Professor Rees makes some goods points but fails to present a balanced account of the Howard Governments achievements – which is hardly surprising coming from a Hicks apologist who fails to find anything positive in the 12 years of Howards way. True there were mistakes but there were also many good achievements and a few brilliant successes.

The Order of Merit is offered by the Queen. It is in her personal gift and is made after considering a range of advice. We do not know and are unlikely to ever know what advice was received by the Queen.

What we do know is that Prime Minister Hawke sensibly made it clear that there should be no move to a republic during Her Majesty’s reign. That advice was ignored by the republican movement which pressed an ill-conceived, half-baked proposal for a republic.

John Howard presided over a referendum which wisely rejected that proposal and brought the republican movement to the realisation that a lot more thought needed to be put into their project. It is possible that the Queens advisors reminded her of that.

The referendum on a Republic did not ask Should Australia become a Republic yes or no, it was an expensive filibuster question that John Howard put forward.

I always thought it was Janet Howard who was running the country at that time, I seem to have missed something with John, the award should have gone to her.
Yes! Paul1405 and Pericles I do agree with you regarding that superfluous wealthy Royal family, they live in their own unreal world and give unreal awards to non deserving politicians.

It is regrettable that Prof. Stuart Rees AM appears to have written hurriedly and purely on the basis of personal detestation of Mr. John Howard OM AC SSI.
Mr. Howard served four terms as Australia's Prime Minister, with previous senior cabinet service. In objective terms he is a more eminent Australian than Prof. Rees. Perhaps Prof. Rees might have been better submitting his criticism of Mr. Howard to his successor as Prime Minister prior to Mr. Rudd recommending Mr. Howard for the award of Companion of the Order of Australia (two ranks above the Membership held by Prof. Rees).
As the Order of Australia is granted by the sovereign, Prof. Rees' objection is clearly not to Australian's accepting such awards. Previous holders of the order include a number of eminent Australians, including Howard Florey, McFarlane Burnet and Sir Owen Dixon.
Prof. Rees,despite his academic status, also does not appear to have conducted any research into the nature and history of the Order of Merit. Membership of the Order has included a large number of people who would undoubtedly qualify as war criminals had they lost the wars in which they were involved. These include Sir Winston Churchill, Earl Haig, and Baroness Thatcher. Perhaps the most perplexing of all members was Field Marshal Smuts, who had led troops against British and Empire forces prior to converting to become a fervent supporter of the British Empire and Commonwealth. Multiple politicians have been appointed, ranging from David Lloyd George to Jean Chretien.
Prof. Rees may well disagree with some of Mr. Howard's policies and actions, as I disagree with Churchill's support of the air offensive over Germany. This is not relevant to the award and the award should not be used as an excuse for personal abuse such as this article.

Hasbeen: (A big “thanks” for your charming comments)!

True…The weather has improved, and I struggling to maintain my high standard of comment in the limited time available back on land. But one thing I remember well; I “once” had a neighbour in a very working class town (city), who would blatantly advertise for the Liberal party at election time. The neighbour would have made “Hitler” proud; he regularly accumulated a rare (for the neighbourhood) collection of black spray painted “swastikas” on his billboard/house/truck and anything else that was stationary or movable. But to be honest, that was back in Malcolm Frasers’ time.

But in view of the facts Hasbeen, Of the 17 ministers in the Howard government cabinet, 12 were lawyers and one a party hack, in 2007. So really that must prove the point that Howard was simply the leader of the “pack” of the bunch of rabid scumbags. That is simply one litmus test of Howards probity! I await your serve sir

This article is just rubbish from an embittered man who just cannot get over the fact that the majority of his fellow Australians do not agree with him. Sorry mate but you are just one of the herd, just one vote we think you are wrong. So just get over it and have a bex and a lie down.