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The ruthless brilliance of John Howard, with Paul Kelly · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, March three, twenty twenty six. Hezbala is joining
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  Speaker 1: the fight, and next will be the Gulf States, who
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  Speaker 1: are enraged by days of attacks from Iran and are
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  Speaker 1: preparing to help the United States and Israel crush Tehran
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  Speaker 1: once and for all. Right now, The Australian's network of
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: correspondents and experts have all the latest from the war
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: triggered by Donald Trump's Operation Epic Fury and Howard's playing
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  Speaker 1: out in Australia's own political and security outlook. Check us
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: out at the Australian dot com dot au. Mosques and
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  Speaker 1: Islamic community organizations in Sydney and Melbourne are openly inviting
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  Speaker 1: members to honor the martyrdom of Iran's dead leader Iatola
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  Speaker 1: Ali Khamana. Members of the Iranian diaspora who've been celebrating
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  Speaker 1: the four of Comme and A say it's a chilling
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  Speaker 1: reminder that the regime can threaten people here in Australia.
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  Speaker 1: It's thirty years since John Howard was elected as Prime Minister,
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  Speaker 1: and today our editor at Large, Paul Kelly looks at
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  Speaker 1: a leader who understood Australians and was prepared to persuade
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  Speaker 1: them to back huge and sometimes scary changes. I love
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  Speaker 1: talking to Paul about politics because his five decades up
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  Speaker 1: close to Australia's leaders have honed a razor sharp perception
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  Speaker 1: of their gifts and their flaws. Paul's here in just
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  Speaker 1: a moment. Paul Kelly is The Australian's editor at large,
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  Speaker 1: and he's writing today in part of a series for
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  Speaker 1: The Australian about the thirtieth anniversary of John Howard's election. Paul,
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to show you an image of John Howard
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  Speaker 1: wearing a Boe bulletproof fest standing at a rally of
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  Speaker 1: angry farmers. This was after the Port Arthur massacre, when
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  Speaker 1: John Howard was instituting some reforms to gum law which
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  Speaker 1: were hugely controversial. What does that image say to you
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  Speaker 1: about John Howard the politician.
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  Speaker 2: The first point to make is that John Howard hated
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  Speaker 2: that image. He recognized later on that it was a
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  Speaker 2: terrible mistake to wear the bulletproof vests. So let's put
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  Speaker 2: that to one side. What the bigger image tells us
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  Speaker 2: is that Howard was prepared to commit to a very
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  Speaker 2: challenging policy, gun law reform after Port Arthur. This was
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  Speaker 2: very difficult for a Liberal leader. It incurred a lot
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  Speaker 2: of opposition from the National Party, but it showed the
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  Speaker 2: strength of the coalition. John Howard and Tim Fisher as
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  Speaker 2: the National Party leader, worked together on this. Above all,
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  Speaker 2: it tells us something about John Howard. And what I've
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  Speaker 2: argued in the series is that while John Howard is
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  Speaker 2: a convative, and while John Howard said as Prime Minister
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  Speaker 2: that he wanted to make people feel relaxed and comfortable,
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  Speaker 2: Howard is more important for what he changed in Australia
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  Speaker 2: than what he retained. And that's the big difference between
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  Speaker 2: Howard and Menzies. Menzies was more of a true conservative.
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  Speaker 2: Howard was an agent of change while offering reassurance to
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  Speaker 2: the Australian people. Now, a very good example of this
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  Speaker 2: is the gun law reform. Howard decided after Port Arthur,
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  Speaker 2: if my prime ministership means anything, I've got to have
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  Speaker 2: a strong response, and he decided the best response, of course,
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  Speaker 2: was to introduce the gun law reforms. This proved to
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  Speaker 2: be very popular in most of the country, but a
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  Speaker 2: very difficult decision for the Coalition. It showed that Howard
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  Speaker 2: was prepared to take significant changes and that gave him
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  Speaker 2: tremendous confidence. After the gun law reform and the fact
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  Speaker 2: that it worked that it was success for he felt
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  Speaker 2: a much more confident prime minister. What did we see
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  Speaker 2: later on in the first term? Two big things the
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  Speaker 2: showdown on the waterfront, taking on THEMA and then the
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  Speaker 2: epic decision to run on the Goods and Services tax.
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  Speaker 1: Those were two absolutely seismic moments.
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  Speaker 2: Paul.
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  Speaker 1: I remember them as a very young reporter. You were,
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  Speaker 1: of course, a very experienced reporter at the time, and
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  Speaker 1: you saw John Howard transforming from someone who didn't seem
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  Speaker 1: very prime ministerial at the start. He was awkward, he
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  Speaker 1: was kind of nerdy. He had to recover from some
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  Speaker 1: remarks that he'd made about Asian immigration before he even
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  Speaker 1: got to the lodge. What was it about John Howard
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  Speaker 1: that made him capable of growing into the role like that?
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  Speaker 2: I think the interesting thing about Howard is his amalgamation
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  Speaker 2: of two instincts. He is a ruthless pragmatist. He's got
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  Speaker 2: a very good understanding of the Australian people. This is
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  Speaker 2: so important. He's a student of the Australian character and
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  Speaker 2: the fundamental requirement for a successful prime minister's judgment. How
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  Speaker 2: it had great judgment of the Australian people. He had
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  Speaker 2: this balance. While a conviction politician, he understood the conservative
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  Speaker 2: nature of the electorate. So in a sense he knew
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  Speaker 2: Wend to be cautious and he knew Whend to be
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  Speaker 2: audacious and he got that balance right now. The really
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  Speaker 2: critical decision he took in the first term was to
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  Speaker 2: go on a tax reform, to run on the Goods
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  Speaker 2: and Services tax. This was a high risk operation and
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  Speaker 2: it showed again that Howard was prepared, if you like,
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  Speaker 2: to put the prime ministership on the line, to bet
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  Speaker 2: the prime ministership. And in the interview I've done with him,
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  Speaker 2: he's very frank about this and he recognizes that there
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: was a danger that he might become a one term
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  Speaker 2: prime minister a onzer. If that had happened, he would
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  Speaker 2: have been a failure. He would have been dismissed as
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  Speaker 2: complete failure in nineteen ninety eight and the Liberal Party
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  Speaker 2: would have gone into crisis. So it actually shows given
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  Speaker 2: that that nineteen ninety eight reelection was tight and it
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: was a close reelection. Howard and Costello got there, but
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  Speaker 2: they just got there. That opened the door to four
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  Speaker 2: terms as Prime minister. If it had gone the other way,
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  Speaker 2: he would have been a one term prime minister and
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  Speaker 2: universally dismissed as a failure.
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  Speaker 1: He had an amazing instinct for saying out loud what
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  Speaker 1: people were thinking, for distilling what people felt, even if
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  Speaker 1: they hadn't been able to articulate it themselves. A great
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  Speaker 1: example of that is in response to the Tampa crisis,
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  Speaker 1: I'll just play your little video of John Howard's speech
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  Speaker 1: that he made expressing why he was not allowing this
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  Speaker 1: boatload of refugees to come to Australia.
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  Speaker 3: It is also about having an uncompromising view about the
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  Speaker 3: fundamental right of this country to protect its borders. It's
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  Speaker 3: about this nation saying to the world we are a generous,
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  Speaker 3: open hearted people, taking more refugees on it for capita
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  Speaker 3: basis than any nation except Canada. We have a proud
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  Speaker 3: record of welcoming people from one hundred and forty different nations,
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  Speaker 3: but we will decide who comes to this country and
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  Speaker 3: the circumstances in which they come.
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  Speaker 1: That's an amazing moment isn't it.
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  Speaker 2: Well, Tampa's a fascinating study into the Howard prime ministership
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  Speaker 2: because he's a leader of conviction. He takes a stand
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  Speaker 2: on Australian's sovereignty and he says, we're not going to
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  Speaker 2: sit here and do nothing and allow this ship which
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  Speaker 2: has been taken over by asylum seekers and diverted from
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  Speaker 2: Indonesia to Christmas Island to have landfall on Australian territory.
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  Speaker 2: So that was the decision by Prime Minister committed to
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  Speaker 2: the concept of Australian sovereignty, but he was able to
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  Speaker 2: explain that to the Australian people in really simple and
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  Speaker 2: powerful language. He explained that in the ordinary language of
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  Speaker 2: Australians who understand retail politics, who talk at the weekend barbecue,
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  Speaker 2: and people understood that the way Howard explained it. It
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  Speaker 2: made it enormously popular. And of course he was enunciating
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  Speaker 2: a fundamental principle of sovereignty that the Australian government would
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  Speaker 2: decide who came to the country. The other interesting point
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  Speaker 2: I'd make about this, which a lot of people overlook
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  Speaker 2: or don't understand, is that by securing the borders, what
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  Speaker 2: happened after that was the legal immigration program ended up
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  Speaker 2: three times as large at the end of Howard's prime
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  Speaker 2: ministership as it was at the start. So what that
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  Speaker 2: meant was that the Tampa and Border Security purchased Howard
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  Speaker 2: political immunity to really significantly expand the immigration program, and
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  Speaker 2: that's what he did. It's another example of how the
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  Speaker 2: Howard legacy is much more tricky and complex when you
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  Speaker 2: start to looking at it than most people recognize.
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  Speaker 1: He also became absolutely beloved by the Chinese community in particular,
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  Speaker 1: didn't he even though probably at the start of his
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  Speaker 1: prime ministership people of Asian extraction might have been concerned
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  Speaker 1: about whether he understood them or whether he wanted them
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  Speaker 1: to be in the country.
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  Speaker 2: There's no doubt that before he became Prime Minister and
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  Speaker 2: the years before that, Howard got into trouble in terms
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  Speaker 2: of what he said about Asian immigration. He corrected that
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  Speaker 2: before he became Prime minister. He thought he needed to
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  Speaker 2: address that issue. But the really interesting thing about what
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  Speaker 2: he did as Prime minister, given it the massive expansion
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  Speaker 2: in the immigration program, A lot of that, a lot
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  Speaker 2: of that were people come into this country from China
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  Speaker 2: and India.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up the moment Mark Latham tried to intimidate John
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  Speaker 1: Howard and had it blow up in his face. I'll
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  Speaker 1: play you another moment from John Howard's political career, and
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  Speaker 1: this is one where what was heading towards being a
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  Speaker 1: loss for John Howard an election laws turned into a
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  Speaker 1: victory partly because of this very moment. It's only seven seconds.
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  Speaker 1: It's then opposition leader Mark Latham shaking hands with John
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  Speaker 1: Howard outside a radio studio. How are you, I'm very well,
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  Speaker 1: pretty see it. Do you think Howard knew in that
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  Speaker 1: moment that he just won the election?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think what that moment demonstrates was the correctness
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  Speaker 2: of Howard's judgment for a long period of time about
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  Speaker 2: Mark Latham. Howard judged that Latham was too temperamentally volatile
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  Speaker 2: and lacked the consistency and sustainability of purpose to really
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  Speaker 2: win the election. Now, for quite a while after Layton
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  Speaker 2: became leader, it looked as though Howard's judgment might be wrong.
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  Speaker 2: But in the end, during the course of the election campaign,
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  Speaker 2: Howard was clearly vindicated. And if you look at the
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  Speaker 2: issues that he ran on, in particular the economy, his
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  Speaker 2: reliability as Prime Minister, pitching his reliability, his confidence, his
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  Speaker 2: delivery against an uncertain Mark Latham. Then that worked, and
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  Speaker 2: it worked spectacularly for Howard.
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  Speaker 1: The physicality of that moment is very interesting too, isn't it.
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  Speaker 1: You've got the younger, bigger man looming over the smaller,
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  Speaker 1: older man and using his body to intimidate him, really
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  Speaker 1: using the strength of his handshake. And yet by then
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  Speaker 1: Australians had come to love John Howard is kind of
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  Speaker 1: a vun killer or grandfatherly figure, haven't they.
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  Speaker 2: I think by that stage the Australian people knew, but
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  Speaker 2: Howard was not a prime minister who would be easily intimidated.
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  Speaker 2: By this time, Howard had become a national security guardian,
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  Speaker 2: he'd become a war leading prime minister. We saw his
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  Speaker 2: commitment to the intervention in East Team Or, which was
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  Speaker 2: the deployment of the ADF into East Team Or as
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  Speaker 2: a peacekeeping force headed by General Peter Cosgrove. That was
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  Speaker 2: an enormously significant Australian commitment, the most important military commitment
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  Speaker 2: at that time since the Vietnam War. Then we saw
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  Speaker 2: Howard responding to nine to eleven, the attack on the
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  Speaker 2: United States when the ancest Treaty was invoked and Howard
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  Speaker 2: then made war commitments to both Afghanistan and Iraq. Now,
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: regardless of what one thinks of those war commitments, particularly
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: the commitment to Iraq, the point is that Howard had
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  Speaker 2: the standing and reputation of a national security prime minister
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  Speaker 2: and a prime minister committing Australia forces to war. Now,
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  Speaker 2: in that sense, I think, while he was physically smaller
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  Speaker 2: than Mark Latham, I think that as far as the
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  Speaker 2: Australian people were concerned, there was no suggestion as far
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  Speaker 2: as they felt that John Howard is being intimidated by Latham.
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  Speaker 1: He had, for so much of his prime ministership an
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  Speaker 1: incredibly effective working relationship with his treasurer at Peter Costello.
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  Speaker 1: Peter Costello then claimed that John Howard had promised to
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  Speaker 1: hand over the leadership to him, and that was disputed.
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  Speaker 1: Where did that end up as an issue that helps
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  Speaker 1: us think about who John Howard was Towards the end
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  Speaker 1: of his time as Prime minister, he clearly didn't want
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  Speaker 1: to let go and he didn't want to hand it
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  Speaker 1: over to Peter Costello. Didn't he The.
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  Speaker 2: Entire success of the Howard prime ministership is a function
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  Speaker 2: of the relationship between Howard is Prime minister and Peter
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  Speaker 2: Costello as Treasurer. And we know in Australia what the
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  Speaker 2: formula is poor successful governance. We saw that under Hawk
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: and Keeting. Hawk's Prime Minister, Paul Keating's treasurer, and then
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  Speaker 2: it was duplicated Howard as Prime Minister, Peter Costello as Treasurer.
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  Speaker 2: They were a phenomenal combination and that combination stayed in
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  Speaker 2: place for the entire eleven years. Now, the point I'd
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  Speaker 2: make about policy is while they had some policy differences
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  Speaker 2: on all the big issues, when it came to the economy,
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  Speaker 2: Howard and Costello were together in terms of the GST reform,
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  Speaker 2: in terms of spending restraint, in terms of lower taxation,
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  Speaker 2: in terms of waterfront reform, and of course when it
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: came to the final abolition of all federal government debt.
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  Speaker 2: So the Howard Costello partnership was incredibly important in terms
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  Speaker 2: of the economy. Let's go to leadership. What happened with
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  Speaker 2: leadership before they won the nineteen ninety six election. There
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: was a really important conversation that Howard and Costello had.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: Now Howard at this stage was saying to Costello, look
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: I've had a long career in politics. If we win
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: the election, if I become Prime minister, I'd only want
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: to serve between one or two terms. So essentially what
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: he wanted to do was he wanted to persuade Peter
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: Costello to accept that Howard would become leader of the
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: Liberal Party in a draft. That is, there would be
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: no contested ballot, there would be no contested leadership. Now
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: this is exactly what happened, because in nineteen ninety five,
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: what happened was that Alexander down Of the Leader, stood down.
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  Speaker 2: Peter Costello, the deputy leader at the time, did not
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: contest the leadership, and Howard Howard was elected leader unopposed
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  Speaker 2: and there was no ballot. There was no ballot, and
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  Speaker 2: the Liberal Party room for the entire eleven years of
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Howard's leadership. An extraordinary achievement. So how did Peter Costello
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: feel about this? Well, as one term moved to another
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: and then move to another, eventually Costello felt, well, Howard
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: initially said that he'd only want to serve one or
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: two terms. Well, we're now really in an advanced stage
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: of this government. So eventually, in two thousand and six
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: there was a real showdown. Costello advised Howard he should
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: stand down in the interests of the government, in the
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: interests of the Liberal Party, and in the interests of
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Howard's own historical legacy. Howard declined to do that, and
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: he declined to do it again in two thousand and seven.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: The conclusion Costello drew was that Howard was never going
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: to stand down, despite what he said, despite the signals
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: he might have given, he was never going to stand
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: down as Prime minister. He always wanted to remain in
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: the job. This led Costello to take the fundamental decision.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: Was he going to do a Keating? Was he going
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: to resign, go to the backbench and strike against Howard
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: in a challenge. Costello decided not to do that, and
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: he said, I didn't want to tear down the prime minister.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: I didn't want to wreck the government. I didn't want
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: to tear down the government. He decided to remain as Treasurer,
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: even though he was appalled by Howard's decision to stay
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: prime minister. Now, of course a lot of people would say, well,
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Costello didn't have the numbers, and that's true. He didn't
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: have the numbers, But Keating didn't have the numbers either.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: When he first challenged talk Costello calculated and in two
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: thousand and six he had about a third of the party.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: It wasn't enough to win, but it would have been
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: enough to undermine Howard if he challenged and go on
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: to the back bench. So to summ up the way
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: I see this, the Howard Costello partship is fundamental to
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: the entire success of the government. It was always set
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: to explode, but it never exploded, and that is a
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: tribute to Peter Costello's judgment.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he never became prime minister, but perhaps he wouldn't
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: have been able to defeat Kevin Rudd at the two
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: thousand and seven election. Anyway, he gets to enjoy his
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: legacy as a long serving, highly successful treasurer.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: Right, Well, it's unsurprising that when I put this to
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: Peter Costello, if he had become prime minister, what would
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: have happened in the two thousand and seven election, And
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: lo and behold, he's pretty confident that he would have
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: beaten Kevin Rudd. I then asked him another question, though.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: I then asked him another question, and I said, well,
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: if you had been prime minister at the two thousand
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: and seven election and you'd lost to Kevin Rudd. Given
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: that you're a leader of the Liberal Party, would you
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: have remained Leader of the Liberal Party in opposition leader
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: of the opposition to Rada's Prime Minister. Whereas, of course
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: what happened was Brenda Nelson became leader and then he
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: was deposed by Malcolm Turnbull. Costello didn't give a definitive answer,
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: but he said he may well have stayed honors leader.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Interesting stuff, I'll say, Paul Kelly, thank you very.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Much, Thanks Claire.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Paul Kelly is The Australian's editor at Large. You can
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: read Paul's unrivaled analysis anytime at the Australian dot com
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: dot au