Is it only me or does anyone else find it in rather
poor taste that so many people seem to get some sort of
peverse pleasure in trying to demean a former PM in such
an unpleasant way.

We may not approve of what our politician's do -
during their terms in office - but we do have the option
to vote them out at elections.
Which is what happened in the case of Mr Howard.
We can criticize our pollies for their policies,
however to claim that someone does not "deserve"
the honour that someone's
received from our nation's Head of State after they've
left office - is in my opinion - rather a poor show.

Mr Howard was a staunch monarchist, he was one of the longest
serving of our PM's and what he did or did not
deserve was a decision that was not ours to make - that
decision belonged entirely to Her Majesty. It honours a
loyal former PM who Her Majesty obviously thinks did a
good job. Why can't some people simply accept that and
leave the man alone now that he's no longer in office.

Lexi the comments are why John Howard, whom Elizabeth Saxe-Coburg-Gotha does not know from a bar of soap! Name one thing this person has achieved, he was a highly paid politician and used the status to full; there it ends!!

rpg where were you in 1970 I suspect not even a twinkle in your fathers eye. As I'm going on 60 I am well aware of 'history' I lived through that little piece of history so don't quote history to me.
You said "some history, Malcolm Fraser was Minister of Army when we went to Vietnam, Howard had nothing to do with it, except in your imagination. So you never forgave him for the Vietnam war, you must have worked yourself into a lather to invent that.. surely? (or is that a "Wiki fact"?)"
rpg my words were "The young conservative Howard was a keen supporter of the Vietnam War, something I never forgot or forgave."
You say that "as Howard had nothing to do with it, except in your imagination." A bit of history for you that you wont find on wiki whatever, the young Liberal parliamentarian Howard was a keen supporter of the war in Vietnam, he spoke often on the rightness of that very perverse war, and as far as I know he's never apologised for the SUPPORT he gave the war. Do I need to say more about facts for you to understand where I'm coming from.
p/s you wrote "when we went to Vietnam" what unit were you in (we)!

Dear Kipp,

I don't know the criteria required to receive this
or any award for that matter. I presume that a person
has to be nominated for whatever reason to receive
any award - and I don't imagine that these awards are
handed out to just anyone. I believe that mention was
made that this particular award was given to only a select
few and obviously the Queen as our nation's Head of State
agreed with the nomination and thought Mr Howard deserved
it. I believe this award is also one that the Queen herself
selects who gets it. So although as you claim the Queen
does not know Mr Howard - she obviously thought highly
enough of him to award him this Order of Merit. And as
I stated in my earlier post - I for one do think it's
not in good form to try to demean the man for accepting
something from his Head of State.

Kipp,

Your statement that Queen Elizabeth "does not know John Howard from a bar of soap" is just crap: no doubt she has met our former PM on many occasions, at least through CHOGMs and no doubt at other times.

What always amazes me is that people like you, who have presumably never met a politician of any sort, are so quick to denigrate them.

In my experience, politicians across the spectrum are generally good people trying to do the right thing according to their beliefs and attitudes.

They certainly don't deserve the vacuous complaints they get from nobodies like you, who have achieved...well, what, exactly?

...To be fair to Howards reputation, we must not forget Howards “pogrom” against “workers rights and conditions” and his constant attack on Public Education, with a steady course of defunding of State Educational institutions, which spanned his entire term in Parliament, culminating in his ignominious decline and exit by the back-door; kicked out by his own electorate and universally rejected by a broad element of Australians, fed-up with his Anti-Democracy ideology.