Australia’s former prime minister dies aged 89

Australia’s 23rd prime minister and Labor Party leader Bob Hawke, who dominated the country's politics in the 1980s has died at the age of 89.

The charismatic and beloved politician led the country from 1983 to 1991 and is credited with reforms that modernized the economy.

A great conciliator, Hawke's achievements as prime minister included modernizing the economy and integrating it into the global community, establishing Medicare, and championing environmental issues.

He won four federal elections, making him Labor's longest-serving prime minister and Australia's third-longest-serving prime minister behind Robert Menzies and John Howard.

His wife said in a statement that he died "peacefully at home".

"Today we lost Bob Hawke, a great Australian - many would say the greatest Australian of the post-war era," Blanche D'Alpuget said in a statement.

Hawke joined the Labor Party at 18 in 1947 and would go on to win a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford in 1953.

He later joined the trade union movement, rising to become president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions by 1969.

He first won a seat in parliament in 1980 and became Labor leader in 1983. He and Labor won a general election by a landslide soon after.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison sent his condolences to the family of a man who "will be greatly missed".

"Bob Hawke was a great Australian who led and served our country with passion, courage, and an intellectual horsepower that made our country stronger," he tweeted.

"He was true to his beliefs in the Labor tradition and defined the politics of his generation and beyond.

"He had a unique ability to speak to all Australians."

Hawke was known for his maverick style, and set a record for beer drinking while at Oxford. He cried publicly a number of times - most famously in 1989 at a memorial service at Parliament House following the crackdown on Chinese students at Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

He was known for his social policies and concern for Australia's vulnerable, once declaring that he wanted to create a country where there were "no second-class Australians".