A very interesting interview, whatever you may think of Messrs Howard & Hawke. One (of many) interesting points is Mr Howards answer when asked what achievements or legacies from his premiership he is proudest of. He listed: 1. Gun control 2. The liberation of East Timor 3. Increases in real wages To me, this list is notable for what is left out. As indeed the Howard era itself was. Howard was a cunning and effective politician, skilled at the art of getting his way. He was especially effective when he managed to derail the republic. After a decade of the shadow of Paul Keating, the republic was widely agreed to be inevitable, and merely a matter of time. The change from the Keating to Howard eras in terms of the relationship between the senior political leadership and the electorate was dramatic and striking. Keating led the debate. Keating engaged with his electorate, particularly on issues like the republic and reconciliation. Howard, sadly, led from behind (with the unfortunate and fatal exception of work choices of course). One cant exaggerate the extent to which Keatings intellect dominated this country and the minds of Australians across the political spectrum. The electorate (even the most conservative parts of it) believed that the republic was inevitable. Monarchists were just silly people that Keating (and everyone else) laughed at when they were quoted on the news. Certainly nobody took them seriously. A particularly sorry example of Howard leading from behind is immigration policy. To be fair, Howard had the bad luck to be elected the same year as Pauline Hanson, and her immediate popularity did weaken his position on the issue. Until the Howard era, there was bipartisan support for the humane treatment of asylum seekers in compliance with international law. But Howard ended that and acted in the belief that the electorate was xenophobic. Where Keating loomed large over us all and engaged with the people and led the debate to get his agenda supported, Howard cravenly acquiesced to his perception of a xenophobic electorate. The fact that a conservative prime minister of the most economically literate and obsessed nation of earth has to resort to listing two out of three of his most prized achievements as non economic ones is unusual, and at first sight, puzzling. But really, economically the Howard era was a story of steady as she goes and missed opportunities. On winning office in 1996 he mandated 10% cut to spending in every department except defence, claiming that Labor had left a budgetary black hole and had allowed spending to grow too quickly. The initial cut to spending was followed by dramatic and sustained increases in spending (albeit keeping the budget in the black). Its true that he paid off all the debt, which is great. But of course he held office in an unprecedented, unique period of benign global conditions with Europe and America both growing healthily and with low inflation across the OECD. This benign period is unlikely to be repeated any time soon. Howard allowed tax cuts that should not have occured and allowed spending under his government to increase dramatically and unsustainably. He was only able to do this without putting the budget into the red because of the unique and unrepeatable benign international conditions he had the good luck to coincide with his premiership. Saul Eslake recently called the Howard governments budgetary behaviour profligate. And that is the true meaning of the list of three achievements Mr Howard gave - he didnt mention the budget because he knows he missed the opportunity to run up huge surpluses and make the Future Fund he set up a real warchest for the demographic crunch that we all knew (and still know) is coming in a few decades. Howard missed the chance to do something else for the coming demographic squeeze when he ditched the planned increase to Mr Keatings superannuation guarantee to 12%. This criminal action did more than anything else to ruin the economic future of this country. The introduction of the GST and associated removal of wholesale sales taxes was (of course) an excellent reform. But in and of itself it didnt do much to create prosperity in Australia. It certainly didnt create Mr Howards professed achievement #3 - the increase in real wages. That was a function of ongoing dividends from Hawke/Keating government reforms such as the deregulation of the banks, the removal of the tarrif barrier, the dollar float, and increases to the savings rate born of compulsory superannuation. Economically, Howard suffered from having been elected 10 years later than he wanted to after a Hawke/Keating government that had already introduced the most urgent and significant ecopnomic reforms - Howard had little low hanging fruit to pick. But he did pass up the remaining chances as listed above. Other than Fraser, no government in my lifetime has done so little to transform this nation as Mr Howards. Howard had excellent abilities as a politician with all the lowest smoke and mirror tools in the box. But he was never a statesman, nor a great economic reformer, and certainly not a great moral guide of the nation. He famously said he wanted Australians to be relaxed and comfortable under his government. And we were - it really was steady as she goes. It was a sad period of missed opportunities.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 06:48:51 +0000