When Bob Hawke's adult children wore black to his 1995 wedding with his biographer and long-time mistress Blanche d'Alpuget at Double Bay's swanky Ritz Carlton, their silent protest was heard loud and clear.

Those old wounds were opened up again this week when it emerged Hawke's daughter Rosslyn Dillon, a recovered drug addict whom Hawke famously broke down in tears over during a press conference in 1984, was suing Hawke's widow over his multimillion-dollar estate.