John Winston Howard AC (born 26 July 1939) was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He is the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies.
Howard was a member of the Australian House of Representatives from 1974 to 2007, representing the Division of Bennelong, New South Wales. He served as Treasurer in the government of Malcolm Fraser from 1977–1983. He was Leader of the Liberal Party and Coalition Opposition from 1985–1989, which included the 1987 federal election against Bob Hawke. He was re-elected as Leader of the Opposition in 1995.
Howard led the Liberal-National Coalition to victory at the 1996 federal election, defeating Paul Keating's Labor government and ending a record 13 years of Coalition opposition. Howard was sworn in as Prime Minister on 11 March 1996. Howard's government was re-elected at the 1998, 2001 and 2004 elections. Major issues for the Howard Government were taxation, industrial relations, immigration, the Iraq war, and aboriginal relations.
Howard was defeated at the 2007 election by Labor's Maxine McKew, making him the second Australian Prime Minister, after Stanley Bruce in 1929, to lose his own seat. The Coalition also lost government at the same election to the Australian Labor Party led by Kevin Rudd.
Australia's Prime Ministers: John Howard National Archives of Australia
Search or browse Hansard for John Howard at OpenAustralia.org
John Howard addresses a joint session of parliament in Canada, the first Australian Prime Minister to do so since John Curtin in 1944.
John Howard: A political life – a slideshow of John Howard's life
ABC's Four Corners – Howard's End video
Political offices
Preceded by
Ivor Greenwood (customs)
Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs
1975 – 1977
Succeeded by
Wal Fife
New title
Minister for Special Trade Negotiations
1977
Succeeded by
Victor Garland
Preceded by
Phillip Lynch
Treasurer of Australia
1977 – 1983
Succeeded by
Paul Keating
Preceded by
Paul Keating
Prime Minister of Australia
1996 – 2007
Succeeded by
Kevin Rudd
Parliament of Australia
Preceded by
Sir John Cramer
Member for Bennelong
1974 – 2007
Succeeded by
Maxine McKew
Party political offices
Preceded by
Andrew Peacock
Leader of the Liberal Party
1985 – 1989
Succeeded by
Andrew Peacock
Preceded by
Alexander Downer
Leader of the Liberal Party
1995 – 2007
Succeeded by
Brendan Nelson
v • d • e
Prime Ministers of Australia
Barton · Deakin · Watson · Reid · Fisher · Cook · Hughes · Bruce · Scullin · Lyons · Page · Menzies · Fadden · Curtin · Forde · Chifley · Holt · McEwen · Gorton · McMahon · Whitlam · Fraser · Hawke · Keating · Howard · Rudd
v • d • e
Leaders of the Liberal Party of Australia
Menzies · Holt · Gorton · McMahon · Snedden · Fraser · Peacock · Howard · Peacock · Hewson · Downer · Howard · Nelson
Persondata
NAME
Howard, John Winston
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION
Prime Minister of Australia
DATE OF BIRTH
26 July 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH
Sydney, Australia
DATE OF DEATH
Living
PLACE OF DEATH
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Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Howard"
Categories: 1939 births | Living people | Prime Ministers of Australia | Treasurers of Australia | Members of the Cabinet of Australia | Australian Leaders of the Opposition | Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Bennelong | Members of the Australian House of Representatives | Liberal Party of Australia politicians | Australian Monarchists | Old Cantabrians | People from Sydney | New South Wales Federal politicians | Australian Anglicans | Recipients of the Centenary Medal | Companions of the Order of AustraliaHidden categories: Semi-protected against vandalism | NPOV disputes from August 2008 | All NPOV disputes | All pages needing cleanup | Wikipedia articles needing factual verification since October 2007 | All pages needing factual verification | Articles with specifically-marked weasel-worded phrases | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since August 2008
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John Howard as a boy
John Howard is the fourth son of Lyall Howard and Mona (née Kell). His parents were married in 1925. His eldest brother Stanley was born in 1926, followed by Walter in 1929, and Robert (Bob) in 1936. Lyall Howard was an admirer of Winston Churchill, and a sympathiser with the New Guard.
Howard grew up in the Sydney suburb of Earlwood. His mother had been an office worker until her marriage. His father and his paternal grandfather, Walter Howard, were both veterans of the First AIF in World War I. They also ran two Dulwich Hill petrol stations where John Howard worked as a boy. Lyall Howard died in 1955 when John was sixteen, leaving his mother to take care of John (or "Jack" as he was also known).
Howard suffered a hearing impairment in his youth, leaving him with a slight speech impediment. It also influenced him in subtle ways, limiting his early academic performance; encouraging a reliance on an excellent memory; and in his mind ruling out becoming a barrister as a likely career.
Canterbury Boys' High School Cricket Team. John Howard is in the front row, 2nd from right
Howard attended the publicly funded state schools Earlwood Primary School and Canterbury Boys' High School. Howard won a citizenship prize in his final year at Earlwood (presented by local politician Eric Willis), and subsequently represented his secondary school at debating as well as cricket and rugby. In his final year at school he took part in a radio show hosted by Jack Davey, Give It a Go broadcast on the commercial radio station, 2GB, and a recording of the show survives. After gaining his Leaving Certificate, he studied law at the University of Sydney, graduating in 1961, and subsequently practising as a solicitor for twelve years.
Howard married fellow Liberal Party member Janette Parker in 1971, with whom he had three children: Melanie (1974), Tim (1977) and Richard (1980).
Howard joined the Liberal Party in 1957. He held office in the New South Wales Liberal Party on the State Executive and served as President of the Young Liberals (1962–64), the party youth organisation. 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".
At the 1963 federal election, Howard acted as campaign manager in his local seat of Parkes for the successful candidacy of Tom Hughes who defeated the 20 year Labor incumbent.
In 1967 with the support of party power brokers, John Carrick and Eric Willis, he was endorsed as candidate for the marginal suburban state seat of Drummoyne, held by the ALP. 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 failed to defeat the sitting member, despite campaigning vigorously. Howard and his mother subsequently returned to Earlwood, moving to a house on the same street where he grew up.
At the 1974 federal election, Howard successfully contested the Sydney suburban seat of Bennelong and became a Member of Parliament in the House of Representatives. When Malcolm Fraser's government came to power in December 1975, Howard was appointed Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs, a position in which he served until 1977.
In December 1977, at the age of 38, Howard was appointed Treasurer, for which he became known as "the boy Treasurer". In this role, he was a strong adherent of monetarism, and he favoured cuts to personal income tax and business tax, lower government spending, the dismantling of the centralised wage-fixing system, the abolition of compulsory trade unionism, and the privatisation of government-owned enterprises.
In 1979, Treasurer Howard established a committee of inquiry, the Campbell Committee, to investigate financial system reforms. The process of reform began before the Committee reported 2 1/2 years later, with the introduction of the tender system for the sale of Treasury notes in 1979, and Treasury bonds in 1982. Ian Macfarlane (Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia 1996-2006) described these reforms as "second only in importance to the float of the Australian dollar in 1983."
In April 1982, Howard was elected Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party.
During Howard's tenure as Treasurer, the 90-day cash rate peaked at 21% on 8 April 1982, while home loan mortgage rates were capped at 13.5%, and inflation peaked at 12.5% in September 1982. Peter Costello commented, in 2007, that "The Howard treasurership was not a success in terms of interest rates and inflation... he had not been a great reformer."
Following the 1983 defeat of the Fraser government and Fraser's subsequent resignation from parliament, Howard contested the Liberal leadership but was defeated by Andrew Peacock. Remaining Deputy Leader of the parliamentary party, Howard became Deputy Leader of the Opposition. After electoral defeat by Hawke and Labor at the 1984 election, Peacock sought, in September 1985, to replace Howard with John Moore as Deputy Leader. The party room re-elected Howard to the position. Peacock resigned and Howard became Opposition Leader unopposed on 3 September.
Howard came to be known as an economic liberal – in his own words, an "economic radical" – yet an avowed social conservative. He opposed "political correctness" and the promotion of multiculturalism at the expense of a shared national identity. In July 1986, Howard famously said that "The times will suit me". However, his chances of unseating Hawke at the 1987 election were ruined when the arch-conservative Premier of Queensland Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen launched a populist "Joh for Canberra" campaign that divided the federal conservative political movement and saw Hawke comfortably re-elected.
On 22 August 1988, from Opposition, Howard named and launched a new immigration and ethnic affairs policy, titled One Australia. The policy detailed a vision of "one nation and one future", including opposition to multiculturalism and rejection of Aboriginal land rights. Howard's comments that same month about Asian immigration led to controversy and divisions within the Liberal Party:
"I do believe that if it is – in the eyes of some in the community – that it's too great, it would be in our immediate-term interest and supporting of social cohesion if it were slowed down a little, so the capacity of the community to absorb it was greater".
Other members of Howard's coalition, including Shadow Finance Minister John Stone and Deputy Opposition Leader Ian Sinclair also spoke out about Asian immigration, suggesting it must be reduced.
On 25 August 1988, Prime Minister Bob Hawke responded by introducing a parliamentary motion stating that no Australian government would use race or ethnic origin as a criterion for immigration. Four members of the Liberal Party crossed the floor of parliament to vote with Labor: Hon Dr Peter Baume (Senator), Steele Hall, Ian Macphee and Philip Ruddock. Two others, Ian Wilson and Michael MacKellar abstained from the vote.
In September 1988, Howard elaborated his opposition to multiculturalism by saying "To me, multiculturalism suggests that we can't make up our minds who we are or what we believe in." He rejected the idea of an Aboriginal treaty as "repugnant to the ideals of One Australia" and commented "I don't think it is wrong, racist, immoral or anything, for a country to say 'we will decide what the cultural identity and the cultural destiny of this country will be and nobody else."
Dissent within the Liberal Party over Asian immigration was believed by some political commentators to have weakened Howard's leadership. In February 1989, John Elliott approached Andrew Peacock and encouraged Peacock to launch a leadership challenge against Howard. In May 1989, Peacock launched a surprise leadership coup, ousting Howard as Liberal leader. When asked that day whether he could become Liberal leader again, Howard famously likened it to "Lazarus with a triple bypass".
The loss of the Liberal Party leadership to Peacock deeply affected Howard, who admitted he would occasionally drink too much. After time on the backbench, Howard returned to the Coalition front bench. Following the Coalition's 1990 election loss, Peacock was replaced with former Howard staffer Dr. John Hewson.
Howard was a supporter of Hewson's economic program, with a Goods and Services Tax (GST) as its centrepiece. After Hewson lost the "unloseable" 1993 election to Paul Keating, Howard unsuccessfully challenged Hewson for the leadership. In 1994, he was again passed over for the leadership, which went to Alexander Downer. Downer failed to dent Keating's dominance and, in January 1995, he resigned as leader. Peter Costello, deputy party leader, did not challenge for the leadership, over a decade later citing an agreement between the pair that allowed Howard to become leader for a second time unopposed. Howard said no deal had ever been made.
As Opposition Leader for the second time, Howard revised his earlier statements against Medicare and Asian immigration. During the campaign Howard outlined his vision of Australia in 2000 to the ABC:
I want to see an Australian society that sees this country as a unique intersection of Europe, North America and Asia. Australia is incredibly lucky to have a European heritage, deep connections with North America, but to be geographically cast in the Asian/Pacific region and if we think of ourselves as that strategic intersection, then I think we have a remarkable opportunity to carve a special niche for ourselves in ... in the history of the next century.
Following Howard's election to Opposition Leader, the Coalition opened a large lead over Labor in most opinion polls, and Howard overtook Keating as preferred Prime Minister. Referring to the failed John Hewson proposal for a Goods and Services Tax (GST), Howard said:
There's no way that GST will ever be part of our policy.... Never ever. It's dead. It was killed by the voters in the last election.
Winning over many traditional Labor voters, a group termed the "Howard battlers", Howard won a sweeping victory at the 1996 elections, with a 26-seat swing--the second-largest defeat of an incumbent government since Federation. At the age of 56, he was sworn in as Prime Minister on 11 March 1996, ending a record 13 years of Coalition opposition.
In the run-up to the election, Pauline Hanson, the Liberal candidate for Oxley in Queensland was disendorsed because of comments she made to The Queensland Times. Howard said:
Well, I certainly believe in her right to say what she said. I thought some of the things she said were an accurate reflection of what people feel.
John Howard and US Secretary of Defense William Cohen in 1997
John Howard in the USA in 1997
The seat of Bennelong became home to many Asian immigrants, and in May 2002, Howard retracted his 1988 comments about Asian immigration:
My instinct is that Asian-Australians are very much part of the community now. I think it (their integration) has been quicker. I just don't hear people talking about it now, even as much as they did five years ago, and I have an electorate which is very Asian.
Throughout 2002 and 2003 he kept his lead in the opinion polls over Labor leader, Simon Crean.
See also: Australian federal election, 2004
On 29 August 2004, Howard called an election for 9 October. The Labor opposition, after the resignation of Simon Crean and the election of Mark Latham as leader in December 2003, had established a large lead in some opinion polls by March 2004, and the government entered the election campaign behind Labor in all published national opinion polls. Howard himself still had a large lead over Latham as preferred Prime Minister in those same polls and most commentators regarded the result as being too close to call.
During the campaign, Howard attacked Latham's economic record as Mayor of Liverpool City Council. Howard also attacked Labor's economic history.
It is an historic fact that interest rates have always gone up under Labor governments over the last 30 years, because Labor governments spend more than they collect and drive budgets into deficit ... So it will be with a Latham Labor government... I will guarantee that interest rates are always going to be lower under a Coalition government.
The election result was an increased Coalition majority in the House of Representatives and the first, albeit slim, government majority in the Senate since 1981. On a two party preferred basis, the Coalition achieved 52.74% of the vote to Labor's 47.26%. However, for the second time since becoming Prime Minister, Howard himself had to go to preferences in order to win another term in his own seat. He took 49.9 percent of the first count and was only assured of reelection on the third count. Ultimately, Howard won 53.3 percent of the two-party preferred vote.
John Howard, Janette Howard, and U.S. President George W. Bush at the Sydney Opera House during APEC Australia 2007
On 21 December 2004, Howard became the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies. The new Senate came into effect on 1 July 2005, giving a government control of both houses for the first time since the Fraser government.
Howard chaired APEC Australia 2007, culminating in the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting in Sydney during September. The meeting was at times overshadowed by leadership speculation following further poor poll results and public criticism of security arrangements.
The Coalition trailed Labor in opinion polls from mid-2006 onward, but Howard still consistently led Labor leader Kim Beazley on the question of preferred Prime Minister. In December 2006, after Kevin Rudd became Labor leader, the two-party preferred deficit widened even further and Rudd swiftly overtook Howard as preferred Prime Minister.
See also: Economy of Australia
In April 2006, the government announced it had completely paid off the last of $96 billion of Commonwealth net debt inherited when it came to power in 1996. Economists generally welcomed the news, while cautioning that some level of debt was not necessarily bad, and that some of the debt had been transferred to the private sector. Howard often cited the economic management of his government as a point in its favour, but came under heavy criticism toward the end of 2007 in the lead up to the Federal election. It was alleged by opposition leader Kevin Rudd during their single leadership debate that Howard had no plan to deal with inflationary pressures on the economy, and would not be able to handle future interest rate rises.
John Howard and U.S. President George W. Bush in Sydney at the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting in September 2007.
As Prime Minister, John Howard had a close relationship with United States president George W. Bush. In May, 2003, Howard made an overnight stay at Bush's Prairie Chapel Ranch in Texas. The two shared a common ideology on many issues, most visibly in their approach to the "War on Terror". In February 2007, referring to the US presidential contest, Howard claimed that Democratic nomination candidate Barack Obama's stance on the war would encourage terrorism in Iraq.
In March 2003, Australia joined 40 countries including the United Kingdom and the United States, in what US President George Bush referred to as the Coalition of the Willing in sending troops and naval units to support in the invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. Howard told parliament:
Full disclosure by Iraq of its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs and immediate and total cooperation by Iraq with the provisions of resolution 1441 of the Security Council will remove the need for military action.
In response to the Australian participation in the invasion, there were large-scale protests in Australian cities during March 2003, and Prime Minister Howard was repeatedly heckled from the public gallery of Parliament House. Opinion polls showed that opposition to the war without UN backing was as high as 92 per cent in January 2003 (before the invasion) to 48 per cent against the invasion without UN backing in the week following the invasion. In September 2003, six months after the invasion, 51% of Australians believed the war was not justified. 70% of Australians believed John Howard misled them on his case for war in Iraq, although two thirds of that 70% believed he did so unintentionally. However, despite the disapproval of the war, Howard was still preferred prime-minister compared with the then leader of the opposition, Simon Crean, and Howard's approval rating had dropped only slightly since January and was at 59%.
Following the Wik Decision of the High Court in 1996, John Howard's government moved swiftly to legislate limitations on its possible implications with the so-called Ten-Point Plan.
As recommended in the 1997 Bringing Them Home report, John Howard's government also considered the issue of a national apology to Indigenous Australians, in recognition of the treatment by previous governments following the European settlement of the country. However, in the face of a growing movement in favour of a national apology, Howard was resolute in his refusal to do this, although all state and territory governments issued their own. Instead, on 26 August 1999 John Howard personally expressed "deep sorrow" while maintaining that "Australians of this generation should not be required to accept guilt and blame for past actions and policies." In February 2008, after Howard failed to win a fifth term, incoming Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made an apology on behalf of the federal parliament, which received bipartisan support. Howard was the only living former Prime Minister who declined to attend.
In 2005, the Howard Government abolished the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, the only federal body charged with formally representing indigenous Australians. This was done in response to concerns that its organisational structure was conducive to corrupt behaviour by its officers.
In August 2007, the Howard government announced the Northern Territory National Emergency Response. This package of revisions to welfare provisions, law enforcement and other measures was advanced as a plan for addressing child abuse in Aboriginal Northern Territory communities that had been highlighted in the June 2007 "Little Children are Sacred" report. The plan was criticized by the report's authors for not incorporating any of the report's numerous recommendations. Some aboriginal activists such as Noel Pearson provided qualified support for the intervention. Commentators noted the approaching November federal election, suggesting that the intervention was an attempt at "wedge politics" and an appeal to middle class non-Aboriginal voters concerned with child abuse and racial issues.
Despite being the second-longest serving Prime Minister in Australian history, John Howard's time in office was marked by speculation about when he would be succeeded as Prime Minister by Peter Costello.
In July 2006, it was alleged that a deal had been struck with Peter Costello in 1994 with Ian McLachlan present, that if the Liberal party were to win the next election, Howard would serve one and a half terms of office and then allow Costello to take over. Howard denied that this constituted a deal, yet Costello and McLachlan insisted it did; and there were calls for Costello to either challenge or quit.
After losing government and his seat, John Howard anointed Costello as his successor. Costello however refused to accept the role of leader of the opposition, and Brendan Nelson was elected as leader of the parliamentary Liberal Party.
John Howard meeting Maroondah residents, 31 August 2007
On 14 October, Howard announced a 24 November election, saying the country "does not need new leadership, it does not need old leadership. It needs the right leadership". By the time election writs were issued, the Coalition was running well behind Labor in all polls. Most pundits predicted a large Labor victory. ABC election analyst Antony Green noted the Coalition's numbers were similar to what Labor had polled before losing power in 1996.
Opposition leader Kevin Rudd called for a minimum of three debates between himself and John Howard over the campaign period. Howard, who had been rated poorly by studio audiences at past leadership debates, pressed for a single debate "whether was there or not". On 21 October, Howard and Rudd took part in a live nationally televised leaders' debate. Although Howard had pressed for the Nine Network to abandon its use of "the worm" — an on-screen graphic depicting studio audience sentiment — it still featured in Nine's debate coverage. Commentators widely reported Rudd as the victor in the debate.
Electioneering balloons from the Liberal and Labor parties in Bennelong during the 2007 federal election.
In the 24 November election, Howard and his Coalition government were soundly defeated, losing 23 seats — the fourth-worst defeat of an incumbent government since Federation. Late that night, Howard conceded that Labor had won government and the likelihood that he had lost Bennelong to former journalist Maxine McKew. Howard had been 206 votes ahead of McKew on the first count, and finished 2.8 percentage points behind McKew on the estimated two-party vote. While the ABC and other media outlets projected on election night that Howard had been unseated, McKew declined to claim victory at first, saying that the seat was on "a knife edge." On 1 December, McKew claimed victory. Counting was incomplete at the time, with several postal and absentee ballots still outstanding. However, it was expected that Howard would not win enough of them to retain his seat.
An Epping polling booth within Howard's seat of Bennelong.
On 12 December, the Electoral Commission formally declared McKew the winner by 44,685 votes (51.4 percent) to Howard's 42,251 (48.6 percent). Howard formally conceded defeat later that day. The final tally showed that Howard lost on the 14th count due to a large flow of Green preferences to McKew. He had been ahead by thin margins for most of the night, never leading by more than 0.2 percentage points. Four other members of Howard's Cabinet were defeated.
Howard confided in a former colleague that losing Bennelong was a "silver lining in the thunder cloud of defeat" as it spared him the ignominy of opposition. He remained in office as caretaker Prime Minister until the formal swearing in of Rudd's government on 3 December. Howard is the second Australian Prime Minister, after Stanley Bruce, to lose his seat in an election.
Federal Liberal Party director Brian Loughnane said "it was the failure of Kim Beazley's leadership that had masked voter concerns about Howard". Media analysis of The Australian Election Study, a postal survey of 1873 voters during the 2007 poll, found that although respondents respected Howard and thought he had won the 6-week election campaign, Howard was considered "at odds with public opinion on cut-through issues", his opponent had achieved the highest "likeability" rating in the survey's 20-year history, and a majority had decided their voting intention prior to the election campaign.
In January 2008, John Howard signed with a prominent speaking agency called the Washington Speakers Bureau, joining Tony Blair, Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright, and others. He will be available for two speeches, Leadership in the New Century and The Global Economic Future. In February 2008, John Howard gave a speech to the Nigerian parliament on how to achieve economic prosperity.
Bust of John Howard by political cartoonist, caricaturist and sculptor Peter Nicholson located in the Prime Minister's Avenue in the Ballarat Botanical Gardens
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