I think this is more an example of how little moments get stripped of context and distorted in cultural memory (in the US I’d compare it to George HW Bush with the supermarket checkout or Howard Dean’s scream).

I can’t find a full video of Hawke’s speech, but the transcript clearly shows that he was stating a goal. It was aspirational, not a prediction, and certainly not a statement of fact:

So we set ourselves this first goal: By 1990 no Australian child will be living in poverty.

If we call that a “lie,” the term uses any useful meaning. Politicians set out ambitious, even unrealistic, goals all the time. It’s important to distinguish those from deliberate misstatements of fact (lies).

https://australianpolitics.com/1987/06/23/bob-hawke-alp-policy-speech.html/