Howard government
The Howard government was the federal executive government of Australia led by Prime Minister John Howard between 11 March 1996 and 3 December 2007. It was made up of members of the Liberal–National Coalition, which won a majority of seats in the House of Representatives at four successive elections. The Howard government commenced following victory over the Keating government at the 1996 federal election. It concluded with its defeat at the 2007 federal election by the Australian Labor Party, whose leader Kevin Rudd then formed the first Rudd government. It was the second-longest government under a single prime minister, with the longest having been the second Menzies government.
Two senior ministers served in single roles for the duration of the government; Peter Costello as Treasurer and Alexander Downer as Minister for Foreign Affairs. The leader of the National Party served as Deputy Prime Minister. Three men served in this capacity during the Howard government: Tim Fischer until July 1999, followed by John Anderson until July 2005 and then Mark Vaile. Decisions of the Executive were made either by the Cabinet or by the appropriate Minister.
For the first three terms of government, and part of the fourth term, the Howard government did not have control of the Senate. Legislation needed the support of the Opposition or minor parties for that legislation to be passed and become law. In the 2004 election, the Coalition won control of the Senate for all but the first nine months of its fourth term, and was able to pass legislation without the support of minor parties. The government also faced internal problems and tension, with the loss of numerous ministers during its first term due to the introduction of a ministerial code of conduct and ongoing leadership rivalry between John Howard and Peter Costello.
Significant issues for the Howard government included implementation of substantial spending cuts in its first term of office and completely paying off government debt; gun control; the popularity of Pauline Hanson and her One Nation party; industrial relations reforms, including the 1998 waterfront dispute and the introduction of WorkChoices; the 1999 Australian republic referendum; reconciliation and native title; the introduction of a goods and services tax; the 1999 Australian-led intervention in East Timor; blocking boats of refugees from seeking asylum in Australia; the "war on terror"; the intervention in Northern Territory Indigenous communities; and an economy that experienced sustained growth throughout the government's term of office.
Background
became Leader of the Opposition on 30 January 1995, replacing Alexander Downer, who resigned in his favour. Downer took the position of Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Peter Costello retained his position as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party and Shadow Treasurer.Howard had had a long Parliamentary career, having entered Parliament in 1974 and serving as Treasurer in the Fraser government from 1977 to 1983. He replaced Andrew Peacock as leader of the Opposition in 1985 and challenged the Hawke government at the 1987 election, which saw Labor returned. Peacock successfully challenged and replaced Howard prior to the 1990 election, which again returned Labor. The Liberals turned to two further leaders before restoring Howard to the office to lead the Coalition against the Keating Labor government. Long-serving Labor Treasurer Paul Keating had successfully challenged Bob Hawke for the leadership of the Labor Party and the prime ministership in 1991. Despite Australia suffering a deep recession in the early 1990s, Labor had increased its lead over the Coalition at the 1993 election, which had seen the Liberals under Hewson offer an ambitious program of economic reform called Fightback!, which proposed a Goods and Services Tax as its centrepiece.
As opposition leader, Howard delivered a series of "headland speeches", which dealt broadly with the philosophy of government. In contrast to Keating, he used these addresses to speak in favour of traditional Australian institutions and symbols like the Australian flag and ANZAC legacy. By the time of the 1996 Election, unemployment was high, but at a lower rate than at the previous 1993 Election, and interest rates were lower than they had been in 1990, but foreign debt had been growing. The Keating government was projecting a small budget surplus. Following the election, an $8 billion deficit was confirmed.
Delivering his Policy Launch Speech at the Ryde Civic Centre in Sydney on 18 February 1996, Howard emphasised that Labor had been in office a long time, and cited high inflation, a poor current account deficit and high national debt as evidence of bad economic management. He called for industrial relations reform to increase flexibility and improve productivity and offered tax relief for families. He proposed increased spending on environmental challenges, to be in part funded by the partial sale of Telstra. He also promised to restore the prime minister's attendance at question time in parliament.
The 1996 Election brought to an end 13 years of the Hawke-Keating Labor government.
First term: 1996–1998
Election win
The Liberal-National Coalition won the federal election on 2 March 1996 against the incumbent Keating Labor government. The coalition had a 45-seat majority in the House of Representatives. Howard announced his proposed ministry team on 8 March 1996, with the Governor-General swearing them into office on 11 March. The size of the Coalition victory gave John Howard great power within the Liberal party and he said he came to the office "with very clear views on where I wanted to take the country". In the first week of the new government, Howard sacked six department heads and chose new department heads himself and changes were made across the public service.Port Arthur massacre and gun control
On 28 April 1996, eight weeks into the new government's term, 35 people were shot dead by a lone gunman in Port Arthur, Tasmania. John Howard led a push to significantly increase restrictions on gun ownership, which divided the cabinet and inflamed some rural voters who were an important part of the Coalition's core constituency. The new National Firearms Program Implementation Act 1996 restricted the ownership of semi-automatic rifles, semi-automatic shotguns, pump-action shotguns, and introduced uniform firearms licensing. It was implemented with bipartisan support by the Commonwealth, States and Territories.Government spending cuts
The government stated that the previous Keating government had left them with an unexpected $7.6 billion "black hole" budget deficit. The new treasurer, Peter Costello, and Finance Minister, John Fahey worked at reducing Commonwealth expenditure. This involved reneging on a number of election commitments, which Howard defended as "non-core promises". At the first Coalition government budget, the public service was "downsized", the Commonwealth Employment Service was privatised, and cuts were made to all departments with the exception of defence. $8 billion in spending cuts were made over the government's first two budgets.Industrial relations and waterfront dispute
Industrial relations reform had been a key issue canvassed by John Howard in the 1996 election campaign. On 1 January 1997, the majority of the provisions of the Workplace Relations Act 1996 came into effect. The Act substantially amended the Industrial Relations Act 1988 and, under the legislation, the jurisdiction of the Industrial Relations Court of Australia, established by the Keating government in 1994, was transferred to the Federal Court of Australia. Elements of the reforms were opposed by the Labor Party and Union movement. The Australian Council of Trade Unions called the "cavalcade to Canberra" rally to protest against the industrial relations reform agenda. The protest began with senior Australian Trade Union officials including ACTU President Jennie George and Assistant Secretary Greg Combet, as well as senior members of the Australian Labor Party rallying demonstrators from a podium. The initially peaceful protest deteriorated into the 1996 Parliament House riot which saw a breakaway group of protesters attack the entrance to Parliament.The Howard government made waterfront reform a key feature of the 'first wave' of its industrial relations agenda. Their goal was to lift exports and hence improve the economy, but also sought to use it as a symbolic issue to decrease trade union influence. Initially, new workplace legislation was introduced in December 1996—following a deal with Democrats Leader Cheryl Kernot—to include a no-disadvantage test, increase employer's power to deal directly with workers, limit strike action, ban secondary boycotts, ban compulsory unionism, and introduce Australian Workplace Agreements. Large fines were imposed on unions involved in illegal strike activity.
An "Interventionist Strategy" was devised in March 1997 between Industrial Relations Minister, Peter Reith, Transport Minister John Sharp, and Patrick Corporation managing director Chris Corrigan whereby Patrick's would replace the existing current unionised labour with non-unionised labour using the government's new industrial relations legislation. The government agreed to the company's request to fund redundancy payments later announced to be $150 million. The company secretly trained an alternate workforce in Dubai. In December 1997, the plan became public and the union movement was able to stop the Dubai training; the training was finished in Australia with the assistance of the National Farmers' Federation. At 11 pm 7 April 1998, Corrigan, with the assistance of security guards with dogs, sacked the union workforce of 1,400 across the country, and replaced it with the alternate non-union labour. John Howard described the action as "a fightback by the people of Australia against the inefficiency of the wharves."
Over the following months, a bitter and sometimes violent dispute took place at port locations. The Maritime Union of Australia took the case to the Federal Court and after an appeals process, and an interim injunction instructing the company to reinstate the 1,400 workers, the High Court ultimately found in favour of the MUA. The MUA and Patricks reached a new workplace and productivity agreement, which was adopted in June 1998, that included halving the permanent workforce, casualisation and contracting, the MUA retaining the right to represent maritime workers, and changing work practices to what the company originally sought.