Hawke Kicked, Punched During Campaign Stop

MELBOURNE, Australia — Opposition demonstrators punched, kicked and hit Prime Minister Bob Hawke with a wooden placard Sunday as he campaigned in his home district.

The demonstrators, apparently led by anti-abortion activists, broke through a screen of Hawke’s security men as he arrived in Wills, his own electoral district, to open a community health center and campaign for national elections next month.

Television pictures showed a smiling Hawke arriving at the center and being surrounded almost immediately by a milling, shouting crowd of demonstrators waving wooden placards showing their support for the opposition Liberal Party.

The Labor leader’s bodyguards tried to form a protective cordon around him, but Hawke’s smile turned to a grimace as he was kicked in the groin and struck on the head with a placard.

A shaken Hawke said afterward that he did not know who had hit and kicked him but that he was “saddened” by the incident.

“I have consistently--from the beginning--not got down to abuse of people. I mean, when you have some of these experiences, it tries you a bit,” he said.