John Howard
John Winston Howard OM AC SSI (born 26 July 1939) is an Australian former politician who served as the 25th prime minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007. He held office as leader of the Liberal Party of Australia, having previously served as the treasurer of Australia from 1977 to 1983 under Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. His eleven-year tenure as prime minister is the second-longest in Australian history, behind only Sir Robert Menzies. Howard has also been the oldest living Australian former prime minister since the death of Bob Hawke in May 2019.
For other people named John Howard, see John Howard (disambiguation).
John Howard
Andrew Peacock
Andrew Peacock
Peter Costello
Peter Costello
Alexander Downer
Neil Brown
Andrew Peacock
Andrew Peacock
Andrew Peacock
Malcolm Fraser
Andrew Peacock
Phillip Lynch
Neil Brown
Paul Keating
Malcolm Fraser
Position established
Malcolm Fraser
3
- Lyall Howard (father)
- Mona McKell (mother)
Bob Howard (brother)
Wollstonecraft, New South Wales[1]
- Lawyer
- Politician
- Author
Howard was born in Sydney and studied law at the University of Sydney. He was a commercial lawyer before entering parliament. A former federal president of the Young Liberals, he first stood for office at the 1968 New South Wales state election, but lost narrowly. At the 1974 federal election, Howard was elected as a member of parliament (MP) for the division of Bennelong. He was promoted to cabinet in 1977, and later in the year replaced Phillip Lynch as treasurer of Australia, remaining in that position until the defeat of Malcolm Fraser's government at the 1983 election. In 1985, Howard was elected leader of the Liberal Party for the first time, thus replacing Andrew Peacock as Leader of the Opposition. He led the Liberal–National coalition to the 1987 federal election, but lost to Bob Hawke's Labor government, and was removed from the leadership in 1989. Remaining a key figure in the party, Howard was re-elected leader in 1995, replacing Alexander Downer, and subsequently led the Coalition to a landslide victory at the 1996 federal election.
In his first term, Howard introduced reformed gun laws in response to the Port Arthur massacre, and controversially implemented a nationwide value-added tax, breaking a pre-election promise. The Howard government called a snap election for October 1998, which they won, albeit with a greatly reduced majority. Going into the 2001 election, the Coalition trailed behind Labor in opinion polling. However, in a campaign dominated by national security, Howard introduced changes to Australia's immigration system to deter asylum seekers from entering the country, and pledged military assistance to the United States following the September 11 attacks. Due to this, Howard won widespread support, and his government would be narrowly re-elected.
In Howard's third term in office, Australia contributed troops to the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War, and led the International Force for East Timor. The Coalition would be re-elected once more at the 2004 federal election. In his final term in office, his government introduced industrial relations reforms known as WorkChoices, which proved controversial and unpopular with the public. The Howard government was defeated at the 2007 federal election, with the Labor Party's Kevin Rudd succeeding him as prime minister. Howard also lost his own seat of Bennelong at the election to Maxine McKew, becoming only the second prime minister to do so, after Stanley Bruce at the 1929 election. Following this loss, Howard retired from politics, but has remained active in political discourse.
Howard's government presided over a sustained period of economic growth and a large "mining boom", and significantly reduced government debt by the time he left office. He was known for his broad appeal to voters across the political spectrum, and commanded a diverse base of supporters, colloquially referred to as his "battlers".[2][3] Retrospectively, ratings of Howard's premiership have been polarised. His critics have admonished him for involving Australia in the Iraq War, his policies regarding asylum seekers, and his economic agenda.[4][5][6] Nonetheless, he has been frequently ranked within the upper-tier of Australian prime ministers by political experts and the general public.[7][8][9]
Early political career
Howard joined the Liberal Party in 1957. He was a member of the party's New South Wales state executive and was federal president of the Young Liberals (the party youth organisation) from 1962 to 1964.[27] Howard supported Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War, although has since said there were "aspects of it that could have been handled and explained differently".[28]
At the 1963 federal election, Howard acted as campaign manager for Tom Hughes in his local seat of Parkes. Hughes went on to defeat the 20-year Labor incumbent, Les Haylen.[29] In mid-1964, Howard travelled to London to work and travel for a period. He volunteered for the Conservative Party in the electorate of Holborn and St Pancras South at the 1964 UK general election.[1] In 1967, with the support of party power brokers John Carrick and Eric Willis, Howard was endorsed as candidate for the marginal suburban state seat of Drummoyne, held by Labor's Reg Coady. Howard's mother sold the family home in Earlwood and rented a house with him at Five Dock, a suburb within the electorate. At the election in February 1968, in which the incumbent state Liberal government was returned to office, Howard narrowly lost to Coady, despite campaigning vigorously.[30]
At the 1974 federal election, Howard successfully contested the Division of Bennelong, located in suburban Sydney.[31] The election saw the return of the Gough Whitlam-led Labor government. Howard supported Malcolm Fraser for the leadership of the Liberal Party against Billy Snedden following the 1974 election.[32] When Fraser won office at the 1975 federal election, Howard was appointed Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs, a position in which he served until 1977.[33] At this stage, he followed the protectionist and pro-regulation stance of Fraser and the Liberal Party.[34]
Federal Treasurer
In December 1977, aged 38, Howard was appointed Treasurer,[31] in place of Phillip Lynch.[33] He was the youngest Treasurer since Chris Watson in 1904. Fraser said in his memoirs that he appointed him despite his limited experience because "he was bright and he got across a brief well, and he was a good manager".[35]
During his five years in the position, Howard became an adherent of free-market economics,[36] which was challenging economic orthodoxies in place for most of the century.[37] He came to favour tax reform including broad-based taxation (later the GST), a freer industrial system including the dismantling of the centralised wage-fixing system, the abolition of compulsory trade unionism, privatisation and deregulation.[14]
In 1978, the Fraser government instigated the Campbell Committee to investigate financial system reforms.[38] Howard supported the Campbell report, but adopted an incremental approach with Cabinet, as there was wide opposition to deregulation within the government and the treasury.[38][39] The process of reform began before the committee reported 21⁄2 years later, with the introduction of the tender system for the sale of Treasury notes in 1979, and Treasury bonds in 1982. Ian Macfarlane described these reforms as "second only in importance to the float of the Australian dollar in 1983."[40] In 1981, Howard proposed a broad-based indirect tax with compensatory cuts in personal rates; however, cabinet rejected it citing both inflationary and political reasons.[41] After the free-marketeers or "drys" of the Liberals challenged the protectionist policies of Minister for Industry and Commerce Phillip Lynch, they shifted their loyalties to Howard. Following an unsuccessful leadership challenge by Andrew Peacock to unseat Fraser as prime minister, Howard was elected deputy leader of the Liberal Party in April 1982. His election depended largely on the support of the "drys", and he became the party's champion of the growing free-market lobby.[42]
The economic crises of the early 1980s brought Howard into conflict with the Keynesian Fraser. As the economy headed towards the worst recession since the 1930s, Fraser pushed an expansionary fiscal position much to Howard's and Treasury's horror. With his authority as treasurer being flouted, Howard considered resigning in July 1982, but, after discussions with his wife and senior advisor John Hewson, he decided to "tough it out".[37] The 1982 wages explosion—wages rose 16 per cent across the country—resulted in stagflation; unemployment touched double-digits and inflation peaked at 12.5% (official interest rates peaked at 21%).[43]
The Fraser government with Howard as Treasurer lost the 1983 election to the Labor Party led by Bob Hawke. Over the course of the 1980s, the Liberal Party came to accept the free-market policies that Fraser had resisted and Howard had espoused. Policies included low protection, decentralisation of wage fixation, financial deregulation, a broadly based indirect tax, and the rejection of counter-cyclical fiscal policy.[44]
Retirement
In January 2008, Howard signed with the speaking agency called the Washington Speakers Bureau, joining Tony Blair, Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright, and others. He was available for two speeches, Leadership in the New Century and The Global Economic Future.[138]
The Australian and New Zealand cricket boards unsuccessfully nominated Howard as their candidate for president of the International Cricket Council (ICC).[139] Howard was the chairman of the International Democrat Union (IDU), a body of international conservative political parties, between 2002 and 2014,[140][141] when he was succeeded by John Key of New Zealand.[142] In 2008, he was appointed a director of the foundation established to preserve the legacy of Donald Bradman.[143]
Howard was the subject of a lengthy interview series by The Australian columnist Janet Albrechtsen in 2014, which aired as a featured story on Seven Network's Sunday Night, and again in January 2015 as its own five-part series on Sky News Australia entitled Howard Defined.[144] In November 2017, Howard launched the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation, headed by Simon Haines, formerly professor of English at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.[145][146] In 2017, Howard endorsed a "No" vote in the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey and joined the campaign against same-sex marriage.[147]
In February 2019, Howard provided a character reference for Cardinal George Pell, a senior leader of the Catholic Church in Australia and former Vatican Treasurer, whose conviction on five counts of child sexual abuse while Archbishop of Melbourne was later overturned by the High Court.[148][149][150] Howard's character reference followed Pell's convictions, and was provided along with nine others[151] to support Pell's barrister's submissions in the pre-sentencing hearing.[152]
In October 2021, Howard endorsed Dominic Perrottet to succeed Gladys Berejiklian as Premier of New South Wales following Berejiklian's resignation as Premier.[153]
In July 2023, ahead of the Australian Indigenous Voice referendum, Howard said that "the luckiest thing that happened to this country was being colonised by the British. Not that they were perfect by any means, but they were infinitely more successful and beneficent colonisers than other European countries".[154]
26 January 2008: Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) "for distinguished service to the Parliament of Australia, particularly as prime minister and through contributions to economic and social policy reform, fostering and promoting Australia's interests internationally, and the development of significant philanthropic links between the business sector, arts and charitable organisations".[155]
