Most Australians do not care that Prime Minister Bob Hawke has been unfaithful to his wife and he gained no political advantage from the tearful confession on television, according to a poll published Monday.
The survey, published in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, was the first major poll on the matter.Some critics had suggested that Hawke's teary-eyed admission during an interview on national television on March 21 was a calculated ploy to win votes for his governing Australian Labor Party.
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But 70 percent of those questioned in a random national telephone survey of 1,000 people were indifferent. One in four thought less of Hawke after the confession, and 5 percent thought more of him, according to the survey.