Our greatest prime minister.(How Good Was Howard?)

This is the first in a series of articles that will critically appraise the eleven and a half years of the government of John Howard. The intention of the series is both to look back on the Howard era and assess its place in history, and to look forward to see what can be learnt for the future from his government's successes and failures.

THE HOWARD GOVERNMENT'S defeat on November 24, 2007, and John Howard s defeat in Bennelong, have already provoked appraisals of his place in Australia's history. Historians of the Left have begun sharpening not so much their pencils as their scythes. Just as, over time, we have seen a steady rain of revisionism on the life and prime ministerial performance of Sir Robert Menzies, so we can expect a torrent of denigration on John Howard's.

That will not surprise Howard. In the July-August 1994 issue of Quadrant, to mark the Liberal Party's fiftieth anniversary, he remarked on "the magnitude of the political rehabilitation represented by Gough Whitlam's deification as a Labor Party icon and national treasure". He described this as "an astonishing tribute to the persistence of Labor propaganda and the importance placed by the Labor Party on received versions of history", and noted that "Labor's revisionist history has allowed it to sanctify Whitlam and to con many Liberals into only the barest defence of their past". The Liberals, he said, "must remember George Orwell's proposition: 'Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past.'"

The thesis of this article is that despite the many valid criticisms that can be made of him, nevertheless John Howard has a strong claim to having been Australia's greatest prime minister. Menzies apart, it is hard to see how that claim could be challenged. In turning the tides in their respective nations, he stands comparison with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, who were so successful in that respect that they forced their political opponents largely to re-model themselves in their likeness. Kevin Rudd's manifold "me too" undertakings during his successful campaign for office would suggest (if you believe them) that here also Howard has largely succeeded in emulating his famous counterparts.

A TALE OF TWO PRIME MINISTERS

TO ADAPT DICKENS' famous quote, John Howard was the best of prime ministers, he was the worst of prime ministers.

If you were, say, a constitutional federalist; believed in the Trevelyanite "arm's length" relationship between ministers and their public servants; considered that one prime ministerial essential was a principled consistency in decision-making; stressed the importance of good judgment (particularly of people); placed weight on the importance of outstanding intellect--if you held such views, you could argue that Howard was, if not our worst prime minister, then certainly not one to praise.