John Howard
John Winston Howard is an Australian former politician who served as the 25th prime minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007, holding office as leader of the Liberal Party of Australia. His eleven-year tenure as prime minister is the second-longest in Australian history, after that of Robert Menzies.
Howard was born in Sydney and studied law at the University of Sydney. He was a commercial lawyer before entering parliament. A former federal president of the Young Liberals, he first stood for office at the 1968 New South Wales state election, but lost narrowly. At the 1974 federal election, Howard was elected as a member of parliament for the division of Bennelong. He was promoted to cabinet in 1977, and later in the year replaced Phillip Lynch as treasurer of Australia, remaining in that position until the defeat of Malcolm Fraser's government at the 1983 election. In 1985, Howard was elected leader of the Liberal Party for the first time, thus replacing Andrew Peacock as Leader of the Opposition. He led the Liberal–National coalition to the 1987 federal election, but lost to Bob Hawke's Labor government, and was removed from the leadership in 1989. Remaining a key figure in the party, Howard was re-elected leader in 1995, replacing Alexander Downer, and subsequently led the Coalition to a landslide victory at the 1996 federal election.
In his first term, Howard introduced reformed gun laws in response to the Port Arthur massacre, and controversially implemented a nationwide value-added tax, breaking a pre-election promise. The Howard government called a snap election for October 1998, which they won, albeit with a greatly reduced majority. Going into the 2001 election, the Coalition trailed behind Labor in opinion polling. However, in a campaign dominated by national security, Howard introduced changes to Australia's immigration system to deter asylum seekers from entering the country, and pledged military assistance to the United States following the September 11 attacks. Due to this, Howard won widespread support, and his government was narrowly re-elected.
In Howard's third term in office, Australia contributed troops to the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War, and led the International Force for East Timor. The Coalition was re-elected once more at the 2004 federal election. In his final term in office, his government introduced industrial relations reforms known as WorkChoices, which proved controversial and unpopular with the public. The Howard government was defeated at the 2007 federal election, with the Labor Party's Kevin Rudd succeeding him as prime minister. Howard also lost his own seat of Bennelong at the election to Maxine McKew, becoming only the second prime minister to do so, after Stanley Bruce at the 1929 election. Following this loss, Howard retired from politics, but has remained active in political discourse.
Howard's government presided over a sustained period of economic growth and a large "mining boom", and significantly reduced government debt by the time he left office. He was known for his broad appeal to voters across the political spectrum, and commanded a diverse base of supporters, colloquially referred to as his "battlers". Retrospectively, ratings of Howard's premiership have been polarised. His critics have admonished him for involving Australia in the Iraq War, his policies regarding asylum seekers, and his economic agenda. Nonetheless, he has been frequently ranked within the upper-tier of Australian prime ministers by political experts and the general public.
Early life and education
Howard is the fourth son of Mona and Lyall Howard, who married in 1925. Howard was also known as "Jack" in his youth. His older brothers were Walter, Stanley and Robert. Lyall Howard was an admirer of Winston Churchill. Howard's ancestors were English, Scottish, and Irish. He is descended from convict William Tooley, who was transported to New South Wales in 1816 for stealing a watch.Howard was born and raised in the Sydney suburb of Earlwood, in a Methodist family. His mother had been an office worker until her marriage, while his father and his paternal grandfather, Walter Howard, were both veterans of the First Australian Imperial Force in the First World War. They also ran two Dulwich Hill petrol stations where Howard worked as a boy. In 1955, when Howard was aged 16, his father died, leaving his mother to take care of him.
Howard suffered a hearing impairment in his youth, leaving him with a slight speech impediment, and he continues to wear a hearing aid. It also influenced him in subtle ways, limiting his early academic performance; encouraging a reliance on an excellent memory; and in his mind ruling out becoming a barrister as a likely career.
Howard attended Earlwood Primary School and Canterbury Boys' High School. He won a citizenship prize in his final year at Earlwood, and subsequently represented his secondary school at debating as well as cricket and rugby union. Cricket remained a lifelong hobby. In his final year at school he took part in a radio show hosted by Jack Davey, Give It a Go, broadcast on the commercial radio station, 2GB. After gaining his Leaving Certificate, he studied law at the University of Sydney, graduating with a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1962. Howard began working for the firm of Stephen Jaques and Stephen as a junior solicitor. In 1964, he took a trip around the world, visiting Britain, Europe, Israel, India, and Singapore. After returning to Sydney in 1965, he began working for Clayton Utz, but He subsequently moved to a smaller firm, which became Truman, Nelson and Howard after he was made a partner.
Early political career
Howard joined the Liberal Party in 1957. He was a member of the party's New South Wales state executive and was federal president of the Young Liberals from 1962 to 1964. Howard supported Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War, although has since said there were "aspects of it that could have been handled and explained differently".At the 1963 federal election, Howard acted as campaign manager for Tom Hughes in his local seat of Parkes. Hughes went on to defeat the 20-year Labor incumbent, Les Haylen. In mid-1964, Howard travelled to London to work and travel for a period. He volunteered for the Conservative Party in the electorate of Holborn and St Pancras South at the 1964 UK general election. In 1967, with the support of party power brokers John Carrick and Eric Willis, Howard was endorsed as candidate for the marginal suburban state seat of Drummoyne, held by Labor's Reg Coady. Howard's mother sold the family home in Earlwood and rented a house with him at Five Dock, a suburb within the electorate. At the election in February 1968, in which the incumbent state Liberal government was returned to office, Howard narrowly lost to Coady, despite campaigning vigorously.
At the 1974 federal election, Howard successfully contested the Division of Bennelong, located in suburban Sydney. The election saw the return of the Gough Whitlam-led Labor government. Howard supported Malcolm Fraser for the leadership of the Liberal Party against Billy Snedden following the 1974 election. When Fraser won office at the 1975 federal election, Howard was appointed Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs, a position in which he served until 1977. At this stage, he followed the protectionist and pro-regulation stance of Fraser and the Liberal Party.
Treasurer
In December 1977, aged 38, Howard was appointed Treasurer, in place of Phillip Lynch. He was the youngest Treasurer since Chris Watson in 1904. Fraser said in his memoirs that he appointed him despite his limited experience because "he was bright and he got across a brief well, and he was a good manager".During his five years in the position, Howard became an adherent of free-market economics, which was challenging economic orthodoxies in place for most of the century. He came to favour tax reform including broad-based taxation, a freer industrial system including the dismantling of the centralised wage-fixing system, the abolition of compulsory trade unionism, privatisation and deregulation.
In 1978, the Fraser government instigated the Campbell Committee to investigate financial system reforms. Howard supported the Campbell report, but adopted an incremental approach with Cabinet, as there was wide opposition to deregulation within the government and the treasury. The process of reform began before the committee reported 2 years later, with the introduction of the tender system for the sale of Treasury notes in 1979, and Treasury bonds in 1982. Ian Macfarlane described these reforms as "second only in importance to the float of the Australian dollar in 1983." In 1981, Howard proposed a broad-based indirect tax with compensatory cuts in personal rates; however, cabinet rejected it citing both inflationary and political reasons. After the free-marketeers or "drys" of the Liberals challenged the protectionist policies of Minister for Industry and Commerce Phillip Lynch, they shifted their loyalties to Howard. Following an unsuccessful leadership challenge by Andrew Peacock to unseat Fraser as prime minister, Howard was elected deputy leader of the Liberal Party in April 1982. His election depended largely on the support of the "drys", and he became the party's champion of the growing free-market lobby.
The economic crises of the early 1980s brought Howard into conflict with the Keynesian Fraser. As the economy headed towards the worst recession since the 1930s, Fraser pushed an expansionary fiscal position much to Howard's and Treasury's horror. With his authority as treasurer being flouted, Howard considered resigning in July 1982, but, after discussions with his wife and senior advisor John Hewson, he decided to The 1982 wages explosion—wages rose 16 per cent across the country—resulted in stagflation; unemployment touched double-digits and inflation peaked at 12.5%.
The Fraser government with Howard as Treasurer lost the 1983 election to the Labor Party led by Bob Hawke. Over the course of the 1980s, the Liberal Party came to accept the free-market policies that Fraser had resisted and Howard had espoused. Policies included low protection, decentralisation of wage fixation, financial deregulation, a broadly based indirect tax, and the rejection of counter-cyclical fiscal policy.