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 had a great charm at one period of our lives. When you have lived to my age, you will begin to think letters are never worth going through the rain for.”
—Jane Austen (1775–1817)
“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)