The thirty year rule prohibiting access to Cabinet Documents should be abolished so Australians can better Judge John Howard's (and other ministers) performance before we heap undeserved credit on their record of deceit.

If AWB directors are to face prosecution for their misdeeds it is only fair and Just that the actions of Government ministers involving deliberate deception of the electorate be held accountable rather than rewarded with generous retirement benefits and false accolades.

Yet another academic bleating about the alleged Howard economic success story. John Howard was the most divisive prime minister we have ever had. His economic 'success' largely consisted of balancing the budget - easy to do if nothing is spent and capital assets are sold off. His alleged inflation control relied almost totally on the on-going falling prices of chinese imports; he gutted the universities and research and development; and as far as I recall after more than a decade in power there are no major government funded projects on the go anywhere. He introduced a 'never ever' grossly unfair GST which flooded the federal coffers with cash, and gave tax rebates with the money that should have been utilised in education and health. Churches, particularly of the American evangelical style, did very well via educational assistence and the unemployment industry. He introduced racism into day-to day australian politics and remains one of the few senior public figures to have never condemned the ridiculous and uninformed jingoism expressed by Pauline Hanson. The worst prime minister ever - thankfully now gone in a cloud of justly deserved humiliation

Forget the 30 year rule - his biographer will write he was the greatest PM this country ever suffered ! There was absolutely no transparancy whilst JWH reigned, and I for one applaud his abrupt dumping especially from an ex ABC journalist with no political nous which exacerbates the significance he wasn't that much of a fearless Leader ? That he manipulated the electorate is without doubt his greatest achievement - with a Government surplus, and billion's in the war chest, he pork-barreled his way on two other elections to gain a majority in the Senate. In hindesight, people got wise to his strategy, and gave him unselfishly the old heave-ho - not before time. Toughness doesn't have to come in a pinstripe suit. His severly tarnished image will rue the day, and importantly he will have to live his forced retirement contemplating how unsufferable the 2007 Elections turned out. After Oz's largest Public relations spectacle amounting to billion's of taxpayer's dollars was squandered in a supreme effort to win public sentiment. That through his own (one man band) masterly, manoevering unequivocally went awry ? In the end, what counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - but the size of the fight in the dog in the fight !! Caio Mr Teflon man .

Forget the 30 year rule - his biographer will write he was the greatest PM this country ever suffered ! There was absolutely no transparancy whilst JWH reigned, and I for one applaud his abrupt dumping especially from an ex ABC journalist with no political nous which exacerbates the significance he wasn't that much of a fearless Leader ? That he manipulated the electorate is without doubt his greatest achievement - with a Government surplus, and billion's in the war chest, he pork-barreled his way on two other elections to gain a majority in the Senate. In hindesight, people got wise to his strategy, and gave him unselfishly the old heave-ho - not before time. Toughness doesn't have to come in a pinstripe suit. His severly tarnished image will rue the day, and importantly he will have to live his forced retirement contemplating how unsufferable the 2007 Elections turned out after Oz's largest Public relations spectacle amounting to billion's of taxpayer's dollars was squandered in a supreme effort to win public sentiment that through his own masterly manoevering unequivocally went awry ? In the end, what counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - but the size of the fight in the dog in the fight !! Cai mister teflon man.

The author says that as an early advocate of microeconomic reform "there is no doubt.....that he(howard) played a major role in pushing the Hawke-Keating government in that direction.

As I've said a few times on OLO Howard will be seen as the hands-down winner in the economic argument during his public career.

The ALP has remade itself in the last 30 years, whilst the Howard of 2007 was substantially the same man with the same arguments in 1977. It is Labor that has in this time, jettisoned any ideas of itself as a Socialist party and is now proudly more economically conservative than the Libs. And remember that it was a Labor govt. that introduced enterprise bargaining which effectively sidelined Unions in many instances.

For the churlish who want to insist that Howard was the most divisive ever- does it never occur to you that for the other half of the electorate Keating did and does still hold that title?

As a retired farmer, reckon the worst case of Media Muzzlement and Separation of Power abuse under Howard, was the case two years ago of the landing of foot and mouth suspected carcase meat landed in New South Wales which George Negus made a revealing case of through SBS.

When I complained to SBS as a meat producer, was simply told that the case was ordered to be closed down.

It is also so disgusting that Online Opinion must have had similar orders also, because no matter how hard we tried to get our OLO's interested, they too remained in quietude.

A Queensland free-lance reporter also rang me full of anger, telling how the case was given the hush-hush all over Australia.

Before the Howard-managed Bi-Lateral Agreement with the US, we were said to have the safest Bio-Security laws in the world.

But certainly not no more after the above......?

Regards - BB, WA.

palimpsest, I agree Keating was divisive, but he was almost never *deliberately* divisive - he just chose to largely ignore the opinions and circumstances of much of the electorate. Howard deliberately exploited existing divisions in society for political gain, instead of doing what he could to improve social cohesion.
I will say though that it's surprising the only truly nasty outcome among of that tendency was probably the Cronulla Riots, and even they were pretty mild really - no deaths or permanent injuries. In comparison to most of the world, Australia is still a very stable, cohesive place, despite our diversity. Let's hope it stays that way.

Still, there were plenty of other occasions under Howard I felt positively ashamed to be Australian, which was never the case under the previous government, even when I disagreed with their policies.

Before going down the path of condeming the Howard Govt for lack of over sight of AWB and the payment of kickbacks to the Iraq Govt, go back to the Volcker inquiry.
139 companies involved with oil surcharges worth $US 229m and 2253 companies involved with after sales service fees and transport fees worth $US 1.55 billion , not to mention B.N.P. being the escrow bank.

O.K. the AWB kickback was the largest but that was because it supplied the largest single item of the oil for food scheme that the UN set up i.e. the staple food product of wheat worth $US 1.536 B

Who would of been hurt if there had been no wheat sales into Iraq?

If you go through the list of the 2253 companies there are, for example, 76 from the Peoples Republic of China and 233 from the Kingdom of Jordan.
There were only two Australian Companies involved with the scheme's
No contracts were issued directly to US companies.

So all in all the UN had a better chance of picking up on the kickback schemes with all the contracts with the 2253 companies having to go through the UN's Iraq office.
(I wonder if there was any corruption in that office?)

I suggest that the Food for Oil scheme should be placed in the same catagory as the UN's involvment in Rawanda, the Balkans, the Horn of Africa etc etc etc.
A complete stuff up!

The Volcker report is well worth the read, even at 623 pages.

I don’t think Keating comes anywhere near Howard on the issue of divisiveness.

The Conservative ethos of divide-and-conquer has always been part of Howard’s personal and political strategy from the beginning. He was safe in the leadership while Costello and Reith faced off against each other and when Reith left, Howard stacked the cabinet with Abbott supporters to keep Costello’s ambitions in check.

Socially he used the “wedge” as often as he could. I still remember the shameful way he made sincere opponents of the Iraq war into rabid campaigners against the troops and how he would encourage his parliamentary attack dogs to make outrageous statements and stand back with clean Presidential hands while the public argued among themselves.

In his last days it was obvious he was frantically looking for new ways to wedge Rudd but ended up wedging himself on the nuclear power issue, which he desperately tried to back away from.

With nothing anything else to offer except division, he had nowhere left to go.

His previous anti-Asian stance and failure to address One Nation hysteria helped cost him his own seat, which eventually had a significant Asian population with a long enough memory.

As far as economic performance goes - selling off most of the gold reserves, deliberately failing to fund Commonwealth Super, raiding cash reserves and selling off every public asset he could to make the bottom line look good wasn’t a long-term financial strategy – it was a political one, and we are yet to see the full impact of these.

With the true level of education funding lie already exposed, I wonder how many more surprises await us in the months ahead?

As Mungo MaCallum correctly suggests, Howard's only real strategy was to climb to the top of the greasy pole and stay there as long as he could.

While this doesn't make him much different from previous leaders, it's not enough for him to be remembered for anything else significantly worthwhile.

John Howard will be remembered for his failures not anything else.
His defeat was driven by those who put him in power the ex Liberal voters.
Howard was helped in power by Simon Crean and Mark Latham, and Howard's refusal to understand he was best choice in a poor Field for voters.
The manner of his defeat was well earned , in time not far away his own party will understand Howard has much to answer for.
In the strangest way he will in time bring about a rebuilding of his shattered party.
History and his party will not treat him well.
That rebuilding will see conservatives move in other directions than Howard and those who lacked drive to do anything but follow him Lemming like over that cliff.

One sentence in particular from John Quiggin's opening post took my eye:

>> Anyone who challenged the government on its lies was pursued vindictively, using both the power of the state, and the government’s cheer squad in the media <<

May I refer readers to an article which catalogs some of the many many moves taken by the Howard regime to clamp down on dissent.

http://www.newmatilda.com/home/articledetailmagazine.asp?ArticleID=2600&HomepageID=231

Frightening indeed. Such a relief that he and his extreme bigoted mob have been kicked out.

May Australia never again be taken so close to the brink of fascist authoritarianism.

John Howard should be remembered for convincing thousands and thousands of otherwise intelligent, peace loving, and good Australians to vote for him over consecutive elections since 1996.

Blind spots prevailed and despite numerous warnings they still thought he was worth giving their vote to.

Many of them now won't admit to voting for him. His divisiveness still permeates Australian society but perhaps it’s become less polarized and more fluid.

Howard's hubris and zealotry taught us all something about politics and the role that a healthy democracy plays in nation building – and I suspect the cost of this lesson is something we are all about to learn much more about.

In some ways (not all) Howard was the PM we had to have so we could teach and convince ourselves that National leadership requires much more than Howard could offer. Even

Even postmodernists would agree that the following 4 questions are key:

o Have we seen the last of the statesmanship style of leadership that many of the greats (from both sides) provided us?

o Are we now in the age of slick corporate / government / managerialism?

o And I wonder if Australians feel comfortable with this style and mode of national leadership?

o What effect will this transition from Howard modernism to Rudd mangreialist post- modernity have on an aging populations view on the role of national politics in their lives?

Howard

Love him or loath him, JWH's 11 years as PM has been an EXTRAORDINARY FEAT OF POLITICS.

This post election critique examines:

Was he an ideologue, rat-cunning opportunist or snivelling pro-market political animal climbing the greasy pole ?

Was Big enchilada a serial liar ?

Would his cheer squad, parliamentary press-gallery, sycophants and chroniclers-biographers, need a strong stomach ?

Born 26 July 1939 -
Entered Parliament 1974. Bennelong for 33 years. Parents owned petrol station. Lived at home until 32;as a youth battled acne, poor hearing and eye sight. Scuffled for acceptance in the Liberal party dominated by Melbourne society, made harder by his lower middleclass Sydney beginnings. Adopted the underdog " me against the World " psyche. Lost Bennelong to a political novice Maxine McKew 2007.

His detractors : No vision. Conservative values. Orwellian in his pettifogging, wedge politics, National interest v self promotion, vengeful, hangup's galore.

Howard's tenure :
9/11, mv Tampa, Iraq war, asylum seekers, Siev X debacle, Guantanamo Bay, GST, Manus and Naru detention, Camp Baxter, waterfront reforms, stolen generation/reconciliation, Port Arthur massacre, Timor, Kyoto protocol, AWB coverup, Vissy/amcor coverup, Cronulla riots, Indonesian Embassy Canberra ( alleging harmless white powder was a bio-terrorist threat after analyst, AFP asserted otherwise ) workplace relations ( workchoice)contracts, Bali/Jakarta bombings, APEC talk fest, Haneef bungle, Citizen's test and much more.

Modern Historian's will either revile JH's modus operandi or gratuitously applaud it. Anecdotally, Oz historian's on politics, military matters, indigenous affairs, multiculteralism etc predictively circumvent reality, deliberately ignore, sanitise factoids, plagiarise previous works and provide voluminous bibliographic references which supposedly lends credence to their PhD's.

What good are thesis's which selectively appropriate quotations upon quotations and pass for original composition ? Anybody can roneo copious amounts of other peoples works. Meantime, we the hoi polloi are saddled with a bewildering array of pseudo-intellectual jargon, folklore, distortions, myths, out-right furphy's, half-baked hypothesis, fictitious extrapolations, mostly under the guise of Academic research. Greedy publishers no doubt subscribe to the irregularity.

No wonder students today are left pondering what is indeed fact or chimerical ' harry potter ' fiction. Our educational system

should prioritise a much needed overhaul.

The 2007 Elections provided some insights. All Partied spent enormous amount of money to win votes. We will never know for certain how much JWH Inc bribed, pork-barrelled, disbursed etc funds accumulated from party faithful, so clled philantrophist, power brokers and wannabe's who want to be seen dining at the Lodge and hobnobbing with the creme de la creme of a now defunct, disillusuined and disarrayed motley crew, ex tempore ebullent Brenden Nelson. Previous estimates of JH war chest varied @ $ 35 B. His style of using the Lodge to raise donations is considered by many as money laundering. Bjelke Petersen called it ' brown paper bag ' donations which ostensibly vanished. Taxation evasion - pure and simple.

Obfuscating Aust Electoral Commission will in due course provide ' seasonally adjusted figures' which are at best rubbery and taken with a dose of diuretics. A record 65 candidates threw their hats into the arena and despite the reinvention of Pauline Hanson, her One Nation Party of yesteryear polled well. She secured more than 4 % of the priomaries and @ $ 2.10 a vote she reputedly pocketed $ 250,000. How mant Australians earn $ 83,333 a year ?

David Etteridge, Hanson were incarcerated in 1998 for fraudulent misappropriating electioneering funds of $ 500,000 in Queensland. Apparently, she makes enough money every election to service her lavish jet setting lifestyle.

Another quirk, the AEC received over 150 official recommendations this and previous years at preventing rorts, fraud and other disparities which were ignored by Parliamentarians ? What became of integrity, transparenct and professionalism in Government ? Tony Abbot's reputed $ 100,00 slish fund avoided public disclosure and was vehemently denied by the AEC.

Donations in excess of $ 10,150 have to be declared, but Unions and people lobbying for political favours, particularly Order of Australia awards, donate in frequent small parcels to circumvent legislation and basically avoid being identified ? Corruption is a Federal offence. AFP, CMC, DPP and other watch-dogs, have never pursued this anomaly. Business as usual.

Sayonara mister Teflon man.

Belly,

Contrary to popular belief, lemmings do not throw themselves off cliffs in mass suicides. I have given a few details at:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6812&page=0
or you can go to ‘Lemmings Suicide Myth’ at:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/moments/s1081903.htm

John Howard was a racist and a liar, through and through.
He succeeded to a small degree in facilitating this trait to permeate thorughout the broader political scene and media, as well as society in general.

Australia is far better off today than 10 years ago. JH's detractors are claiming that it would have been anyway.

A CEO of a company is judged on its results, and the excuses of Labor for their previous federal and present state incompetence are pathetic.

I only hope that "new Labor" is as economically capable as their predecessors or the peccadilloes of the liberals will seem like the good old days.

Democritus,

Are you taking the piss?

And did you know that the word "peccadilloes" means sins or transgressions? - in which case I totally agree with you - I hope they are remembered as a particularly onerous chapter in this nations political history.

None the less, please learn to write and speak English properly mate or bugger off to where ya came from!! Have you taken the citizenship test yet?

And the last time I looked Australia was not a listed company.

So that little comparison with Howard being a CEO is way off the mark.

GUNNING NSW --- FREE camping

At the end of the main street in Gunning, just before the bridge (on the left), there is a shady FREE camping and picnic area with toilets, water and BBQs, etc.

It is a beautiful area beside the very pretty, and well maintained and very clean creek, and it is 100% FREE
( vans, vehicles, tents and campers etc allowed)

WARNING ..Do not use the local Caravan Park at the showgrounds as it is very sub-standard with dirty toilets and showers and the Caretaker is very anti-social and very rude.
Regards
Fred & Rita Walker

Hey Rainier,

Everyone's entitled to an opinion, mate. Even the ones that don't match your standard.

If you don't like it, why don't YOU bugger off?

I think the point that was being made is that CEOs are judged on performance, so why not politicians as well? I happen to believe much the same thing - Bob Carr being a particularly good case in point. Lots of strutting around the political stage and talking in a commanding deep voice but, when it came to running NSW, about as useful as a chocolate soldier in the heat. When people elect a political representative to high office they basically expect them to be CEOs of their state/country.

Get it? Not that hard is it?

Democratis, RobP please note- now that the so-called Hansonite Libs have swung back to their natural Party nothing must be allowed to interrupt the narrative of the left. Got it?

If the content of Kenny's truck managed to stop Howard walking down the street one morning they'd build a statue to memorialise it.

Democritus,

Ok, let’s indulge your CEO comparison just once.

Here we go -:

On the 24 of November 2007 a majority of share holders overwhelming voted against giving the CEO of Australia LTD PTY another term in office. One of their reasons given for this backlash was at his failure to recognise his own " "peccadilloes" over the past 11 years – not to mention his grotesque mishandling of labour market reform. So vehement was this anger that he even lost his own seat. How sad is that!

It’s a simple story really, I know it must be hard for you to come to terms with, but you've got to admit it’s not that complex.

May I suggest you access some grief counselling for post election trauma. I'd consult with your local branch of the Liberal party in a few months after they've gathered their senses. Poor things.

I'd stand in front of mirror and begin to say the following - soft at first and then progressively louder until you can begin to visualise the reality of the situation.

"Goodbye John. Hello Kevin"

"Goodbye John. Hello Kevin"

"Goodbye John. Hello Kevin"

"Goodbye John. Hello Kevin"

I agree that he had to come to a sticky end as he did, but I have yet to see a skerrick of evidence that he ever did one single thing in public life that could ever be seen as "great".

He clawed, stabbed, betrayed and abused everyone in his path so he could be General John Dictator War criminal and that is all he ever saw.

He was the worst PM this nation has ever had and hopefully we will never again see anyone quite so repulsive, cruel and divisive.

Well put Marilyn.

If it seems like 10 years of hype about the Howard government’s economic ‘success’ has very little to show for it. That’s because it has. It is a victory of propaganda over substance

In infrastructure terms the current wonder boom hasn’t coincided with an era of nation-building, quite the opposite. Nor has there been any great revolution in industry or expansion in productive capacity.
With the exception of mining of course, a low-employment, low value-added industry where demand is dependent on the success of other economies & supply depletes finite resources.

Economics correspondents and the former treasurer have told us that the mining sector’s contribution has been overstated. The ‘doubling’ of household wealth that the PM used to boast of, has come by way of a speculative housing boom that has contributed little to construction & left us paying up to 3 times as much for assets that were already built.

Rather than create real prosperity the boom in established house prices has benefited some at the expense of others & created an unprecedented mountain of debt.

Landlords and speculators made huge windfall gains. Newcomers were stuck with prices that were 6 to 9 times average annual income (where previous generations paid half as much) signifying in effect, a redistribution of wealth from first & future homebuyers to existing property owners rather than a net increase in wealth.

Owner-occupiers received a mostly nominal increase in wealth as the value of their property rose in parallel with others. Some found an advantage in ‘trading-down’ but for the most part the increased equity merely enhanced their capacity to borrow & borrow they certainly have.

According to the Reserve bank, Australia’s household debt has more than tripled since the early nineties, reaching a level that is equivalent to 100% of GDP.

Rather than credit cards & struggling first-home buyers, it turns out that the rise in household debt:
“is mainly being driven by older, higher-income households that are trading up to higher quality or better located houses, buying investment properties and taking out margin loans to buy shares"

continues...

continued...

In the same presentation the RBA also observed that:

“The primary effects of this borrowing were therefore on asset values, the most noticeable being the more than doubling in house prices”

http://www.rba.gov.au/Speeches/2007/sp_dg_250907.html

To some extent the non-productive nature of the asset –price boom is also reflected in financial markets where a lot of the growth has come from banks & other lenders (the debt boom), public infrastructure (monopoly profit) businesses run by the likes of Macquarie Bank as well as mergers & acquisitions which tend to represent a concentration of ownership rather than an expansion of productive capacity.

While the asset-price boom has generated growth, its main beneficiaries have been the asset owners & the more they own the greater the benefit.

Last July, national accounts figures revealed that company profits as a share of the economy reached a near record high as the proportion going to wages continued to fall.
Treasurer Costello’s counterclaim – that ‘real wages’ had nonetheless increased by an average 1.9% a year during his term - is of little consolation to the younger generations that have experienced a massive decline in living standards as rents & house prices outstripped wage growth.

While the flood of cheap imports that devastated the balance-of-trade have kept (CPI) inflation low, household debt levels have somewhat paradoxically ensured that inflation (or the effect it has on interest rates) has become the defining issue.
The banks that funded those debts sourced most of the funds overseas - another reason that Australia has the world’s 4th largest current account deficit in absolute terms.

Economic growth during the Howard era was based on borrowing, asset-price inflation, mining & imports. In historic terms the most outstanding features of this period have been an unprecedented generational wealth divide as well as phenomenal levels of household & foreign debt. None of which bodes well for the future.

That this has been interpreted as a success is primarily due to the influence of an asset-rich, mostly middle-aged demographic that has re-arranged the inter-generational flow of funds to their advantage.

Mr Smith

Thanks for that succinct overview Mr Smith (Adam?)

Propaganda over substance indeed.

Paul Keating put it well - listen to what he said here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgUPvGN5mSo&feature=related