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Judging Howard

By Chris Lewis - posted Monday, 7 September 2009


Watching the recent SBS three-part documentary Liberal Rule: The Politics That Changed Australia only confirms what I already knew. Many Australian political scientists, probably most, have very few good things to say about the Howard government.

As Peter Coleman observed in Spectator Australia (July 29, 2009), the SBS documentary presented Howard “as obsessively ambitious, devious, populist and vain to the point of arrogance” with just a few cabinet ministers and couple of staffers left to defend the government against many left leaning journalists and academics.

Is Australia’s second most successful federal government (in terms of longevity alone) so undeserving of fairer analysis by academia even in regards to controversial policy stances on a number of issues, notably Aborigines, immigration, multiculturalism, industrial relations, Iraq and global warming?

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Simple truth is that political commentators, especially academics, must incorporate all of the factors that help explain policy trends in Australia’s democracy, notably the interaction that takes place in a democracy between political parties, interest groups and public opinion.

But no, many Australian political scientists feel no such need. Heaven forbid, they may find evidence that actually complicates the moral righteousness of their personal analysis.

For instance, Rae Wear argued in the Australian Journal of Political Science (December 2008) that the Howard government (1996-2007) undermined Australian democracy by taking up aspects of One Nation’s policy platform, using wedge politics to secure the government’s position and minimise dissent from the Labor Opposition, neglecting minority rights, and diverting resources to appease rural and regional voters.

How did Wear make such an extremely negative conclusion? Not from observing opinion polls. Nor from primary political science research by McAllister and Clark who observed in Results from the Australian Election Study 1987-2004 that the belief that government was run for all of the people increased from 18 to 33 per cent between 1998 and 2004.

Rather, Wear’s argument was based on the judgments of fellow academics (including Judith Brett, Robert Manne, Andrew Markus, and John Warhurst) who collectively criticised the Howard government’s performance in regards to immigration, Aborigines, border protection, refugees, and the promotion of Australian values.

In reality, many Australians do not share the same moral certainty of what policy should be.

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Fact is that by 1996 Labor was indeed on the nose over a number of social issues. As indicated by February 1996 AGB McNair and Morgan Gallup polls, many voters were attracted to the coalition because of campaign promises made in relation to the environment, welfare fraud, immigration, and its declaration that it would maintain the popular universal health-care system (Medicare).

And Howard was no Labor-style populist trying to be all things to all people prior to being collected (like Rudd in 2007), although there were some false promises such as the Coalition’s pre-election announcement not to introduce a GST. In a couple of 1995 speeches Howard indicated that he would take on trade unions and adopt tougher measures to counter greater welfare dependency despite acknowledging that a decent social security system was necessary to protect the most vulnerable.

This does not mean that criticism of the Howard government policy mix was not warranted.

On a personal level, I was opposed to the Howard government’s support for the US in Iraq without a UN mandate.

I also argued in Quadrant (September 2007) that much more needed to be done to address public housing needs in these times of large surpluses.

In regards to industrial relations I also opposed the government’s support for militant tactics used against the Maritime Union of Australia in 1998, although dubious practices by dock workers needed to be addressed. I also feared the loss of collective bargaining through the promotion of AWAs as my relatively high wage for working as a labourer was indeed the result of efforts by the CFMEU, a union despised by the Coalition.

The Howard government should also have apologised on behalf of the Commonwealth for the past treatment of Australia’s Aborigines.

Nor did I not support the 2001 Tampa affair when 430 asylum seekers on that ship were not allowed to land on Australian territory.

However, as an academic, I respect the right of the government to reflect a policy in line with the views of many, with ultimate judgment given by the people at the next election. I was not going to ignore about half of the Australian adult population who voted for the Coalition on a two-party preferred basis: 53 per cent in 2004, 51 in 2001, 49 in 1998 and 53 in 1996.

Do political scientists really expect centre-right governments to ignore the wishes of many constituents on controversial issues? Are not political parties and leaders also representative of like-minded constituents, despite many Australians increasingly holding an eclectic range of views.

The harsh truth for academics, whether they like it or not, is that even the Howard government’s most controversial policy decisions often reflected the views of many Australians. In response to the 2001 Tampa affair, a Newspoll taken on October 26-28, 2001 found that a majority (including women and young people aged 18-34) wanted all boats carrying asylum-seekers turned away, although this sentiment declined several years later (probably because such arrivals decreased).

The Howard government promoted a view that new citizens and residents be committed to the basic structures and values associated with Australian democracy, again in line with longstanding concern by majority public opinion with a number of polls from the late 1980s expressing concern about cultural independence. And no Australian government was going to accept radical views offered from a few within the Muslim community.

Similarly, the Howard government did initially lower immigration policies in line with longstanding public opinion since the late 1980s with a majority believing that immigration levels were too high within a climate of high unemployment. Same was true of the public’s longstanding desire to reduce the family reunion immigration program.

Mutual obligation programs were also overwhelmingly supported by the public from 1997 with 1999 and 2000 Roy Morgan research indicated 58 per cent support for single parents to seek part-time work once all children reached primary school.

And though extensive debate led to much less support for the government’s 10-point Wik plan, there was initial significant concern expressed towards native title claims on pastoral or farming leases, as there was support for greater government intervention in regards to Aboriginal governance matters.

There was even significant public support for the government’s tactics against the MUA, and majority support for a free trade deal with the US despite ongoing criticism from political scientists (such as Ann Capling and Linda Weiss). With multilateral trade negotiations stalling in recent years, many governments and societies viewed bilateral trade relationships as the next best thing.

While many humanities academics find it hard to even consider views opposed to their own, even the most democratic and prosperous nations (like Australia) struggle to balance many contradictory needs. This includes economic competitiveness and social welfare needs, national and international economic and social obligations, and respect for cultural differences while each urges their own version of cultural integration.

While poor governance should always be criticised, at least in legitimate democracies where such a right is accepted and respected, the Howard government did not undermine Australia’s democratic capacity to be a progressive nation.

Australia retained one of the world’s highest per capita immigration inflows between 1997 and 2006. In terms of any accusation of racism, about 40 per cent of immigrant arrivals in 2007-08 came from Asia (25 per cent in 1994-95), along with 8,200 from North Africa and the Middle East, and 10,600 from Sub-Saharan Africa.

Federal funding for increased from $1.7 billion in 1996-97 to $3.5 billion in 2007-08 for indigenous-specific programs, while also increasing from $1.69 billion to $4.3 billion for the environment between 2001-02 and 2007-08.

Australia was one of just four OECD nations in 2005 where the gap in income between the richest and poorest regions was less than double.

In the end, however, the Australian public tired of the Howard government by electing Labor at the 2007 federal election. Arguably it was industrial relations which cost the Coalition most, although rising interest rates also gave people less reason to remain faithful for economic reasons alone.

To conclude, while many humanities academics judge the Howard government unfavourably, constantly looking for excuses that may help explain its success such as greater media control or many more ministerial advisers, they should pay greater attention to the factors that explain the policy mix of a government. With policy in Australia’s democracy best explained by analysis of the ongoing interaction that takes place between political parties, interest groups and public opinion, this requires an examination and discussion of primary evidence rather than selective opinion alone.

Many Australian academics have indeed failed to provide fairer analysis of both the Howard government and the people who voted for it to win four successive federal elections. Liberal Rule: The Politics That Changed Australia merely reflected academic bias against the Howard government rather than encouraging a thorough discussion of what recent policy trends tell us about some of the age-old (and potentially divisive) problems that confront a nation.

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About the Author

Chris Lewis, who completed a First Class Honours degree and PhD (Commonwealth scholarship) at Monash University, has an interest in all economic, social and environmental issues, but believes that the struggle for the ‘right’ policy mix remains an elusive goal in such a complex and competitive world.

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