Brad Norington in today’s Australian gives us the heads up on the News Limited circle jerk that’s coming our way on Monday.
Written by The Australian’s team of journalists and commentators, The Howard Factor: A decade that changed the nation, will be published on Monday and launched by Mr Howard on March 2.
I’m sure this conga line of so-called journalists will give a fair and balanced assessment of the Howard years, and of course I’m looking forward to that lengthy chapter on a decade of race baiting.
But this quoted ode to individual enterprise for the common man by the PM is just so much tosh given that Mr Howard has spent so much of his working life sampling the trappings of Government life.
“So this idea that life is not quite a five-days-a-week existence was with me at a very early stage. I guess working for yourself, working for private enterprise, and not working for the government, was something I was brought up to believe in.”
Um, yeah, I noticed that about him. Privately enterprising himself all the way to Kirribilli.
This man has been a terrible waste of space as a prime minister. He’s done nothing (except given us ten years of the best government since federation).
This is an unusually intemperate and I think unhelpful article. I enjoy the occasional light heartedness that we see on this site but Phil, you have lowered the standards. Were you drunk and disorderly when you wrote this piece or did you have a dud week?
Phil Gomes’ mindless twaddle continues to prove that the Left have absolutely no idea which way is up and deserve only to be history’s used tea bags.
It’s just your routine, bog-standard Howard-bashing.
Given the incredible abuse and vitriol which flys from the screens and pages of the right, as the above responses exemplify, I think the tone of this post is justifiable.
More substantial is the accusation of the hypocrisy of the Prime Minister in claiming to be somehow not-of-government. In fact, it’s a bizarre statement from someone who has been a professional politician almost his whole life, as Mr Gomes points out. But, of course, its John Howard’s well-worn rhetorical device, to conjure “elites” of all forms and style against which he positions himself.
whyisitso, you were doing so well with that first line and then spoilt it all with the second.
Shorter Rog: Roll on the one party state with Dear Leader. Political pluralism is for mindless twaddlers.
One description of His Darkness will never escape him, and I quote Senator Brandis
Now I know why I rarely read the Oz, that Corporate Caper in Rupert’s bordello of newspapers where the sickening sycophancy to Dear Leader is palpably putrid.
“More substantial is the accusation of the hypocrisy of the Prime Minister in claiming to be somehow not-of-government.”
Which, obviously, is not a claim he’s made.
So why did he go against something he was brought up to believe in?
Because being a surburban solicitor was just too bloody hard, where bullshit never worked, so he had to find a place where it did.
A Story to Enlighten: A crow in a drought became so weak, it couldn’t fly, so it followed a bull along sustaining itself from the bull’s droppings. Eventually it regained enough strength to fly up to the top of a tree.
Now a farmer came along and blasted that crow to oblivion.
Moral: Bullshit will get you to the top of a tree, but it won’t necessarily keep you there.
You’re right Geoff, not made but implied.
“Hi, I’m John Howard, I’m NOT from the Govt and I’m here to help you”.
Steve, apologies if I’ve offended, and no, I am stone cold sober- unfortunately not a good state to be in when facing a haigiography on a decade of rodentism, now that’s intemperate. BTW, I had a wonderful week selling bicycles to a remarkable number of folks who’d like to ditch their car. It warmed my heart.
Rog……teabags? Oh, never mind.
Rob, yep, it was time for another one of those. Thanks for understanding.
Which, obviously, is not a claim he’s made.
Hmm… that’s why he said:
I guess working for yourself, working for private enterprise, and not working for the government, was something I was brought up to believe in.”
When, when, when - are you guys going to realise that Howard is not a Labor PM, he is a conservative PM, he does not have a left agenda, he doesn’t court or care about the left, he has his own constituents and they have voted him in as head of government in four elections over 10 years now?
MH, I think he’s saying that he believes in private enterprise. He doesn’t think that working for the government, or being reliant on the government is the best way to forge one’s path in life and that his mission in government has been to ensure that is so.
Whatever you might think of Howard - and I’m possessed of mixed feelings to say the least - it’s utter nonsense to read “I’m in giovernment for an easy coast in life” into his comments. Could I suggest that this continuing insistence on misinterpreting his observations to fit an unbelievably demonised caricature is the best representation of why we always end up being surprised when he wins another election,.
it’s utter nonsense to read “I’m in giovernment for an easy coast in life� into his comments.
Oh man, where did you get that from?
A little less literalism and a little more interpretation of the Prime Minister’s rhetorical style, please.
“….an unbelievably demonised caricature….”
Exactly right, Geoff. He’s just the leader of the other side, that’s all. Idiotic hyperbole like ‘His Darkness’ just plays into his hands, and paints his opponents as hysterics.
Idiotic hyperbole like ‘His Darkness’ just plays into his hands, and paints his opponents as hysterics.
That is a very valid point in terms of real political action, although I read it here as judicious sarcasm.
Having said that, the Right is hardly one for moderation when it comes to hysterical demonizing of the Left.
I wasn’t being sarcastic, MH. It’s a stupid ploy, thats all.
I wasn’t being sarcastic, MH. It’s a stupid ploy, thats all.
Sorry, I didn’t mean you, I meant the original statement by Peter Kemp.
Fancy still being able to find some people pathetic enough to fall for puke-inducing Howardian guff! Is everyone in the Howardian conga line a blogger? Darkness, will you ever break?
Au contraire: Its Howard that should be congratulating the media for a decade of pissweak, intimated, craven non-scrutiny. No ALP PM would have survived the lies and scandals he’s cruised through.
The thing that will always stay with me about the Howard decade: I cant recall a single pithy statement he’s ever made. Not one. Come on apologirazzi - name one.
My major consolation is that outside the Oz-media cone of silence, Howard’s never looked like such a complete twat internationally, courtesy of AWB /DFAT. Right on the 10 year anniversary, Australia is a renowned international joke - corrupt and utterly devoid of principle. Even with the yanks. Happy boitday Mugsy!
Isn’t his pithlessness one of the main things they like about him? Can’t have a wittily articulate leader; he’ll be sipping lattes before you know it.
And if that doesn’t depress you enough, think about this: nobody aged 28 or younger has ever voted in a federal election that J. Howard didn’t win.
Well Phil, I despise Howard as much as anyone can. I have use his despicable photo as the bullseye on my dartboard. Nonethless I don’t think the left has anything to gain by lowering its standards to the level of tim blair. I support the idea of left bloggers using humour against the rodent but that humour should play second fiddle to intelligent critique.
Mind you, on a bad day I must admit that I have let loose a torrent of intemperate abuse at the rodent. But you are a blog commentator and you need to set the standard.
Ah yes, Pav, who can forget the Labor pithiness of yore?
“Fuckwits” - Gough on the Labor Party.
“Silly old bugger” - Hawkie on an old bloke.
“Scumbags” - Suburban council clerk, Paul Keating, on anyone.
“Labor is concerned about the poo-ar” - John
Dawkins.
“Gross operating sinus…what’s ‘GOS’ again?” - John Kerin.
“Um - heh heh, mmm, yes, ha” - John Button.
“You’re rooly hot”* - Gareth to Cheryl.
“Arse-lickers” - Suburban yobbo, geriatric bouncer and fruitloop, Mark Latham.
“……….” - Kimbo.
“Frankly, Mr Howard is a meanie and a big pooh and, frankly, I expect a briefing on this situation” - Kevin Rudd.
“Mr Baysley is noice”** - Julia Gillard.
Those were and are the days!
* Apocryphal.
** Also apocryphal
Well, my goodness, I must have spent the last decade in a different country from Lefty E. There was me thinking that no Australan politician in recent memory had been as scrutinised, criticised, vilified and mocked by the media as John W. Howard. Remember when he declined to break his holiday to meet those disposable pop widgets, the Spice Girls?
John Ralston Saul got Howard just about right, ‘once a man like that is in office, it’s hard to get him out. He’ll do anything to stay there. Burn the Reichstag, anything.’
I would wonder if I could get away with a barrage of queer rhetoric as substitute for an argument.
Spit whatever it is out Nomes and tell us what problem you have with the Howard government. Because pretending that they are all a bunch of crypto-homos really isn’t being very productive.
I have a problem with them. They spend too much, Joes on very low income are still paying income tax, the rates of income tax are still in the ‘dead weight loss’ region and I want us to move to much tighter money. Other then that I think they have been very excellent. And the Hawke government a bit before was excellent too.
Now Nomes. See the above paragraph. Its not an endless visualisation of unhygenic group sex involving only one gender. And it would not be a very productive paragraph if it was given the subject we are talking about.
Your thread amounts to airbrushed hate speech.
See, you only have to mention the word “Howard” and lefty luvvy types go into hyper tea bag mode.
All they can see is >10 years of (their own) failures and barring asteroid attacks or nuclear holocaust another 10 years of the same await them.
20 years of being spurned by the once adoring public - how bitter, how galling that must be.
Keating did give us many memorable
insultsquotes!Pavlov’s Cat:
That really says it all. I am 27 and that is the fact that keeps me up at night.
Steve Munn:
Why Steve? What standard are bloggers supposed to set? I think that a bit of humour and fun is something that we all need - particularly in light of the above quote! I see no reason to respond to Howard with reason, there is nothing reasonable about his rule.
Anyway, whenever the Left does get all serious we are simply accused of having no sense of humour. At the end of the day I don’t think that we should allow anyone - from the Right or the Left - to dictate the way in which we write about politics. There is no objectively correct standard to adhere to, and the Right will certainly find fault with whatever style we choose - that is what they do.
Comrade Graeme could you please refrain from posting any more homophobic comments? I find them offensive.
A bit of humour and fun?
Yeah I like a bit of humour and fun. But if you are the sort of person who giggles at lynchings you are likely to have a different set of standards for what constitutes humour and fun then me.
Phils threads tend to be mindless hate-speech.
Cristy.
I didn’t post any homophobic comments you are lying. And I’m not firightened of gay people by the way so you must amend your language.
In fact if you were being fair dinkum you would have come down on Phil for bringing the gay thing into it. But because you are a bigot you want only the left to be able to use queer-talk.
Lynchings and hate speech? I don’t know what post you have been reading, but it could not be Phil’s. He wrote about 6 and a half lines total, none of which could be considered hate speech in the mind of anyone rational.
What exactly were you referring to? The use of the word “tosh”? Or maybe “conga line of so-called journalists”, ooh that will certainly enrage a lynching mob!
Six and a half lines of mindless put-downs. Read Phil’s other threads. And left-wing forums more generally. Its virtually ALL hate-speech. With so-called Neo-Cons, Windschuttle, President Bush and John Howard as the hate figures.
One of the main things that distinguishes it as hate-speech is the mindlessness of it. Often it becomes an argument-free zone on the left.
c.g. - I am not interested in entering into a discussion about this.
I couldn’t care less about what interests or doesn’t interest you. And even trying to read your stuff sends me into insulin shock so uninteresting is it. And your expressions about what doesn’t interest you are particularly boring.
Comrade G.
As opposed to all the unreconstructed Arab-hating, Islam-bashing, single mother loathing, Leftie-baiting we find all over the right wing blogosphere?
Anyway your rhetoric is slipping. Hate speech is generally defined, I believe, as speech that attack groups because of their ethnicity and religion (etc). Neo-conservatism is an ideological outlook. It’s fucked and the people who believe it are fucked.
And Howard quite-frankly is a chardonnay swilling Harbourside Hooray Henry.
Seems to me that the most of the ‘hate speech’ in this thread has emanated from the ‘Comrade’ and his fellow travellers.
Phil’s short piece is simply a very mild corrective to the triumphalist hagiographic bullshit about the Rodent being spouted by Murdoch’s sunken flagship - that I now only purchase on Saturdays, and then only for the ‘Review’ section, which still has some intelligent articles and a good TV guide.
The news, editorial and op-ed content of the Oz have moved so far to the extreme right as to render it only suitable for fire lighting these days - but I guess that’s one way of describing Howard’s ‘dog-whistling’ tactics, isn’t it?
“As opposed to all the unreconstructed Arab-hating, Islam-bashing, single mother loathing, Leftie-baiting we find all over the right wing blogosphere?”
Yes as opposed to that. This is a leftist description of their opponents talk and not an accurate representation of what goes on.
“And Howard quite-frankly is a chardonnay swilling Harbourside Hooray Henry.”
No and that’s all lies to. Howard clearly doesn’t drink much. Otherwise he wouldn’t be going for all these early morning high-speed walks. And he’s not a Hooray Henry. He comes out of a Middle-class background. Is a pretty solid Christian. Has been married to the same women for a long time. And lived at home until he was embarrassingly old. Hardly an “Hooray Henry”.
So we see that its just more wall to wall make-believe mindlessness from your side Plain-People-of the-Hite-Report or whatever you are calling yourself right now.
“Seems to me that the most of the ‘hate speech’ in this thread has emanated from the ‘Comrade’ and his fellow travellers.”
No that’s bullshit. And clearly you are lying.
C. L. — I take it that what you mean by ‘apocryphal’ is ‘I made it up.’
Meanwhile, ‘Oh but look at what TEH LEFT does so nyerdy nyer’ isn’t an argument, as you are so fond of pointing out yourself. I wasn’t talking about TEH LEFT, I was talking about Howard and all his acolytes and sycophants, of whom one thinks as ranged in rows and ranks like cherubim and seraphim.
But if you insist on comparing idiocies from Labor and Liberal history, I refer you to the following:
‘Life wasn’t meant to be easy’ — M. ‘Suck it Up’ Fraser
‘Ooh, chickybabe, you’re really hot’ — B. ‘Class Act’ Snedden, on deathbed*
‘They’re only wearing their hijabs to annoy us’ — B. ‘Solipsista’ Bishop
‘I’m not lying’ — P. ‘Fingers Crossed’ Reith
‘The things that batter, tee hee’ — A. ‘Silver Spoon’ Downer
‘That wasn’t a core promise, snicker snicker’ — J. Winston ‘Rodent’ Howard
‘They threw their children overboard’ — JWRH**
*Apocryphal, but very likely
** Not apocryphal
Derivative.
Derivativeness is the defining characteristic of parody.
Comrade G.
That’s your description of your opponents talk and not an accurate description of what goes on.
“That really says it all. I am 27 and that is the fact that keeps me up at night.” (i.e. that Howard has been in power for 10 years).
Poor Christy. Spare a thought for the poor righties who had to put up with 13 years of Labor government.
Have a heart, Rob. She misses the days of 11 per cent unemployment, Hawkie lying about children living in poverty and PJK kissing Jakarta’s buttocks on a monthly basis.
Has anyone considered the chilling possibility that John Howard really believes that, as our Prime Minister, he isn’t working for the government? That, in fact, he’s putting the whole enterprise on the sort of sound footing a suburban legal practice needs to survive? With himself as head partner?
Dear Phil,
Can’t wait to get my hands on tomorrow’s “Oz”. Shall read then file under “H” for Hagiography. Always knew JWH was a closet Stalinist - “Stahleen mayoh …..!”
Cheers,
Graham Bell
(who is disrespctful and still refuses to doff his cap to his Betters)
Phil Gomes is like a fish out of water trying to get his mind around Howard and race-baiting. Howard has ushered in an era of unprecedented tolerance and understanding between ethnic groups in Australia. This is not a rank bit of ideological apologetics, it is the empirical truth too embarrassing for the Larva-Prodders to face.
Australia would be a “torn nation” had we gone down the hellish path paved with the good intentions of the Wets. We would be suffering the sort of problems now endured by France and Britain. Then we would have seen some real “race baiting” of the kind that would make Le Pen blush with shame.
Anti-racists, anti-sexists and anti-sectarians have never had it so good in this country. Howard has destroyed both the race-obsessed (Theophanoid) multiculturalists and (Hansonite) nativists. This has bolstered ethnic integration into Australia’s version of the Open Society and will cause a long term reduction in the probability of racism, sexism and sectarianism.
Howard has done a superb job in integrating ethnics with Euro natives. The alien intake program (selecting and settling ethnics) has improved out of sight. The NESB (Southern Hemispheric) ratio of the immigration quota has never been higher. People smuggling, immigration rorting and over-lawyered refugee claims have been knocked on the head.
On the home front: Islam is a cultural, not racial, characteristic and Howard supports moderate Islam. Islamic schools are springing up all over the joint. University campuses teem with East Asians.
On the foreign front: Massive security and prosperity deals have been stitched up with the Asian tigers and dragons.
Phil Gomes is also clueless about the difference between racial and cultural identities. Biological scientists identify Arabians as a nation are of the same race as Caucasians. So for a Euro to “race bait” an Arab is, scientifically speaking, an oxymoron.
The Wets confusion about race and culture is most evident in the Cronulla disturbances. The Anglo protesters, vigilantes and rioters were mainly outraged by certain forms of ethnic social behaviour (antagonistic culture), not biological structure (alien race). The number of outright neo-nazi racists in the mob was quite trivial. That is why the mob did not direct its aggression against black-, brown- or yellow-skinned (eg Afrcian, Indian, Asian) people. Lebanese are, in any case, off-white in colour.
The recent criticisms of multiculturalism by Howard and Costello are obviously references to cultural, not racial, attributes expressed by several ethnics. Sydney has recently been plagued by ethnic gangster behaviour - drug gangs, pack rapists, Jihadists and cronyistic lobbyers. These are a socio-psychological, not bio-physiological, phenomenon. The multiculturalists empower, or at least ignore, this kind of bad behaviour.
The Australian is if anything, too moderate in its praise of Howard’s contribution to the reconstruction and conservation of Open Society institutions in this nation. Paul Kelly is nearer the mark:
“** Not apocryphal” PC?
JWRH actually said that? (link please) And your point would be what? Surely not that NO children were thrown overboard? (Remember SIEV 7). Surely not that the MO of the people smugglers was to use their children as leverage to force the RAN to “rescue” them?
http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/maritime_incident_ctte/report/f04.htm
The point of the children overboard affair was not that queue jumpers were unfairly characterised, but that pictures from a specific incident were incorrectly captioned - and that the public record was not corrected in the run up to an election. The public has obviously made the assessment that JWRH was not implicated.
WA Liberal Party powerbroker Senator Noel Crichton-Browne to female journalist: “I’m going to screw your tits off”.
Whistle it, and they will come.
What hooked Howardians fail to consider (or perhaps comprehend) is that if Howard and Costello had a problem with a very small sector of their community, the appropriate action and the most efficient in solving that problem is to quietly enter that community and work from the ground up, with them.
The action that least succeeds in solving their as-broadcast problem is to haul that isolated sector in front of the nation’s public face.
Robert “and work from the ground up, with them”?
And this approach has worked where? I mean in respect of Islam in the West. Seriously.
Just struggling to comprehend
Jack Strocci,
from the website that you quote;
Without a reference to the actual article in Science that this summary references, it’s impossible to make the generalisation that you do. Reviewing the site and the information available from genetics and anthopology as a whole should show you that ideas about “race” are cultural, not genetic.
So Jack Strocchi writes a 700 word plus response to my 180 word potshot at News’ and Howard’s obvious nonsense….feeling a bit sensitive about the record of your man Jack? Anyway, thank you for the windy compliment.
Either way Jack if you like I’m quite happy to change race baiting to the cultural baiting you’ve so helpfully chronicled. I’m not sure which is worse, pandering to racial stereotypes or cultural ones……you know……the brown people are ok but their food smells funny, or they pick their bums in public….and let’s not forget they can’t swim and belong to some recent version of cultural mafiosi…..did I mention that they’re brown??
Oh, and another thing…how is it that after ten years the party in power and it’s bedfellows (and just for certain other readers I mean that in a non-gay way), the folks that have/are shaping the cultural agendas of the day, are not now “elite”? Or are conservative wankers destined to be “outsiders” forever.
But more importantly I have to ask, why do conservatives insist making these fancy excuses up as they go along? Why can’t they just admit their latent reptilian tendencies instead of disguising it behind a firewall of political and intellectual code.
The book should be an interesting read, but more than that it should help balance the lack of literature on the conservative side of politics compared to the tons of stuff you can find on the ALP.
As for being a wank, well I guess people get off in all sorts of ways.
It’s like Beazley’s response to Costello’s little campaign speech: you’re the ones that have been running the show for 10 years - if what you say is true, then whose fault is it?
Sure, we’re in power, but that doesn’t mean we’re responsible for anything.
Happy to disabuse you on that point. They are the elite.
The lefty wannabees who like to delude themselves that they are an “elite” provide the important service to society of entertaining us by whingeing about how they are not listened to, thus demonstrating their irrelevance.
Glad to agree with you GregM. Now if only as Anna mentions they also accept responsibility for stuff…………but then I always notice that rightie rhetoric only allows for lefty responsibility.
The lefty wannabees who delude themselves that they are an “elite”? Those I’d like to meet. All the lefties in my social circle are pretty well-established - nothing wannabee about our leftism, thanks very much. Not too many delusions about having elite status either - not enough income or academic prestige to entertain those.
What is it that you, and Beazley, think that the government has not taken responsibility for?
Make it a long list if you want to.
Beazley was referring to the apparent problem that Costello is whingeing about of immigrants who don’t subscribe to Aussie values. Who was on guard duty?
Then there’s the tiny problem of giving Australian money to an evil dictator, then sending our young people to go and fight him.
Children overboard.
Lying about children overboard depite being told about it.
Letting senior commanders hang out to dry for political expediency.
Intelligence failures.
Politicising the intelligence systems (and we may as well abolish it now).
SIEV X.
Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
Lying about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction despite being told about it.
Ministerial corruption (travel rorts, runway concrete, phone cards, evading GST)
Bribes to Saddam Hussein.
Not knowing anything about bribes to Saddam Hussien despite being told about it.
Rorting grants schemes.
Forgetting about grant schemes rorts because the details were on a whiteboard.
Equipment failures and poor purchasing in the ADF.
Despicable ADF staffing policies and appalling military legal justice system.
Multiculturalism. Which has apparently “failed”. But nothing is done.
Failure to reform the tax system.
Failure to curb Government spending. Overspending.
Middle class welfare.
Business welfare.
Farm sector welfare.
Management of water resources.
Adequate response to global warming.
Laziness and incompetence in riding the resources boom with barely any ideas how to reform it.
Almost complete collapse of the manufacturing exports sector.
Creating a housing price bubble.
Significant and quickening centralisation of political power to Canberra and Sydney.
Peter
There is not such thing as international law in a contextual sense. There are agreements, which like the “law of the sea” is an agreement between the signatories. Nations follow this agreement becaue it is in their interests to do so. Same with the WTO.
The war on Iraq was not illegal. For it to be illegal the US congress would have voted against it. It didn’t, as the opposite is the case. There is no requirement for the US to abrogate national security interest to the UN. This is a joke it’s nonsense.
T-rex
“Laziness and incompetence in riding the resources boom with barely any ideas how to reform it”.
I’m yet to think of a quick response to the rest, but would you mind telling us how that one above got on the list.
Yes, I can understand that the list was long and you may have forgot to delete it. Was that the reason, or you think they should have done something to quell the boom like not allowing supplies to get to the buyers.
I agree with many of Tyro Rex’s points but blaming the Government for Siev X is pathetic. How can the Australian Government be responsible for an unseaworthy vessel loaded with illegal immigrants that sinks after departing from Indonesia?
If the Government had an open slather approach to asylum seekers a Siev X type disaster would happen every week.
Let’s not forget that about 300,000 Vietnamese died at sea after the Vietnam war while atempting to flee to the West. The obliging policies of Fraser Government contributed to this disaster.
The Howard Government’s tough policy on asylum seekers has potentially saved thousands of lives. Having said that I think the conditions in mandatory detention are overly tough.
I would add attacks on the union movement and public education to Tyro Rex’s list.
The hagiographical celebration of Howard certainly needs a corrective. I’d have thought even for righties who would celebrate his achievements some degree of criticism and perspective would be in order. But what we get is “this is the greatest PM and political tactician in our lifetimes” repeated ad absurdum, usually in such a way that brushes over the problems Australia continues to face (even in terms of Howard’s own cultural and economic agenda) and reads his errors and misjudgements out of the past record.
Don’t overstate it, Mark. Hawke was the greatest PM in my lifetime. Howard is probably the better tactician, though, although I’m not sure whether that is by instinct or guile. Probably a mixture of both.
Howard’s biggest achievement is that he has listened to the electorate not made the electorate listen to him (you have to live through Gough to know what I mean).
That’s right, rog - listened to the electorate as opposed to the commentariat. The secret of Howard’s success; and the converse is the secret of Labor’s failure.
I meant to add - that’s Labor’s current dilemma. Listen to the electorate, and lose the commentariat: listen to the commentariat, and lose the electorate. Which?
Rob, some of the stuff in the papers at the moment about how he is unequalled as a politician is just absurd. He’s a good politician, but there are others, and he’s quite capable of stuffups, and not unbeatable (if we had a decent opposition). How would he have been remembered if he’d been the first one term PM in 90 years if a few votes had fallen differently in a few seats in 98 when he lost the 2PP to Labor?
He has certainly benefited from a crap opposition, Mark. In fact, one of the more intersting questions we should be asking today is - why has the opposition been so crap for the last ten years? Howard is non-charismatic (not that charisma is a good thing as such, but it’s an electoral asset), looks bad on TV, etc. He shouldn’t be that hard to beat. So why is he?
Our Johny will have a bigger smile on his face when his tribe of sycophants
read this twaddle from Newsweek,than he had when Alexander Downer gave him a wedgy in the crapper at Parliament House.Wankerdemics can analyse Howards staying power all they like,But his demise is assured.The shredders in Canberra are in full swing now.The conservatives in Britain thought they were going to rule for ever,(conservatives being born to rule)Blair proved otherwise.The first Blair election saw the conservatives holding their meetings in a telephone box.You can only tell porkies for so long before the plebes get the hump.
The so called economic boom,housing bubble,and the I.R. reforms will soon kick in,and the worm will turn.Our conservative friends would have us believe the best days of the Labor Party are over.Pigs Arse.They have just started.For mine Keating has a lot to answer for!
The love affair the Australian people have had with the current set of social mis-fits,will no doubt have the intellegentsia from all sides of politics baffled for years.Just like in Britain,in a few years time we chardonay lefty’s will wonder what all the fuss was about.
Phill
Tyro, just for starters:
Just how is the Howard government reponsible for Ros Kelly’s carelessness with a whiteboard? She was a Minister in Keating’s government, not Howard’s.
How does one reform a resources boom?
How can a government overspend and yet regularly deliver surplus budgets, reducing government debt to almost nil?
According to the ABS http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/Previousproducts/677A1372A2E43321CA256F7200832FC8?opendocument the value of Australia’s manufacturing exports in 1996/97 was $48,494 million while in 2003/04 it was $62,224 million, a 28% increase. In what way is this a complete collapse?
What are the despicable staffing policies and in what way is the military justice system appalling?
Rob - in short with regard to the ALP, poor leadership, being afraid to do policy differentiation, philosophical confusion and sclerotic party structures.
Mark, I agree with Rob about Bob Hawke and I’ve got a lot of time for Keating too. They did the tough spadework in reforming the Australian economy and Howard rides on the back of their reforms. He’s much assisted by having a weak Opposition who give every indication that they are out of touch with their heartland.
Also, your Spaminator has chewed up an earlier comment of mine.
Rescued from its clutches, Greg.
I have a lot of admiration for Keating, but sadly he lost his political touch in the last term. He may have had a point that he came to the PM’s office too late.
Good points all, Mark, but I can’t help feeling the problem is deeper. I still believe Robert Manne nailed it after the last election when he said that Labor cannot go to the people with a platform derived from the program of the left intelligentsia - because the electorate simply doesn’t agree with it.
Which begs the question - what else is Labor to go to the people with?
I think Rob’s got it - and no-one has read the book, only the bits’n'pieces published in the Oz yesterday. Hawke, much as he was/is a unpleasant person was a great PM for what he did. Howard IS a political master - but there is a need for a complete history with some analysis of problems (actual or imagined). But the love/hate tit-for-tat doesn’t really add anything.
Sorry, Tyro, I don’t think many of them are on your list (except the “welfare trinity” - well spoken there, but much of it was in place or started pre-Howard). Jack, JC & CG are probably framing suitable Fiskings as we speak, so I’ll leave it to them.
GregM - I believe Mr. Rex was referring to this.
JC said
“There is not such thing as international law in a contextual sense. There are agreements, which like the “law of the seaâ€? is an agreement between the signatories. Nations follow this agreement becaue it is in their interests to do so. Same with the WTO.
The war on Iraq was not illegal. For it to be illegal the US congress would have voted against it. It didn’t, as the opposite is the case. There is no requirement for the US to abrogate national security interest to the UN. This is a joke it’s nonsense.”
I dont know if you care, JC, but all of this is factually incorrect.
On top of agreements, there’s customary international law (the other major source), some of which is considered jus cogens (ie a peremptory norm which cant be overridden, even by a treaty). All nations agreed to this in Vienna in the 1960s, so there’s no question it exists, and it doesnt even abrogate state sovereignty, since states signed up voluntarily.
One of the most important permeptory norms is non-agression, in the absence of a direct threat (self-defence). Hence the bollocks about WMDs. It was illegal under international law, has been since 1946 at least - and can only be authorised by the security council.
Which it wasnt. Hence the pretend self-defence angle, which is the only remaining justification under international law.
“I still believe Robert Manne nailed it after the last election when he said that Labor cannot go to the people with a platform derived from the program of the left intelligentsia - because the electorate simply doesn’t agree with it.”
I’m not so sure, Rob. Maybe it’s about how you sell it. Australians are pragmatic realists rather than conservative. True social conservatives are a pretty small minority in our society, but there’s a distinct aversion to being told we’re not progressive enough by people who live in Newtown, Carlton, Paddington and Fitzroy. There was an interesting report mid last week (can’t remember where I read it - SMH?) about the increasng socially liberal tendency in Howard’s time against the backdrop of a socially conservative leadership. The RU486 debate is an indication of this. Overwhelmingly, Australians are pro-choice, driven, perhaps, by the deeply ingrained aversion to “godbothering” which has characterised our society for generations.
Bob Hawke was the consummate exponent of progressivism as pragmatism, attuned as he was to the Australian psyche in a not dissimilar way to Howard but with a broader sense of possibility. Australians rightly suspected Keating of not holding them in high regard.
I was, in retrospect, wrong about the ALP leadership stoush after Latham exploded - but Mark was on the money. Gillard - Left faction for political expedience, hard-headed Hawkeite in terms of her sense of political possibility - would have been a better choice than Beazley.
Geoff, I live in hope that Gillie might still replace Beazley this term.
I live in hope that anyone will replace Beazley this term.