According to today’s Newspoll, seven per cent of Australians have no view as to whether or not John Howard is doing a good job as prime minister. Fancy not having an opinion about John Howard.
More remarkable still is the fact that, in his twelfth year in the job, more people are satisfied than unsatisfied with Howard’s performance. Clearly, David Flint isn’t the only Howard hugger among us. So, for those commenters who think we at Crikey are too tough on the Howard Government, here are five things to admire about the PM:
1) In an era when style usually triumphs over substance, Howard has preferred the latter. He has been at the forefront of debates over taxation, privatisation and labour market reform for three decades. He knows that the perfect is the enemy of the good. While he prefers live radio to get his message out, he doesn’t shirk the big interviews with the likes of Kerry O’Brien (or Barry Cassidy).
2) He has been a tireless campaigner for the things he believes in. In last night’s two for the price of one interview on Today Tonight, Peter Costello came very close last night to admitting that he is lazy by comparison with his boss. For those of us who carry a little bit of padding around the waist, Howard’s morning walks are a constant reminder that the world is run by those who turn up.
3) Howard has restored public confidence in the immigration program. Even with 300,000 extra bods among us this year, immigration has been the dog that didn’t bark. Howard put the sword to One Nation. Pauline Hanson has been reduced to permanent Senate candidacy to earn her pocket money – a kind of three-yearly work for the dole program.
4) With so much tragedy on his watch, Howard has been outstanding in finding the right words to comfort the families of the victims and the survivors of tragedies such as Port Arthur and Bali. When words were not enough, there was always a hug.
5) It was Howard who finally repaid Australia’s debt to the East Timorese by guaranteeing their transition to independence. Howard can be proud of his record on an issue where Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke and Keating can only hang their heads in shame.
Wayne, your beloved PM’s time has come and the points that you choose to raise in his defence are equally as telling to describe why he will not be re-elected on Saturday.
1. Howard has been at the forefront of some of the main political and social debates but in this last term he has failed to correctly read to tone of the electorate on the key issues of workplace fairness, climate change, and following the US into Iraq just to name a few. Substance is important but he is ‘lite on’ this time around. As to radio and TV interviews as was pointed out yesterday, Rove has an audience of over 1.3m whilst Barry Cassidy talks to a little over 200,000. You do the maths!
2. Yes Mr Howard has been a tireless campaigner for the things he believes in. The real problem, as pointed out above, is that many of the issues that he is passionate about no longer resonate with the majority. Do you remember what it is like to talk to your grand parents about how good it was in there day? Australians ha
Part 3…continuation from previopus comment
5. Maybe what Howard and Downer could have done while they were repaying the debt to the East Timorese was acknowledge all of the warning from journalists and NGO’s on the spot that the Indonesian withdrawal was going to end in tears…and it did, with Indonesian backed militia killing many innocent Timorese. This was another “blind eye” that had dire consequences not unlike the AWB “blind eye”. Also if Howard wanted to really repay the Timorese, or at least stop ripping them off, maybe he could return them all of their legal rights and entitlement to revenues from the Timor Straight oil and gas fields. Honest John does it again!
Really ! This is as good a job of gilding the lily as I have seen.
More on Howard’s good record: family income support that saved single income families from extinction under Labor’s femmo nazis (Rudd’s middle aged appendages); tax cuts leaving hundreds extra in average pay, petrol tax freeze, 190,000 more apprentices pa
Part 2…continuation from previous comment:
Australians have never had it so good? Go figure!
3. Howard has divided this nation and ignored the directives of the UN in relation to our treatment of legitimate refugees and his ministers for immigration and attorney generals (all of them) have been complicit in this travesty. Locking people up in detention centre in the middle of Australia, creating offshore holding pens on Naru, the Tampa and children overboard scandal (where is Peter Reith now?) and the treatment of Haneef and Cornelia Rau are but a few examples. How will you explain that to your grand children?
4. Every politician loves an opportunity to show his or her compassionate side and John Winston Howard is no exception. So you want me to support a man who you say is a good hugger? Please give me a break!