JOHN HOWARD

Party

In his management of the party and Cabinet, Howard again showed how well he had learnt from his experience as opposition leader. After the initial loss of a number of ministers, when their holding of share portfolios raised concerns over conflicts of interest, Howard’s ‘astuteness and judgement came to the fore.’

Helen Coonan, Minister for Communications said, ‘If you can’t explain policies to Howard in a way he quickly understands you won’t be able to explain them to the public. He is a very good tester in that way.’ The rigid timing that Howard held to for Cabinet meetings was not applied to the party room meetings he chaired. At these meetings all members who wanted to speak were given an opportunity, Howard generally did not interrupt or let others do so.

Howard understood the importance of open dialogue with the backbench. In his relations with Coalition partner the Nationals, Howard recognised the need for them to acknowledge their constituency and on occasion differentiate themselves from Liberal initiatives.

As the 2007 election approached, Howard was increasingly looking out of touch compared to a resurgent Labor under Kevin Rudd as the leadership rivalry with Peter Costello remained unresolved. Howard asked Alexander Downer to sound out his colleagues on the future of his leadership, but in the end they would not push out the leader who had won four elections.  

Partnerships

On 24 June 1997, Howard experienced what he described as one of the highlights of his period as prime minister when, ‘as a self-confessed cricket lover’, he opened an Ashes exhibition at Australia House. The exhibition had been curated by David Frith, a cricket historian and founding editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly. Frith had attended Canterbury Boys’ High School with Howard and played for the school cricket team. It was to be some 30 years later that their paths crossed again.

Frith was now living in Great Britain, and Howard was opposition leader, and both were part of a radio discussion about South African cricket.  In what Frith describes as a ‘susceptible moment’, Howard told Frith that he had been one of his schoolboy heroes. The pair continued to run into each other at cricket matches and functions over the years, including at the fifth test in Sydney in 2007.

Frith recalled that with Australia having just retained the Ashes, and with the urn on exhibit in the country, Howard suggested it should stay behind. He mischievously responded that as a long term member of the Marylebone Cricket Club, he would propose at the next general meeting that Howard’s honorary membership be revoked for advocating ‘what amounted to the theft of the famous urn.’

Howard was labelled by former Australian cricket captain Mark Taylor as a ‘cricket tragic’ and since leaving office has taken positions with the board of the Bradman Foundation and patron with Cricket NSW.   

People

At the official opening of the Child Deafness Research Laboratories in Melbourne on 11 February 2000, Howard announced to the audience that it was a project in which he had a personal interest. Howard had experienced poor hearing since childhood and did not get his first hearing aid until he was 19 years of age.

He was forced, up to that point, to rely on an impressive memory to compensate for the hearing loss. Howard recalled his ‘teenage years wearing one of those then not so invisible hearing aids.’ Adding, with feeling, ‘and nothing quite touches us as a physical affliction of a child. Profound deafness or blindness or disability is something that all of us melt in compassion and sympathy before.’

In the speech Howard acknowledged the ground-breaking work performed by cochlear ear implant inventor Professor Graeme Clark and that such breakthroughs had come about due to ‘linkages between universities and the private sector’. Howard concluded by saying that he felt all Australians would have ‘an immense personal commitment and sense of excitement about doing something that improves the quality of lives of young Australians.’

After leaving office, Howard has continued his advocacy for research into deafness and gave the keynote address at the National Deafness Sector Summit in May 2016. 

Publications

Norman Abjorensen, John Howard and the Conservative Tradition, Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, 2008

Judith Brett, Relaxed and comfortable: the Liberal Party’s Australia, Black Inc. Books, Melbourne, 2005

Wayne Errington & Peter Van Onselen, John Winston Howard, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 2007

David Frith, No, Prime Minister, 4 March 2010

Michelle Grattan, John Winston Howard, 11 March 1996 – 3 December 2007, in Michelle Grattan (ed.), Australian Prime Ministers, New Holland Publishers, Sydney, 2010

Paul Kelly, The march of patriots: the struggle for modern Australia, Melbourne University Publishing, Carlton, 2009    

John Howard, Lazarus Rising: A Personal and Political Autobiography, Harper Collins Publishers, Sydney, 2010

John Howard, Transcript of the Prime Minister the Hon John Howard MP opening of child deafness research laboratories the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital East Melbourne, 11 February 2000 

Paul Kelly, The march of patriots: the struggle for modern Australia, Melbourne University Publishing, Carlton, 2009    

Robert Manne (ed.), The Howard Years, Black Inc. Books, Melbourne, 2004