Former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke says Labor will not win next month's state election in New South Wales.
He says the party would be foolish to think it can. Addressing Labor faithful at a campaign launch on Saturday in Sydney, Mr Hawke was blunt in his election forecast.
I just plead with you, all of you, go out and work your butts off, not in the expectation we're going to win government - we're not, he said.
Mr Hawke said the Government had made mistakes and it was not outstandingly successful.
If you look at this situation that we've got now, we've got to accept the fact that we're not going to win the election, that's not going to be won, he said.
We'd be foolish if we sat around here and kidded ourselves that we were going to win the election.
Basically what our job is is to make sure that we hold, win as many seats as we possibly can.
Mr Hawke said Labor must regroup for the following poll.
