federal politics
18 Nov 2008
The Howard Years
The first episode of the ABC's four-part series reminds us how divisive and partisan that great "centrist" really was, writes Ben Eltham
Roughly a year after the end of his government, the ABC has memorialised John Howard's reign with The Howard Years.A follow-up to the influential (though now largely forgotten) Labor in Power, The Howard Years gathers together hours of interviews with some of the key actors in Howard's government, as well as the man himself.
Filmed before the 1993 election, Labor in Power was a revelation, partly because many of the garrulous and colourful characters Bob Hawke had gathered in his cabinet thought Labor would lose. In contrast, Howard's government had already been booted out when the ABC began making this documentary. Key cabinet members clearly have an eye on the history books, and there is an obvious agenda of self-justification and record straightening from many, including of course Peter Costello.
The best interviews last night were with those that we haven't seen commonly go on the record: for example chiefs of staff Graham Morris and Arthur Sinodinos, or Costello's media flak Nikki Savva. Less interesting, or at least more predictable, were the contributions from the former prime minister himself.
One key Howard advisor who wasn't interviewed, to the lasting disappointment of historians of the era, was Janette Howard. The former prime minister's closest confidante was a key decision maker in the very small Howard inner circle. It is striking how often she was referred to in last night's episode focussing on the earlier part of Howard's reign; her power would only grow as time wore on.
Last night's episode covered the tumultuous events of Howard's first term: the deficit left by Labor, the Port Arthur massacre and subsequent gun control controversy, the rise of Pauline Hanson and the genesis of the waterfront dispute, and the decision to go to a 1998 election on the platform of introducing a GST.
Even so, there are important elements that aren't covered. There is no examination of the various ministers sacked due to Howard's strict early Ministerial Code of Conduct, and we don't hear much about Howard's clear policy agenda of punishing Labor power bases and supporters, like higher education, ATSIC and Labor-tainted bureaucrats. That's to be expected: any piece of television has length constraints.
Even so, while episode one — "Change the Government, Change the Country" — tells us little that we didn't already know, it does help us to understand some important aspects of Howard's early reign. The obvious ambivalence of the Prime Minister towards Hanson and her agenda is contrasted with his firmness on the gun debate; likewise, Howard's humiliating early brush with the reconciliation debate is shown as sowing the seeds for his later intransigence on the issue of saying "sorry".
What also emerges is a better understanding of how radically Howard centralised, and even embodied, the decision making functions of the Australian government. Bob Hawke, by contrast, had been committed to a consensus model of cabinet, and surrounded himself with powerful, talented figures like Paul Keating, Gareth Evans and Barry Jones. But right from the beginning Howard was prepared to take big decisions on his own in a way that surprised even his colleagues. The GST decision, for instance, was not taken to Treasury, the ATO or even his Finance Minister. Instead Howard essentially imposed it on his party by force of will.
The episode also reminds us, for those who weren't there or have since forgotten, what a different country Australia was 13 years ago, and how unpopular many of Howard's decisions often were. The rise of Pauline Hanson and Howard's Queensland speech on political correctness show what has since become much more obvious: that Howard was a viscerally partisan figure, committed to fighting a brutal culture war against the symbols as well as the substance of small-l liberal thought.
This was not popular politics at the time, and it arguably never was, though later election victories allowed many in the media to convince themselves that Howard had some kind of magical compact with "middle Australia".
In fact, despite a 40-seat majority, Howard nearly lost the 1998 election, suffering a 5 per cent swing against his government and losing 19 seats. According to last night's episode, Andrew Robb's exit polls showed the party would lose office; the Prime Minister gathered his family in the Green Room at Kirribilli House to give them the news. Labor notably won the two-party preferred vote 51/49, but the big buffers built up by the Coalition in the 1996 landslide and the emergence of One Nation as a national party (it scored 8 per cent of the primary vote) ensured Howard was returned.
His second term would prove to be much more assured than his first: indeed, it started to dawn on colleagues and opponents alike that they had under-estimated John Howard, yet again.
As a piece of television, The Howard Years is fascinating viewing for political junkies. It contains some important interviews, a sprinkling of revelations and some really valuable snippets of archival footage. But it is scarcely going to rewrite history. And in much of the testimony, there is just the slightest hint of sanctimony.
But then, it was a pretty self-righteous administration.
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There were no real surprises just a disapointment that even looking back on his first term Howard was simply incapable of acknowledging that at least some of his policies, actions were mistaken or misconceived. The failure to tackle Hanson, the failure to respond to the demand for reconcilation, the willingness to destroy the union movement all suggest a person so steeped in adverserial politics that he had little consideration of what was good for the country as a whole. As far as his cabinet is concerned Fahey, Costello, Vanstone and Downer at least demonstrated that they had some sense of moral responsibility; little wonder that Peter Reith was out there on his own - a man with no scruples and indeed a remarkable capacity to forget significant matters.
I agree with the article and John above there were no real surprises really. Just a man that had no idea what he was doing except following his warped right wing ideaology at all costs and not even listing to his own party members. It goes to show that that rally in Sydney against the Iraq war had zero bearing on Howard he had complete contempt for the people that elected him. He should be jailed for war crimes against the people of Iraq and Australian soldiers who were affected by Iraq.
I think one of the most illuminating aspects of last night’s episode is something that was completely left out: the Kyoto conference - arguably the single most important decision of his entire government in terms of the long-term future of the country.
Australia’s shamfeul performance at Kyoto under Robert Hill enarly derailed the whole conference; then Howard and his cabinet refused to ratify the Protocol anyway.
Yet, judging by last night’s episode, attacking the union movement over waterfront reform was a far more important priority.
Well spotted Ben re Kyoto.
And here’s another surprising omission - Jabiluka U mine, where Howard was beaten pointless by hundreds, nay thousands of Australian green activists led by the beautiful Yvonne Margarula and Jacqui Katona as traditional owners.
Nor was this a sideshow - it prefaced the defeat of the NT state refendum in 2000 or so and the election of the Martin ALP govt after eons of Country Liberal turfing out Shane Stone around 2001.
I wonder if that will come up in episode 2?
Another big anti environmental legacy was the Howard Govt compounding of Keating’s redneck approach to our best forests with an escalation of the woodchipping sector under the discredited so called ‘regional’ forest ‘agreements’. For RFA one ought read splitting and destruction of our scarce national forest heritage. This in particular marries up with the omission of the Kyoto treaty only 5 or so years after Rio global conference.
Such is the funeral march to ecological collapse complete with Big Media voyeurs making sound and fury signifying very little. I notice the first cyclone of the new Climate in Brisbane ….
Oh and some other feedback - I didn’t find it fascinating, but I did think it was very well made regardless of omissions - well done again ABC folks.
Personally given my Sunday Talkies blog piece every week for the last two years I would say the vision of Howard badgering and hectoring the Aboriginal Reconciliation conference was about the most shameful performance I can recall seeing any politician manifest here in Oz in my time.
Given the proximity to the Wik ‘bucket loads of extinguishment’ public meeting central west NSW for Agri business - only some 9 days earlier - I think it was entirely premeditated. Pat Dodson says Howard was riled up and emotional.
You know what Pat? I don’t believe a buy it despite from your good self. I say he was totally inside himself and in the moment. He knew the politics and he knew which were the ‘right’ enemies to have from his side of politics. Same with Hanson. He wanted that demographic and Costello called it right. What a nasty piece of work JH really was all for the sake of his endless ambition.
I’ve played the emotion card myself as a local council pollie on display when 4 years at Bondi. It’s in the kit bag of tools any decent pollie brings to speechifying. As they say it’s theatre for ugly people, and no one was so ugly as Howard at that moment pissing any goodwill he might have brought to the table all over the floor. Deliberately would be my view. Grim stuff.
Tom, good points all.
I would caution that Brisbane’s storm was only that, a severe storm, there were actually severe storms at least this bad in 2003 that everyone seems to have forgotten about.
But your point is valid in the sense that cyclones are well capable of hitting Brisbane - indeed, it was a cyclone that caused the 1974 floods. If, as the science seems to be suggesting, warmer oceans means more intense cyclones, then the whole Qld coast is vulnerable
The political scientist L.F. Crisp categorised Australian political parties as either Labor or Anti-Labor. I think Howard was a prime example of an old-fashioned anti-Labor politician whose main motivation was to keep Labor out of power,social division and human rights violations are simply collateral damage. It’s remarkable how many of the members of the Howard government have different interpretations of the same events, I’m amazed how they survived for so long with such poor communications.
As someone from the more I am one of only a few that has an easy respect for Peter Costello.
After watching last night’s episode, my feelings were vindicated. Indeed, it would be easy to say that it is almost as much about Costello as it is about Howard … and Costello comes off almost a saint compared to his former boss.
On the other hand there is that clown Peter Reith. How is it, as a Minister he knew nothing about anything. What a disgrace.
Sorry - I forgot to preview… I will try again…
As someone who identifies more himself as left of centre I often find myself quite alone as on of only a few that has an easy respect for Peter Costello.
After watching last night’s episode, my feelings were vindicated. Indeed, it would be easy to say that it is almost as much about Costello as it is about Howard … and Costello comes off almost a saint compared to his former boss.
On the other hand there is that clown Peter Reith. How is it, as a Minister he knew nothing about anything. What a disgrace.
ABC insiders have stated that John Howard had power of veto over the program. In the interests of eliminating politicval bias it would be
interesting to know what and how much Howard censored.
Started watching it, became furious. turned it off, felt immediately better.
I think the show probably makes players from both sides feel vindicated. Everyone knew what he was doing while he was doing it; it was always a matter of whether they approved. I don’t think this will change anybody’s mind.
My first impressions are at The Howard Years: first impressions
The program has been touted as being in their own words without commentary. Yet the voice over "history" by Fran Kelly accepts a very conventional view of what happened. Most of it could have been written by Howard’s old press office. There is no coverage of any opposition from the Labor Party. It’s hard to imagine how Kim Beazley won the two-party-preferred vote in 1998.
Kevin Rennie
You could run a competition on the series.
Fran Kelly has said the programme is not judgmental, the viewer makes up their own mind on the various issues raised.
In the first of the series there were a number of direct contradictions of some of the main players statements.
The aim could be to detect and record all of these throughout the series. Best detective wins.
First prize dinner for two with John & Janette. The winner should have a few good conversation starters/stoppers.
My thanks to Ben Eltham for watching the program and giving his report to the rest of us. I didn’t watch it and am glad I didn’t. Living through Howard’s misrule and watching him taint everything he touched was more than enough for me. I think the Liberal brand will need some reinventing over time to rectify the damage he has done to it. The ABC ‘promos’ asked some of his people to give a one word description of him. I suggest the following, a series of one words:-
Vainglorious, medacious, unpleasant, unprincipled, vicious, nasty, vile.
There are good reasons why, in democracies, we let our political leaders retire in comfort and do not go after them and "tax them with their misdemenours". If we did they wouldn’t give up power and we would suffer as a result. In the case of Howard it would be very tempting to see him front a Court to answer for his actions, but I realise he has to be allowed to get away with them for our greater good. He did more than enough damage to our democratic processes and institutions during his tenure.
The observation that Howard was touted as a centrist, while his actions as PM were highly controversial, is an interesting one. I don’t think the two statements are contradictory: Howard retained the support of many ordinary Australians, while at the same time making all the most vocal sections of society howl (trade unions, university students, the trendy elements of the media). But his victory in four consecutive elections cannot be denied.
Also (and without wanting to be snotty):
1. The ‘Labor in Power’ documentary was both made, and broadcast, in 1994. It did not discuss the improbability of Labor winning the 1993 election, but rather that fact that Labor had won. Robert Ray earned signficant kudos - in my view - for pointing out that Labor had only squeaked in, and would face an uphill battle in 1996. ‘Labor in Power’ is a great doco, and is still available from the ABC via special order.
2. The fact that One Nation won 8% of the primary vote in 1998 was NOT one of the factors that kept Howard in power. As in the Qld state election earlier that same year (in which the Liberals only won 3 seats), One Nation’s strategy was to place sitting members last on its How-to-Vote cards. This naturally operated to the detriment of the side with the most seats (ie- the Coalition). Howard’s resurgence in 2001 is generally attributed to the fact that Tampa allowed him to win back all the social conservatives who had defected in 1998.
One Nation was a disaster for Australian conservatism.
How much yelling was there? At the pro-gun protesters, at the Aboriginals, at the unions. It was good to see someone have passion when being Prime Minister, rather than Rudd’s boring monotone.
I think it is pretty difficult to blame just John Howard for centralising the role of the PM, all Australians do it. We see the US with their presidential elections and want the same here. We don’t vote for the PM directly, though pretty much all media puts it this way. If the electorate sees it that the PM is the top, then politically it would be astute to act that way. Rudd does it, absolutely. Has anybody seen Steven Smith on an overseas trip in the last year? (He’s the foreign minister).
Also, what do all commenters think of the lower/middle class who voted for Howard? Were they duped for such a long time? Do they really share his views?
John - my understanding of Labor in Power is that many of the interviews were filmed before the 1993 election, which contributed to the frankness of some of the comments. But it was a long time ago and I haven’t seen it since it was aired!
In terms of the 1998 election, my reasoning for the effect of the One Nation vote is as follows. Labor, although it won the 2-party preferred terms, did not poll particularly well in its primary vote. One of the reasons for this was that One Nation took significant levels of primary votes away from both Labor and Liberal. I don’t think we can necessarily take too much from One Nation how-to-vote decisions: I scrutineered in an Ipswich electorate at the 1998 Queensland election and noticed that One Nation preferences scattered quite randomly across the spectrum.
According to Parliamentary Library analysis, 53.6% of One Nation preferences flowed to conservative candidates - suggesting that significant numbers of Labor voters opted for One Nation in 1998. You can see the paper here:
http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rn/1999-2000/2000rn04.htm
Hate him, what a sleeze bucket Howard is/was/ever will be
Anything on John Howard where Fran Kelly was involved is going to be utterly biased towards Howard. She had been in love with the man for years, and still fights to keep his name unsullied, as indeed she did in this little bit of re-writing history. Even the ABC, a wholly-owned child of Howard now, is not going to be in any way unbiased. This thing was done to bring Howard back to national prominence, and probably intended to allow him to make more money on the talk circuit. I am so glad to see that there has been some dissention from this self-serving garbage in recent Media, and that tonight on SBS (barring last minute cancellations for unspoken reasons) a much more truthful story is being told about some of the Howard Years.
Yes, indeed, Howard and most of his ex-Ministers (especially Vanstone, Ruddock, Reith, Downer) SHOULD be put before the International Court in The Hague for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. Right alongside his mates Bush and Cheney and Rummy. And so many others of his ilk.
However, I hear that there is heavy pressure on the incoming Barack Obama administration to drop all pending and intending charges against the War Criminals in the Bush Administration. Here, Rudd has no intention of taking any action against these people. After all, he and his Labour Mates went along with them ALL THE WAY! They are all tarred with the same very nasty brush!
Dazza.
Much as I hated the subject matter I think the ABC’s The Howard Years (part one) is a brilliant documentary in as much that they have allowed the tawdry politicians who clustered around John Howard to reveal their own veniality. Peter Reith gives a stunning rendition of Peter Reith, a man incapable of telling anything but lies. John Winston Howard is revealed with chilling accuracy as being a bag of ambition (supported by the Nationals/Country Party and a cast of trash-not to put too fine a point on it) Here is a man devoid of introspection, mercilessly ordinary, completely vain, and with no intellectual ability at all. He epitomizes "the little man who gets into a position of power syndrome".
The One Nation Party whose very name is indicative of what they were not. They aimed to split the nation, not unite it. Like the three witches in Macbeth, a vocal little side-trip, but without the witches’ ability to attend the future.
The most startling portrait of himself is provided by Peter Costello. He manages to sound like the template of the ultimate whinger. Anyone who believes this man to have been a man of principle please hit the rewind button. Look at the drooping mouth, listen for the tone of a whinger. You will find it. I promise you.:(, :(.
Once again I wish to thank the ABC.
The SBS documentary last night on deported asylum seekers who have been killed since the deportation was enough to remind me just how evil the Howard years were.
There are ex-ministers, including the ex-PM, who really should face court as defendants.
SansBlog: It is my belief that George Bush AND John Howard should have to face an international war crimes tribunal. Bush would be cleared because everyone wants American money. John Howard, however, is in the position of other countries not wanting Australian money-just look at the position of the Aussie dollar, whereas despite the USA being in a depression, the Yankee dollar is at the top.
John Winston Howard has earned his right to be tried for aiding and abetting the massacre of thousands of Iranians, offering no resistance to the torture regime instigated by George W Bush, treating Australian citizens (Haneef) as less than human and flinging foreigners into concentration camps.
For over eight years in power, JWH has left footsteps of blood. If he was to be tried it would send a message to OZ, that no longer can politicians get away with illegal murder. Once it would not have been necessary to quantify the word murder. These days it is neccessary.
Is it not a wee bit premature to be chronicling the ‘Howard Years’? Lets wait until Rudd has completed his term and part 2 of the China experiment and then the whole script will make complete sense. Bill and Ben, flower pot men.