What Justice

What thread are you on?

The article fails to mention Howards most consistent trait. It therefore can not be said to be balanced. Howard is a dissembling liar.

I tend to get kinda emotional when discussing this topic. This from a contributor to SMH Letters 7/3/6...

"I hate government for, and by, the wealthy. I hate nepotism, cronyism and the triumph of grey men. I hate xenophobia. I hate the "free" market and greed and their bastard child, economic rationalism. I hate small-mindedness, dishonesty, dissembling and mediocrity. I hate hypocrisy. I hate hate. Does this make me a "Howard-hater?

Only if he represents those things, I suppose. Does he?"

Couldn't have said it better myself.

The year 2040: John Howard's obituary has appeared in the few surviving illicit websites.

Mr Howard was the longest-serving PM in Australia's history.

Australia's old-fashioned ideals of the fair go, tolerance and mateship were cleverly trumpeted by successive Howard governments over the years but they were able to reform the reality. Discounting majority foreign ownership, 90% of all assets in Australia are now owned by the most meritorious 3%.

Howard was admired for his skilful use of wedge politics. Honed initially on an inept Opposition, it was increasingly widened to divide the populace at large. When it counted most during the electoral cycle, Howard could be relied on to discover an issue to send the right message to an ever unrelaxed and uncomfortable electorate.

Australian media was reformed. Foreign ownership and tight controls ensured that dissident voices were marginalised as one by one newspapers closed or morphed into advertising revenue-makers. With the last free-to-air TV channel closed, households have switched to satellites beaming sports, reality and opinion shows direct from master control stations overseas.

Education reform was sweeping, with massive funding and HECS-style school loans. Now 80% of all Australian children are at private schools and the residual State schools have been converted to manual labour classes for those on welfare subsidies or deemed dull after tests in child care centres. Australian History - outlawing any Black Arm view- is now compulsory. All tertiary education places are full feepaying, and courses - whether in the G10 elite research institutes or the T28 training colleges - are subject to national inspection.

Trade unions are outlawed and employers are obliged to report any form of worker dissent to the Minister for Happy Workplaces. Habeas Corpus rules have been abolished and new detention centres are bursting at the seams with illegals and agitators.

Mr Howard's adherence to the US alliance is the one jarring note. He failed to anticipate the decline of the US as a superpower and the supercession of China and India. The Foreign Minister, Peter Costello, declined to comment for this report.