Compton's Comment

The Howard Legacy

^{Everald Compton| FEBRUARY 2008}

Millions of words have been written about John Howard’s decade as our Prime Minister and many more will examine his legacy. Nevertheless, I want to add a few of my own.

Let me start with his strengths.

He was a very astute politician, possibly the shrewdest in the history of the nation. Right up until the last year of his tenure, he dominated the political scene like a colossus, but his judgement then deserted him.

He had incredible tenacity and would never admit defeat. It was very unwise ever to write him off as, even on the eve of election day, he still believed that he could turn it all around.

While the art of politics and the pursuit of power dominated his life, he did achieve some good things for Australia. These included his strong gun laws following the Port Arthur Massacre, his determined attempt to advance the quality of life for Indigenous Australians, the building of the Adelaide/Darwin Railway, the control of our borders against illegal refugees and a significant reduction in unemployment. However, his greatest claim to fame is the long era of prosperity over which he presided, even though many would argue that he failed to reinvest that prosperity in our badly outdated and grossly inadequate infrastructure.

Now, we can look objectively at some of his failings.

His most obvious flaw was that he was not a visionary. He had no master plan for the future of the nation other than for its general prosperity. As the result, so many of Australia’s obvious needs were unmet. These included our lack of water, lip service for climate change, poor hospitals and a moribund education system that failed to tackle the skills shortage that cripples the nation.

Significantly, it was not good for Australia that he had such a close personal friendship with George W Bush, the worst President in the history of the United States, who has blindly led the world into unnecessary instability.

But, no one is perfect and no person has all the qualities necessary to lead a nation. Kevin Rudd’s human failings will progressively become obvious.

On balance, any reasonable observer will say John Howard was one of our better Prime Ministers, up there with Barton, Deakin, Curtin, Chifley, Menzies and Hawke, even though real greatness finally eluded him.

Now, the mantle has been passed to Kevin Rudd. The right thing for us to do is to give him a fair go and work with him to achieve the mandate for which he has been elected. If we don’t like what he does, we will have the opportunity to express our disappointment at the ballot box in 2010.

Personally, I face the future with optimism. An era has passed and we have witnessed the fall of a good man who stayed too long. Many leaders in every walk of life make the same error of judgement. But, life goes on and the heavens have not yet fallen in.

Rudd appears to have the character and qualifications to be a fine Prime Minister. He will need them as he faces immense problems with rising interest rates, sky rocketing oil prices, the massive cost of overcoming a huge backlog of essential infrastructure and the awesome challenge of climate change.

It’s a big ask for a relatively inexperienced leader, but he can do a lot worse than follow one of Howard’s better attributes: the ability to approach every issue with calm pragmatism, even when under heavy fire.

I hope that he will overlook the political theologies of the left and the right and come up with solutions that are best for the vast majority of Australians without worrying about their potential impact on the next election.

In the meantime, we should all wish John and Janette Howard many satisfying years in their new life. We are indebted to them, no matter what their failings might have been. They are frail human beings like the rest of us.

EVERALD COMPTON
Chairman
National Seniors Australia

Opinions expressed in Compton’s Comment are not necessarily those of the publisher.