John Howard - his journey and his legacy

The story of John Winston Howard, Prime Minister of Australia, is a remarkable one. This article is about his political career, including his eventual rise to glory and success that ensured that he would make his mark in Australian history. This is the story of one of the most clever, determined and resilient men of his time.

From Earlwood to Treasurer

From his lower-middle class beginnings in Earlwood, John Winston Howard eventually became the most successful politician of his time. His rise certainly wasn’t a smooth one: the 1980s and early 1990s were certainly years where his ambitions were thwarted many times. His story is one of political courage, patience and determination.

Howard was a member of the Fraser government of 1975-1983, and at a young age was elevated to the position of Treasurer. However, unfortunately for Howard, most members of his government did not believe in embarking on bold microeconomic reform. Howard turned to the “drys”, the pro de-regulatory forces within the party, for his own personal political support.

The long years in Opposition (1983-1996)

When the Fraser government was unceremoniously booted from office in 1983, after leading Australia into a recession and producing a massive budget deficit, Howard was overlooked as Opposition leader. Instead the position went to Andrew Peacock, the Foreign Affairs Minister in the Fraser government, who went on to narrowly lose the 1984 election. After that election, Howard continually called his caucus colleagues, criticising Peacock’s leadership and asking for their support. Eventually Howard challenged for the deputy leadership, a proxy war over the leadership itself, and won. This in turn caused Peacock to resign, and allowed Howard to become leader unopposed.

In his first stint as leader of the Opposition, Howard suffered many setbacks. The “Joh for PM” campaign diverted attention, and caused disunity between the Liberals and the Nationals. Paul Keating also managed to spot an error in Howard’s alternative budget which undermined Howard’s credentials. Labor was also assisted by its environmental policies, and won the 1987 election with an increased majority.

The following year, Howard lost his leadership in a highly-secretive leadership coup led by Peacock, after Howard’s politically damaging comments on John Law’s radio program suggesting a reduction in Asian immigration.

This resulted in the years of political wilderness that Howard had to ensure after losing the leadership. When asked if he would ever become leader again, Howard answered that it would be “like Lazarus with a triple bypass”. After Peacock lost the 1990 election, Howard was overlooked as a leadership contender. When John Hewson lost “the unloseable election” of 1993, Howard challenged for the leadership but was soundly defeated by Hewson.

During these years Howard also embarked on a journey of introspection, analysing all the things that had gone wrong during his time as leader, including his own mistakes. One of those was assuming the leadership in circumstances where he did not receive an endorsement by the majority of his colleagues. As leader, he also often failed to consult his supporters, and this contributed to the surprise of finding that most of his colleagues supported Peacock’s leadership bid when it was too late.

In the early 1990’s Howard was not getting any younger, and was increasingly being seen as too old, and moreover representing the past. When Hewson’s leadership faltered, Howard discovered that most of his colleagues were instead supporting Alexander Downer, who subsequently challenged Hewson in a leadership ballot and won. At that stage Howard was convinced that his leadership aspirations were over. He reluctantly supported the Alexander Downer-Peter Costello dream team in the ballot and accepted that he would never lead the Liberal Party again.

But fate was to produce one more twist in Howard’s years in Opposition.

An inexperienced Downer made many mistakes as leader, and his poll advantage over Keating quickly crumbled. When Downer made a joke about domestic violence when unleashing his policies (“the things that batter”), his leadership became terminal.

Howard sensed he had one last shot at the leadership and spoke to his colleagues in order to canvass their support. One such colleague was Costello, and it is from Howard’s now infamous discussions with Costello that the possibility that Costello would take over midway through Howard’s second term in government was discussed.

According to Costello and a witness, that was a term of their agreement. Janette Howard would later say that there was no such agreement, because Howard had not provided a firm undertaking. It was this sort of legalism that the Howard prime ministership would become known for, as distinctions would be made between “core” and “non core” promises; “expressions of regret” and “sorry”; and “sorry” and an apology.

Howard Mark 2 (1995-2007)

After feeling confident that he had enough support to become the next leader, Howard invited Downer out to dinner, and told him that he could no longer continue to lead the party. Downer said he would consider his options. Within a couple of days, Downer informed Howard that he had his full support. Soon afterwards, Howard became leader of the Opposition for the second time. After years of being consistently overlooked by the Liberals, Howard was finally given a second chance.

In the first week of question time after he had assumed the leadership, Howard moved a motion of censure against then-Prime Minister Paul Keating. This can be viewed here. Howard’s performance was brilliant, and provided hope for a demoralised Opposition that had endured Hewson and Downer’s leaderships.

Howard knew that in order to win the 1996 election he would have to moderate his image. He did this by retracting his previous remarks concerning Asian immigration, pledging to not abolish the immensely popular Medicare, promising that under his industrial relations reforms “no worker would be worse off” and by guaranteeing that there would “never ever” be a GST if he were prime minister. The electorate, angry against Labor for the recession, broken promises and Keating’s smug style were only too happy to happy to vote for Howard, and this resulted in a landslide victory for the Coalition and the beginning of John Howard’s prime ministership.

The rest, as they say, is history. Howard went on to win three more elections and serve as Prime Minister for almost 12 years. The Howard government was very much a government for the dries of the Liberal party, as it continued the economic reforms of the Hawke and Keating years, in many areas going further than Labor ever would have.

His government implemented tax reform, further reduced tariffs, introduced work for the dole, sold Telstra and introduced two separate waves of industrial relations reform. Arguably WorkChoices went too far in removing protections for the lowest paid workers. It no doubt contributed to the 2007 election loss that ended Howard’s political career.

In the end, Howard was defeated by a younger, and equally clever and determined opponent in Kevin Rudd. Like Howard, Rudd carefully positioned his party’s policies in the centre in an appeal to swinging voters. Like Howard in 1996, he minimised his political weaknesses by pledging to keep the popular aspects of his opponent’s policies.

While Rudd was just as politically astute as Howard, he also had circumstance on his side, in spite of the booming economy. Rising interest rates (contrary to the Coalition’s 2004 election pledge), WorkChoices and a pervasive “it’s time” factor all contributed to Howard’s political downfall.

History will inevitably remember Howard as being a prime minister who overstayed his welcome with the electorate, and paid the price with an election defeat in which he even lost his own seat.

The Howard factor

The values Howard grew up with, and always believed in, included respect for hard work, aspirationalism and a supportive family environment. Critics have sought to paint Howard as a man stuck in the 1950’s. As pointed out in the biography, John Winston Howard by Wayne Errington and Peter van Onselen:

Were Howard anything like the caricature favoured by his opponents - a man who has learned nothing since the Menzies era - he would not have made it to the peak of political achievement in twenty-first century Australia.

As Howard himself once presciently observed, “the times will suit me”. The simple values he believed in at a young age would later resonate in an economic rationalist era which has embraced personal responsibility and opportunity. Meanwhile, the family has never lost its appeal and importance. It is likely that Howard appealed to many voters because he shared their values, even if parts of his ethos have appealed to different groups.

As Australians grew more confident, they became increasingly able to embrace the economic reforms of his government. His conservatism on social issues also re-assured moral conservatives, and in some ways allowed him to be forgiven for his economic policies. And, on the other hand many liberals criticised Howard for big-government conservatism, which involved high taxes and many hand-outs to the middle class.

That combination of social conservativism and economic rationalism has made it possible for Howard to appeal to a variety of people - but it has also made him the bête noire of the Australian left. The special hatred they have reserved for him has grown during his tenure as he made decisions which they have strongly opposed, including economic reforms, the Tampa, Australia’s involvement in Iraq, a healthy scepticism of climate change, refusing to say sorry to the Aborigines and the banning of gay marriage.

But Howard not only pursued policies which the left despised. He also supported the right’s intellectual polemics in the culture wars and appealed to the ordinary Australian in a way which frustrated the cultural left, particularly around election time. For all these reasons, Howard has, for the left, come to symbolise everything that they find is despicable about Australia, to the point where many of them would have slightly preferred Peter Costello, a founding member of the H.R. Nicholls Society, to have instead become prime minister.

Howard’s legacy

What then is Howard’s legacy? Evidently he will be judged by his years as prime minister: a period of continuing economic growth, budget surpluses, low interest rates and real wages growth. Some of the economic reforms were politically courageous, in particular the GST, the tax reform that voters had so strongly resisted in 1993.

While his Government deserves some of the credit for its economic successes, it is also true that it was substantially assisted by other factors such as the ongoing effects of Labor’s microeconomic reforms, the business cycle and, in the second half of their years in office, an ongoing resources boom.

In relation to social policies, Howard and his government were conservative. Howard’s refusal to say sorry to Australia’s Indigenous peoples earned him many critics. The political opportunism and associated tough immigration line taken in late 2001 also upset many in the left. The second Iraq war turned out to be a mistake; however, no Australian troops were killed in enemy combat.

On the other hand, Howard was often compassionate. In tragedies such as the Port Arthur Massacre, September 11 and the tsunami, Howard was always able to bring the nation together in times of sorrow. He also introduced gun control laws and allowed for a referendum to be held on the republic, although he later campaigned against the “yes” vote.

For all these reasons the Howard government will probably be remembered as being a good government, but not an excellent one. Like all governments, it had its good points and its bad points. And, overall it probably did more good than harm.

While history will judge Howard to have been a fairly good prime minister, it will probably also judge him to be the Liberal party’s equivalent of Bob Hawke. That is, although he was a popular prime minister who won four successive elections, Howard, like Hawke, proved unable to accept when the time to retire gracefully had come. Like Hawke, Howard stayed about a year too long in office, and consequently suffered the fate of being forcefully removed from office. In spite of this, Howard was liked and respected by most Australians and served as prime minister for 11½ years. And that is an achievement that any political leader in Australia can be tremendously proud of.

Finally, Howard should not feel bitter about his election loss. The Australian people did make him one of the nation’s longest-serving prime ministers by voting for him and his party on four separate occasions. He is one of the very few prime ministers to serve for more than a decade, and in this sense he has been truly lucky. He was also lucky to implement many of the reforms he always advocated, and even won a Senate majority in his last term. In the end, the Australian people gave John Howard almost everything that a politician in Australia could hope for.

I wish Mr Howard all the best in all of his future endeavours.