November 24, 2007
John Howard, Australia and the world
I met John Howard only once - at a breakfast in London - and he struck me as grumpy and charmless. I was obviously missing something. Howard was a phenomenally successful politician. He won four successive elections in Australia.
Now that he has finally lost, it is tempting to draw a general lesson - and there is an obvious one to hand. Foreign leaders who backed George Bush over Iraq have been punished. First Jose Maria Aznar, then Tony Blair. Now John Howard. One of Kevin Rudd’s first acts as Australian prime minister will be to start pulling troops out of Iraq.
Actually, as far as I can tell from rather a long way away, Howard’s defeat was mainly about domestic issues, like rising interest rates.
But foreign policy obviously played a role, both in his rise and in his downfall. Howard’s predecessor - Paul Keating - had decided that Australia was an "Asian country". I dont think either Australians or Asians were very convinced by this. I remember asking an Aussie diplomat in Thailand what his Thai counterparts made of Australians’ determination to be "asian" and he said that their reaction was one of "bemused tolerance." (I thought this was quite funny and put it an article, and was further amused later to see the remark foot-noted in Huntington’s book on the "Clash of Civilisations" - which just goes to show that stray remarks made at barbecues can end up as part of an academic thesis, if you don’t watch out.)
But to get back to the point. I think Howard played quite astutely on Australians’ sense that actually - they still have a lot more in common with Britain and the US - than with their Asian neighbours. (And neighbours is a relative term, Tokyo is an eight hour flight from Sydney.) His old rivals were aghast by the change in tone. One senior figure in the Labor party told me (off-the-recod unfortunately) that Howard’s new foreign policy was "to get as far up the Americans’ arse as he can possibly get."
The Iraq war may have involved burrowing just a little too far in that direction. And now I think Australia may go for a modest course correction, back towards a more Asia-centric foreign policy. It is interesting that Kevin Rudd is a fluent speaker of Mandarin Chinese - surely a first for a leader of an Anglosphere nation. And if Howard has indeed lost his own seat - which looks likely at the time of writing - that will in large part because of an influx of Asian immigrants into his constituency, who voted heavily for the Labor candidate.
I think Howard is much like Canada’s Harper: suburban in their thinking and products of the housing bubble middle classes: people whose only aspirations in life are material. But we have fast-forwarded ten years of bubble (or double bubble if we include the tech boom/bust), and what is the state of these people?: in debt to their eye balls, obese (as the stats tell us), their kids obese, grumpy as all hell (illegal migrants and terrorists everywhere), over-taxed, and totally adrift. We see no visions coming forward from mainstream politicians, nothing with gusto and passion. So instead we get grimness: must stay the course in the wars, pay our debts, tolerate the intolerant. No wonder voters are burning these guys when they get the chance. Watch out Gordon, you are next!
Posted by: Frank Fields | November 24th, 2007 at 10:49 pm | Report this comment.
Well , it’s now the morning after the night before and Kevin boy has done it ,
You are quite right to think of john Howard as charmless and grumpy , he is
His success , was largely due to a brain dead Labor opposition , discredited and widely hated for its cynicism
john howard is the last of the fifties politicians ,his values are Eisenhower’s
His uncompromising stance against all pressures could have been pigheadedness but Australians appreciated his sincerity and it won him the nickname ” honest John ”
Still nothing last , Labor got a smooth John Howard look alike who campaigned on continuity ???
the Iraq war wasn’t mentioned much , there is a national consensus to go in with the yanks no matter how dodgy the cause , kevin Rudd mentionned pulling out soon ” after consultation with our allieds ”
The work reform of John Howard will be rolled back , it was hated by most as legalized slavery for the low earning workers
Kevin boy should be a steady helmsman , he come from the diplomatic service and the right wing of the Labor party , also known as “the toes cutters” ,
he had most media baron going for him , a greenish tincture was supplied by peter garrett ex midnight oil singer
recently ,during the APEC meeting ,Kevin Rudd floored everybody by addressing the chinese premier in excellent and fluent Mandarin , the chinese were totally impressed ,
Labor now is in power in ALL states and federal assemblies , the senate too should be their , results pending
Posted by: jeannick Guerin | November 25th, 2007 at 4:44 am | Report this comment.
Jeannick, the name “Honest John” was meant as a joke, and was coined when Howard was Treasurer in the Fraser Government (he was Federal Treasurer from 1977 to 1983). Howard consistently broke promises to not raise taxes, and also to reform the tax system. His opponents dubbed him “Honest John” in jest. His record as Treasurer was singularly undistinguished.
Also, Labor won’t have control of the Senate, but after July 1 next year, will be able to get bills thought the Senate with support from the minor parties.
Posted by: Peter Evans | November 25th, 2007 at 5:07 am | Report this commentAustralia plays a similar role in Asia as Turkey in Europe. They want to be in but are relatively kept aside. Australia is not part of ASEAN, just an observer. Turkey is not part of the European Union, just member of the Customs Union.
Deeply (or not so deeply) inside neither Europeans consider Turkey a purely European nation nor Asians consider Australia a purely Asian nation.
Of course it is not the same Darwin than Sidney. We could say Darwin is Asia while Sidney is Oceania. Development of the Northern Territory and Northern Queensland (subtropical climate) should have been a priority long time ago to reach the Asian markets. Darwin should be a manufacturing center and port for the export of Australian commodities. The Australian Singapore could be Darwin.
Anyway Australian population growth is not high (just about 1% a year) compared to the American at the same stage of population (21 million people) even if it is true Australia doesn´t have the natural resources the US had and has. There is not a Mississipi river in Australia. So the economic size of Australia is similar to The Netherlands, half Spain´s (and so Australia´s population)
But now is not just Australia, but all of EUROPE which wants to be considered part of the Eurasian Contient. Europe, the European Peninsula, is as close to the main Asian markets (India and China) as Australia; and Eurasian connection by plane, rail or superhighway is improving every year. There is still a long road, not less because the most important Silk Route between the Eurasian Peninsula, India and China goes through Iran and Afghanistan (the only two nations which separates the European Customs Union from China)
An important part of Greece´s growth comes now not from the EU´s Cohesion Fund…but from being the Easternmost part of the European Union CLOSER to China than Australia.
An Eurasian Economic Area is broadly simple: China, India and the European Union. There is no need for anybody else in trade negotiation. Just three Trade representatives from China, India and the E.U.
Posted by: Enrique Costas Mira | November 25th, 2007 at 6:31 am | Report this commentGreece (11 million people but member state of the 318 million EUROZONE) is as close to the Chinese market as Australia (21 million people)…but Greece (EUROZONE) has the advantage that connection with China can be made by land (road)…
http://inv.gr/greece_china.htm
Posted by: Enrique | November 25th, 2007 at 7:00 am | Report this commentSo he was a “singularly undistinguished Treasurer” for 6 years, later serving as an unsuccessful Prime Minister for 11 years, despite being charmless and grumpy. Abraham Lincoln said: “… you cannot fool all of the people all of the time”. Well, the case of John Howard proves his point: after only 17 years, Aussies have already done with him!
Posted by: RCS | November 25th, 2007 at 5:02 pm | Report this commentHoward was a gift from above after decades of insecure, cringing leaders who sold us down any river available. He didn’t genuflect to Asia as Keating did and, unlike Fraser, didn’t tell how we should behave. Short on vanity and charisma, but long on performance. I know which I would rather have! A point in need of analysis is the apparent aversion to wealth that his demise has indicated. It seems that the eastern states are jealous of the success of the west.
Posted by: Tom Dalgleish | November 26th, 2007 at 4:47 am | Report this commentGideon Rachman replays the old canard that Howard’s predecessor, Paul Keating, “had decided that Australia was an ‘Asian country’” - expressed with authoritative quotation marks. I was Keating’s foreign policy adviser for most of his time as Prime Minister, and a senior foreign policy official for the rest of period and I can assure Rachman that Keating never believed this, or said anything remotely like it. On the contrary, he is on the public record many times, including in one major speech televised to Asia, saying that “Australia is not and can never be an Asian nation any more than we can – or want to be - European or North American or African. We can only be Australian and can only relate to our friends and neighbours as Australian.”
Posted by: Allan Gyngell | November 26th, 2007 at 6:11 am | Report this commentHoward has encountered similar overwrought claims that he tried to turn Australia into another American state. They are just as wrong.
I think it’s extremely generous of you to describe “Clash of Civilisations”, an attempt at creating a self-fulfilling prophecy through oversimplification and demonisation, as an ‘academic thesis’…
I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered a less rigorous theory.
“The Anglosphere” is also a spurious notion with a conservative agenda behind it - I guess you meant ‘english-speaking’…
Posted by: Dave | November 26th, 2007 at 9:20 am | Report this commentWhy the constant reference to Aznar, Howard, Blair and soon Bush et al losing office, without adding that Chirac, Shroeder, Chretien, and soon Putin (plus Annan)are also departing? Leaders change, pro-war or not.
Posted by: Andy | November 26th, 2007 at 10:40 am | Report this commentFar as I can tell, Bush, Howard and Blair won post-Iraq elections and Schroeder did not. For what its worth.
My anecdotal (entirely unscientific) view of the Aussies I see in London is that the younger ones, on the whole, have a more liberal, environmentally conscious and culturally tolerant view of the world (perhaps partly affected by their huge amounts of travel, although they hang together so much that they miss out on meeting the locals!)
The older Aussies (again at the risk of a gross generalisation) are a lot more blimpish, perhaps even harking back to the attitudes that existed during the era of Whites-only immigration policy.
If the above is correct, perhaps the removal of Mr. Howard (who certainly won at least one election by the overtly immoral and almost certainly illegal refusal of a shipload of immigrants to land on Australian shores)can be more than a passing electoral failure but signify a generational change in attitudes for the better.
(I think the desire of Mr. Howard to help fight colonial wars in the Middle East were also part of that old, colonial, imperialist mindset.)
Best,
P
Posted by: Pacifist | November 26th, 2007 at 2:04 pm | Report this commentExactly. The vote should come has no surprise …for sometime now it was clear he would not win…this post would certainly hold more interest and relevancy if it had been more about Rudd and his win not Howard’s totally predicted and/or predictable loss…
GR”And now I think Australia may go for a modest course correction, back towards a more Asia-centric foreign policy. It is interesting that Kevin Rudd is a fluent speaker of Mandarin Chinese - surely a first for a leader of an Anglosphere nation.”
Posted by: Lisa-Helene Lawson | November 26th, 2007 at 3:08 pm | Report this commentFirst, thanks to Mr Gyngell for replying. And my apologies for putting the Asian country in quotation marks.
That said, I have discussed this issue with Mr Keating, after he left office - in fact, I think you might have been there. (It was in an office he was keeping, above a bank in Canberra). And he had no doubt that the Howard government had changed the Asia-focus of Labour’s foreign policy.
And just in case my memory is letting me down, I’ve dug these quotes out from the infamous Huntington. Keating is quoted as saying that Australia must no longer be a “branch office of empire” and must aim for “enmeshment” in Asia. He is also quoted as saying that too close an association with the UK is “debilitating to our national culture, our economic future and our destiny in Asia and the Pacific.”
Posted by: Gideon Rachman | November 26th, 2007 at 6:09 pm | Report this commentAgreed that’s not the same as saying that Australia is an Asian country, but I think my broad point about the shift in emphasis from Keating to Howard is perfectly valid.
Allan Gyngell has responded to this post at the Lowy Institute’s blog, The Interpreter:
http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2007/11/Keating-and-the-‘Asian-country’-canard.aspx
Posted by: sam roggeveen | November 26th, 2007 at 10:09 pm | Report this comment“Foreign leaders who backed George Bush over Iraq have been punished. First Jose Maria Aznar, then Tony Blair. Now John Howard.”
This is utter nonsense. Aznar lost because of the mishandling of the Madrid bombing. Blair and Howard went on to be the second longest serving leaders of their respective countries. It is a widely reported fact that Iraq played very little role in Howard’s defeat, a fact ignored by yet another anti-American pundit like Rachman.
At the same time, pro-US candidates have won election recently in France, Germany and Japan. What “lesson” does Rachnman take from that? Probably none, as it doesn’t fit his “Bush is bad” story line.
At the same time, pro-US
Posted by: Mike | November 27th, 2007 at 1:30 pm | Report this commentBlair might have been the second longest serving PM of Britain, but that does not detract from the fact that he left office extremely unpopular, in large part due to his decision to take Britain to Iraq and the resulting perception of him as Bush’s poodle.
And it is worth noting that the pro-US premiers of France and Germany have not rushed to send troops to Iraq nor have they come out in support of the US’s role in that country.
You would have to be living in a fairy-tale to argue that a leader’s position on the Iraq war has no impact on the electorate’s view of them.
Posted by: Red | November 27th, 2007 at 6:40 pm | Report this commentCentral Australia was a short-lived Australian Territory later annexed by Northern Australia. That was wrong:
For a complete development of Northern Australia and above all Darwint (105.000 people now), it is necessary to separate the Northern Territory from the Central Australia Territory.
The problems and economies of both territories are completely different and distant.
Posted by: Enrique | December 3rd, 2007 at 1:31 am | Report this comment