Post-office Longevity
Six former prime ministers are living: Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, Keating, Howard and Rudd.
Ben Chifley died only one year six months after leaving the prime ministership. Alfred Deakin lasted nine years five months.
All the others who have left office at least 10 years ago have lasted at least 10 years. Nine of them (Bruce, Cook, Fadden, Forde, Fraser, Gorton, Hughes, Watson, and Whitlam) lived more than 25 years after leaving the office, and all but two of these survived longer than 30 years (Hughes lasted 29 years and 8 months; Fraser has lasted more than 28 years and is still living).
The longest-surviving was Stanley Bruce, who died 37 years and 10 months after leaving the office. If Gough Whitlam is living on 25 September 2013, he will exceed Bruce's record. (He would then be 97 years old.)
Read more about this topic: Prime Minister Of Australia
Famous quotes containing the words post-office and/or longevity:
“The post-office appeared a singularly domestic institution here. Ever and anon the stage stopped before some low shop or dwelling, and a wheelwright or shoemaker appeared in his shirt- sleeves and leather apron, with spectacles newly donned, holding up Uncle Sam’s bag, as if it were a slice of home-made cake, for the travelers, while he retailed some piece of gossip to the driver, really as indifferent to the presence of the former as if they were so much baggage.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Every thing teaches transition, transference, metamorphosis: therein is human power, in transference, not in creation; & therein is human destiny, not in longevity but in removal. We dive & reappear in new places.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)