Of caution and circumstance

Political experience has imprinted Howard with a deep pragmatism, an empirical concern with what works, and an impatience for abstract schemes. Society is complex. A leader must be mindful of, and work within, the traditions, institutions and values of society, which have evolved and persisted through time because they have demonstrated their superiority over alternatives.

Howard sees the role of government as facilitating changes that are intimated within society, its processes and institutions, and abolishing those institutions that are untenable and carry within themselves the forces of their own dissolution.

In foreign policy terms, this has meant that the Howard Government eschewed Labor’s multilateral approach to Asia in favour of pragmatic bilateralism. This is more than an attempt at “product differentiation” as some commentators have argued; it is an expression of a philosophy and approach to governing that is deeply rooted in Howard’s attitudes. Foreign affairs is too “messy and uncertain”, and the Asian region too diverse, to be pushed or cajoled into rationalist constructs.

Howard’s conservatism leads him to the conviction that politics takes place within and between moral communities. He shares Menzies’ belief in three “natural” units in society - the individual, the family, and the nation - and his deep suspicion of other “contrived” social formations, such as class or ethnic grouping, or, in foreign policy terms, “natural” regional associations. Because societies evolve by “selecting [from their heritage] things … of enduring value, yet reject[ing] things … which hold [them] back,” the values and symbols that define the nation are inherently to be esteemed.

Consequently, Howard rejected what he saw as Labor’s “cringing” approach to Asia. This looked to him like an extension of the national self-loathing of the black arm-band crowd: their denigration of Australia’s history and institutions fitted well with their eagerness to subscribe to “Asian” practices.

Howard’s belief in the moral basis of community serves as his foreign policy lodestone. With Western countries, Howard talks of a “similarity of values”, observing, “it is common values that in the end bind us together more tightly that anything else … and so it is with the values that bind nations together”.

Howard’s preferred diplomatic formula is that Australia approaches the Asian region on the basis of “mutual respect and shared interests”. The formula “shared interests” as the basis for relations between entities with different values follows from Howard’s understanding of political community. Because genuine community can only be the result of common values, relations between communities of different values must be organised on the basis of interest.

It is the milieu of the family versus the milieu of the market. In the family, all interaction is framed by a set of mutual moral commitments. In the market, those interacting have no ongoing moral obligation beyond the bounds of the transaction.

The other part of the formula, “mutual respect”, leads Howard to a strong belief that “good neighbours recognise and respect each other’s values and beliefs”. The participants in transactional relationships should treat each other as do citizens in a liberal society - without interfering with or being unduly judgmental about one’s interlocutors.

A respect for cultural difference does not mean that John Howard is a believer in the equal value of all national cultures. He believes that there are some ways of doing things - many of which are practiced in Australia - that are better than others. Nor does Howard’s understanding of values render him a raging neo-conservative, hell-bent on converting other societies to Australian values.

Howard was brought up in a strongly Methodist family. Methodists believed in the importance of an individual’s “pure feeling of absolute certainty” of divine forgiveness. There are strong signs of this in Howard’s dogged adherence to his opinions and convictions despite choruses of opposition and mountains of contrary evidence and his insistence that contemporary individuals are in no way implicated in past crimes against indigenous people.

It also makes him often tone-deaf to the resonances of his statements and policies in Asian countries. As Michelle Grattan observes: “John Howard seems to lack diplomatic manners. A plain and straightforward man himself, without great subtlety, he fails to grasp the importance of words, symbols and gestures in the smooth conduct of international relations. That’s one reason he misjudged the damage Hanson could do abroad.”