Blanche d’Alpuget, the widow of former prime minister Bob Hawke, has left a multimillion-dollar estate that may set the stage for a contentious inheritance dispute between her only son and Hawke’s three children.
The acclaimed author, 82, whose death was confirmed on Wednesday after complications from influenza, had received the bulk of Hawke’s estimated $18 million estate following his death in 2019.
Hawke left no money directly to the three children he shared with his first wife, Hazel. Instead, d’Alpuget inherited almost the entire estate, including $9.2 million from the sale of the couple’s waterfront mansion in Northbridge.
Although d’Alpuget later gave Hawke’s children $750,000 each, his estranged daughter Rosslyn Dillon pursued a $4.2 million claim, alleging her father had not made adequate provision for her in his will.
Ms Dillon, a former heroin addict, said she was living in poverty at the time, describing a cockroach-infested flat and claiming she could barely cover the weekly rent of $500.
The matter was settled out of court and the amount was never made public.
It’s unclear how much of the estate was left by the time d’Alpuget died, but it included a $4.5million apartment overlooking Hyde Park and she likely had income from the 11 books she authored between 1984 and 2025.
She had also raised $671,630 from the sale of Hawke’s personal belongings in 2019, including sporting memorabilia and cigar-smoking paraphernalia.
Pictured: Bob Hawke and Blanche d’Alpuget in 2013
The Hawke family is pictured during the 1987 election campaign. Daughter Sue is holding her daughter Sophie. Mr Hawke’s wife Hazel is on Hawke’s left and daughter Rosslyn is far-left
Pictured: Hawke’s step-son Louis Pratt and granddaughter Sophie Taylor-Price
That auction of 266 lots had caused friction between Ms Dillon and her stepmother, with one of Ms Dillon’s sons texting Ms d’Alpuget, ‘Don’t you have a limit?’
Paul Dillon took exception to d’Alpuget selling some of his grandfather’s possessions including a Harry Bilson painting titled Fairground Carousel, which eventually went for $7,800.
‘Blanche, are you kidding with this auction?’ Mr Dillon wrote to d’Alpuget according to court documents.
‘Selling all the Harry Bilsons? No thought to ask the family to take furniture or anything?!! Don’t you have a limit?’
When d’Alpuget replied that she had sent Mr Dillon’s texts to a third party he asked why and she answered, ‘Well I find it threatening’.
Mr Dillon responded, ‘which part?’ and d’Alpuget told him she had the right to sell ‘stuff that is legally mine’.
d’Alpuget was understood to be close with two of Hawke’s children, Sue Pieters-Hawke and Stephen Hawke, but it’s unclear if anything was left to them in her will, or she left it all to her son Mr Pratt, daughter-in-law Brianna and granddaughter Sienna.
In NSW, step-children are not automatically recognised as eligible beneficiaries under the Succession Act.
Blanche d’Alpuget attended the state funeral for Graham Richardson in December 2025
Hawke and his daughter Rosslyn Dillon are pictured at the memorial service for Hazel Hawke, his former wife and her mother
An auction of Mr Hawke’s belongings caused friction between Ms Dillon and her stepmother, with one of Ms Dillon’s sons texting Ms d’Alpuget (pictured)
To make a claim, they must establish they were a part of the deceased step-parent’s household and that they were wholly or partly dependent on the step-parent.
There is no rule about how long step-children and step-parents need to have lived in the same household, or how dependent they were on their step-parent.
Successful claims are based on future need rather than what is deserved.
Hawke and d’Alpuget had a pricey property portfolio over their 43-year relationship, which started as an affair in 1976 when they were both married to other people.
They used to own a luxury cottage on Scotland Island, near Pittwater in Sydney’s Norther Beaches, which is currently for sale with a price guide of $3.6million.
Two months before Hawke’s death in 2019, they sold their five-storey Northbridge mansion for about $9million in an off-market deal.
Hawke and his then-wife Hazel paid $1.23million for the land in 1991.
The couple bought a $3.6million unit overlooking Hyde Park, which d’Alpuget sold after Hawke died two months later.
Weeks before Hawke’s death, the couple sold their Northbridge home for $9.2m. Hawke was still Prime Minister when he purchased the property in 1991
The former Prime Minister spent his final weeks in the Sydney CBD at One30 Hyde Park (pictured)
She bought a $4.5million apartment in the building next door.
On Wednesday, d’Alpuget’s family shared her final message to Australia.
‘Our highest calling and greatest achievement is love, the rule of life. Love one another,’ it read.
She is survived by her son Louis Pratt, from her first marriage to diplomat and journalist Tony Pratt, three stepchildren and multiple step-grandchildren.
d’Alpuget and Hawke, Australia’s longest-serving Labor prime minister, met in Jakarta in 1970.
Their long-running affair began six years later when she interviewed him for a biography she was writing on Sir Richard Kirby.
When Hawke left his first wife Hazel in 1995, D’Alpuget was labelled a ‘home-wrecker’ and the ‘most hated woman in Australia’.
d’Alpuget once said she was not under the illusion that she was his only affair and wrote in one instance that she realised Hawke was ‘having affairs with women all over the country’.
Blanche D’alpuget is pictured in 2025 promoting her book The Bunny Club
‘With mutual, wordless consent it was agreed we would become lovers as soon as possible,’ she said.
‘He was charming, funny and straightforward – he liked me and enjoyed talking to me, what he loved was sex.’
Hawke asked d’Alpuget to marry him in 1978, only to withdraw the proposal a few months later as his political ambitions took priority.
Hawke divorced Hazel in 1995 and married d’Alpuget.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was among the first to pay tribute on Wednesday.
‘As a writer, she was at home in fiction as she was in non-fiction, working in each realm with a keen eye for every telling detail that opened up the humanity of her subject to her readers,’ he said.
‘Blanche’s novels were compelling works of verve and originality, and her biographies comprehensive and definitive – most famously those she wrote of Bob Hawke, who became her great love and ultimately her husband.’
Derek Rielly, who wrote the Hawke biography Wednesdays With Bob, shared a heartfelt tribute with the Daily Mail.
‘Blanche believed that the pain of death is temporary, that it’s a fiery door and it will burn you but it’s a transient pain that will vanish,’ he said.
‘She lived a beautiful, complete and electric life and to her very last breath radiated a love for all humanity.
‘As she told me, “The more humans there are, the more love there is. Love is what distinguishes humans from the rest of creation”.’
