Howard was a classic bread-and-circuses politician. The electorate was quite happy with the lies when they enabled it to believe Australia would always be rich and white, and that giving in to one's most base and primitive prejudice was, in fact, a sign of true blue larrikin wisdom.

It only came apart when Howard gave rein to the Liberal Party's core value: class hatred. WorkChoices destroyed the image Howard had built as a friend of the working people he, in fact, despised and viewed as the chattels of business.

I believe Turnbull is a principled and modern man, unlike Howard. But he is lumbered with people who still reckon the proper way to campaign is to deceive the electorate by any means possible, then sneak your real agenda through while the Murdoch press provides a smokescreen of racist/religious/economic panic.

The Libs can either get with the Turnbull program and become a dominant political force again, or stay wedded to the personality cult of Howard and eventually give way to the Greens as her Majesty's opposition.

Gee Bruce and Sancho two classic Howard Haters! John Howard was a good Prime Minister and only narrowly lost the last election. The Liberals should never listen to you blokes who are Greens apologists. The Greens are the new Nazi's supported by people who previously supported all the diabolic communist regimes around the world. Some of these regimes are still hanging on as basket cases and without a shred of democracy. Read US and Australian history and find out more about the people you rail against.
The Liberals are an infinitely better proposition than Labour, and the Greens are not in the same time zone.

JBowyer,

In what way was Howard a good PM? The Howard government left us with an enormous foreign debt, neglect of education,a decay in infrastructure and manufacturing and divisive policies that in true Machiavellian style pandered to predjuice and short term interests.The sinister "anti-terrorism" and work choice laws were the most alarming. Howard was in power simply to exclude Labor,he and his government had nothing constructive to offer the voters.

Sancho,

Howard might have been a bread and circuses politician, most of the bread was stale, the ridiculous first home buyers grant is a prime example of a policy that is, in fact, counter productive.

The mistake made by the more ardent left - and potentially by the Liberal party in electing someone who should be a Labor Right member as its leader - is believing that the 2007 defeat was somehow a "rejection" of the "Howard values" come legacy.

It wasnt. It was a rejection of Workchoices coupled to the simple historic winds of change. No goverment lasts forever. Costello may have won in 2007 even with Workchoices, had he given a sufficent perception of leadership change, regardless of from what or to what, but John Winston Howard died by the "youve had your turn" sword.

You want to know what really, really lost the 2007 election?

The 2004 elected senate majority, without which workchoices would still be a Howard dream, And JW Howard still the Prime Minister of Australia. Nothing more, nothing less. Certainly none of this rubbish about supposed "racist xenophobic policies" or other farleft projected sillyness had anything at all to do with it - Howard didnt sway the redgreen hippies to vote against the Liberals by not letting illegals out of detention; they wernt voting for him anyway.

Advocating the removal of Abbott is rediculous. Short of the pheonix-like revival of Peter Costello, Abbott is as likely as any to be the next Liberal PM.

I am with you J Bowyer
Haigh is an inveterate Howard hater, not sure why (but nor do I care).

Just as the Keating legacy was the stink of a budget deficit and blow out in government debt;

So the Howard legacy is the massive budget surplus and the public debt not only retired but long term problems with unfunded government superannuation resolved and the government actually setting up future funds.
However we now see , true to socialist form, the incumbent incompetents who have flushed the surplus away with 10 billion dollars of political voting buying, and are rapidly moving to rape the economy with an orgy of public works, building “the road to nowhere”.

As for mac’s post “The Howard government left us with an enormous foreign debt,”

Wrong, Howard paid down the burgeoning government debt he inherited from the useless Keating and Co. The foreign debt mac is thinking of is that owed by private individuals, not by the recipients of tax payers funds and those individuals are perfectly entitled to borrow from anyone prepared to lend to them, as they see fit.

However, Krudd & Co will soon bring back the public back, to saddle our children and grand children with tax funded interest charges.

Regarding “the ridiculous first home buyers grant is a prime example of a policy that is, in fact, counter productive.”

And what is mac’s view of the imbiciles who have raised that particular fillip by a factor of four, as well as the labor state government who, in Victoria, where I am, added state funds to it?

Howards Legacy is already written and he will pass into history as the politician who never pretended he knew what was best for everyone but left them with money in their pocket to spend as they saw fit, unlike the incumbent bug-eyed twit.

Col Rouge,

Do you still think that private debt is harmless? Less ideology and more reality. Ask the Americans. Of course Labor will get the blame for Howard's legacy.