly producer was firm. Every woman in Australia wants to know. Dont wimp out.

Then, not entirely insensitive to my agitation she relented. Look just ask the question. It doesnt matter how they answer it. What we paid for is those pictures of Blanche rubbing Ambre Soleil between Bobs legs.

So, I asked the most circumlocutory question in the history of un-edited television involving rambling phrases such as look its open speculation in Australia and shouldnt it be clarified and I will be accused of pussyfooting (unfortunate choice of words) but what most people want to know and I have to ask and did you fall in love and you know, if you can tell us when, at what stage in your relationship did um you get to the physical stage of love, when did the sex begin? 

Wooley had always been reticent about joining 60 Minutes. Left to right are past and present 60 Minutes reporters Richard Carleton, Tracey Curro, Wooley and Jeff McMullen

Out of that mess my producer and her editor crafted the snappy five-word distillation of my embarrassed ramble.

Mark Day, a wise veteran columnist at the time wrote sympathetically that I would have been fired if I hadnt asked it. 

He said, when did the sex begin? would be the question of the year and I might have to live the rest of my life in its shadow.

For the record neither Bob nor Blanche answered the question. But my producer was right. 

What mattered was the publicity furore those five words generated.

Looking back, it was an innocent time. These days on morning television the incumbent prime minister is asked if he takes his clothes off in front of his dog. There is no fuss because hardly anyone watches commercial television anymore.

I wonder why that is. 

Charles Wooley has spent a lifetime travelling the world. After 25 years and more than 100 countries during the heyday of 60 Minutes he now lives and writes in Tasmania. He is the deputy mayor of the seaside Shire of Sorell and a keen fly fisherman.