Howard's Way

Lazarus Rising
By John Howard
(HarperCollins, 2010, 572 pages)

John Winston Howard is Australia's second longest serving Prime Minister and the twelfth longest serving member of the House of Representatives.

Lauded by his admirers as a ''conviction politician'', Howard has arguably had more bile and abuse thrown at him by the Left, the media and at times even by members of his own tribe, than anyone in the history of our polity.  But rather than achieve its intended purpose of forcing him to go away, the abuse only served to strengthen his resolve.

Lazarus Rising is a predictably considered account of his life.  I say life because it is impossible to distinguish his public life from his private life.  I say predictable because it was his opponent's constant underestimation of him that was always one of their greatest mistakes.

The 650-page autobiography takes a helicopter view of his upbringing, his pre-political career, the Fraser government, the opposition years and then his time as prime minister.  Howard recalls the advice he was given by his Evidence lecturer, Len Badham, at Sydney University Law School in 1960 -- ''human recollection is inherently frail, the more so with the distance of time''.  It was a principle which Howard relied on for much of his career.

John Howard's love of family is well known and well documented in Lazarus.  He was brought up in what he describes as a ''stable, lower-middle class home'' as the youngest of four boys.  He describes the influence of discussions of political matters as a ''source'' of the decision to dedicate his life to public service.  The book leaves you with the unmistakable impression that the influence of his mother, Mona, was very powerful in the formative years.

Lazarus also chronicles that Howard, the self-described ''cricket-tragic'', was also ''enthralled'' by boxing and as a young fan he could ''recite, in order, all of the heavyweight champions of the world from James J. Corbett onwards''.  John Howard and boxing is not a combination that jumps readily to mind but maybe this is where he learnt the value of a tenacious spirit.

In John Howard's account, his family were typical of the aspirational Australia that as Prime Minister he sought to develop.  He describes his parents as members of the ''Greatest Generation'':  they gave everything so that the lives of their children would be better than their own.

Quite obviously the death of a parent at a relative young age can have a major impact on the life of the children and this is indeed the case with John Howard.  The death of his father not only saddened him but also, as he was youngest, brought him closer to his mother, who remained a dominant influence on his early years in politics.

University for John Howard was harder than for most.  His poor hearing that plagued his youth made studying in university lecture theatres that much more difficult.  Again the story relayed in Lazarus demonstrates just how singularly determined his personality is.

Following university John Howard moved into the legal profession and found a great influence from lawyer Myer Rosenblum.  This was the beginning of his strong association with the Australian Jewish community.  Far from the Labor myth about John Howard's early career in the law, he was much more than a ''suburban solicitor''.  In fact he partnered a city based firm, but his growing love of policies took over.

It was at this time that he started to take the first steps into serious Liberal Party activities.  It was also at this time that he made contact with his great political mentor John Carrick who was to be a long lasting influence on his career.  Howard says Carrick always ''realised that politics was a battle of ideas -- a philosophical contest -- and not merely a public relations competition''.  Amen to that.

Howard threw himself into the organisational arm of the Liberal Party, becoming President of the NSW Young Liberals and giving him his first exposure to Sir Robert Menzies during a cocktail party at the Lodge, where he says Menzies ''demonstrated his reputed passion for martinis by mixing some for his guests.''

These experiences drove Howard to seek Liberal preselection, initially for the state seat of Drummoyne, and then later the federal seat of Berowra.  He failed on both occasions but his attempts did enhance his standing within the Party.  His early activity in the Party also led to the beginning of his greatest and most enduring partnership of all.  Howard met Janette Parker in 1970 and their relationship was to have a profound influence not just on his personal life, but also his political career.  Howard describes their relationship and its impact on his career in the following way:

''Janette's support and counsel throughout my career has been invaluable.  To share a common interest in one's vocation with one's life partner is a real blessing.''

It was soon after this that John Howard was preselected as the Liberal candidate for Bennelong;  an endorsement he would hold for another 33 years.

Howard entered parliament in 1973 and Lazarus deals with his amazingly rapid rise through the ranks.  He became an early supporter of Malcolm Fraser and backed him in both ballots to topple Billy Snedden.  Howard describes how he was drawn to Fraser's strength, despite criticisms from colleagues that Fraser was far too conservative and thus as a divisive figure.  Some things change, some do not.

Howard's early backing of Fraser was a wise decision for the new and ambitious backbencher.  He was quickly promoted to the new Fraser Ministry as the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs.  This is where his intense commitment to workplace reform began.  It was John Howard as minister who first applied the secondary boycott provisions to trade unions in the Trade Practices Act -- a decision that provoked a typically understated ACTU President Bob Hawke to say ''if this goes through there will be blood on the streets.''

In a remarkably short period, Howard was appointed Treasurer and it was during this period that he began to develop his understanding of the need for economic reforms to build the Australian economy.  Howard commissioned the Campbell Report into the Australian Finance System but it was current events that rung the bell in Howard's mind about the desperate need for Australia to modernise its economy.  He became intellectually interested in proposals for an indirect tax and initiated the small steps to the debate that would take another 20 years to eventually win.  This understanding of the need for reform ensured that in opposition he would reject the easy political path of opposing reform and support some of the Labor Government's most contentious economic reforms.

The pain of the long years in opposition, the ups and downs of the battle with Andrew Peacock, the destructive and ill-fated ''Joh for Canberra'' push and his utter frustration with being overlooked for Leader by the younger generation in the early 1990s, led John Howard to believe his time had passed.

Working for John Howard, it was my observation that he had a willingness to learn from mistakes, internalise and improve.  He was a student of politics.  If he made a mistake he would rarely make the same mistake a second time.  Throughout Lazarus, Howard quite readily admits to making mistakes in his first stint as Leader, mistakes he resolved he would not make again.

Another great Howard characteristic was his courtesy.  Even in difficult times, and in his office in 2007 there were many of them, Howard was unfailingly polite.

An often unnoticed aspect of the Opposition years was the intense level of policy development that the Coalition went through.  Both Future Directions and Fightback! were developed in this period guiding the agenda of the eventual Howard Government.  It's a lesson of history that should be a reminder to those of us who currently occupy the opposition benches.

When John Howard was elected Prime Minister in 1996, he came to office having served a significant apprenticeship -- 23 years in parliament, including time as a minister, Treasurer and Opposition Leader.  It's a stark contrast when compared to the two most recent prime minister's, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, who both came to office with around nine and eleven years parliamentary experience respectively.

Howard says he ''did not come to office resolved to turn the nation on its head'' and that he ''was not so arrogant as to presume that I should inflict on the Australian people a new vision for the nation''.  Rather he wanted the changes he wished to bring ''would more directly echo the instincts of the Australian people''.

This instinct guided the way he sought to govern.  Shortly after retaking the Liberal leadership in January 1995 he said:

I've always believed in an Australia built on reward for individual effort, with a special place of honour for small business as the engine room of our economy.  I've always believed in a safety net for those amongst us who don't make it.  I've always believed in the family as the stabilising and coherent unit of our society.  And, I believe passionately in an Australia drawn from the four corners of the earth, but united behind a common set of Australian values.

On 24 November 2007, after 11 years in government, the Howard Government was defeated.

Howard accepted the decision with grace and described Australia as ''stronger, prouder and more prosperous'' than it was at the beginning of his term in 1996.

The journey from March 1996 and November 2007 and all of its difficult decisions and debates remind us just how significant the Howard Government was and just how underwhelming its successors have been.  It makes you wonder why Julia Gillard hasn't learnt the lesson that if you don't drive the agenda, your government will be eaten up by events.

Unsurprisingly, Lazarus details at some length the achievements of the Howard government.  At the forefront of those achievements are Peter Costello's 1996 budget, which Howard describes as the ''most important of all the budgets delivered'', bringing Australia back to surplus and setting the foundations for the years ahead.

It also provides an account of John Howard and Peter Costello's introduction of tax reform against unrelenting Labor opposition, a reform that now seems to have nearly universal agreement.

The Howard and Costello partnership was arguably the finest in Australia's history.  Like most enduring and successful relationships, it had its ups and downs.  And no autobiographical account would have been complete without recalling those ups and downs.  Howard lauds Peter Costello as Australia's best ever Treasurer but he also writes about the tension in their relationship over the leadership of the Liberal Parry.

People often forget that our Westminster system actively encourages competitive tension, bringing out the best in the participants involved.  The fact is that for the period of their partnership Howard and Costello never let this competitive tension get in the way of governing to the best of their ability.

In my assessment, it is not important whether Howard and Costello can find an agreed version of historical events, but rather it is the fact that they are both political giants who did great things for our country that matters.  The fact is they could not have done it without each other.

Lazarus gives a thorough and detailed account of the difficulty of gun reform and the subsequent issue of Pauline Hanson.  It is not surprising to those who know him that he lists gun reform as one of his finest achievements in office.

The Howard Government reformed our outdated workplace laws and took on the militant maritime unions on the waterfront.  Peter Reith's changes ensured that Australia's waterfront productivity is now globally competitive.

Indigenous policy is an area John Howard spends much time working through, which may seem odd to some.  But I believe that John Howard and the reasonable elements of the indigenous leadership undertook a journey from mistrust to a mutual respect of each others ideas.  In his final months in office John Howard took a very courageous but necessary and overdue step in taking direct action on the shocking situation in the Northern Territory.  Many will argue he took too long to do this, and maybe that is right, but I believe the book explains his journey towards understanding the stakes better than he did when he first took office.  This was not about symbols, it was about reality.  I will never forget the anger that he showed on the day the Little Children Are Sacred report was released.  This to me marked just how far he had come.

In several chapters he deals with his Government's major foreign policy decisions.  Paul Keating famously said before the 1996 election that Asian leaders wouldn't deal with John Howard.  It proved to be another Keating con.  During the stewardship of John Howard and Alexander Downer, Australia grew closer than ever to our Asian neighbours in both trade and security, while at the same time continuing to strengthen our friendships with the United States and Britain.

No account of the Howard Government would be complete without detailing the introduction of WorkChoices.  ''Billy gets a job but who cares?'' is the title of chapter that deals with this period.  If readers of the book expect Howard to offer a mea culpa and claim that the decision to implement these changes was wrong, then they misunderstand John Howard.  The title of the chapter describes exactly why John Howard sought to reform our workplace laws.  Not because of some hatred of the union movement, as many want to believe, but because he wanted to make it easier for people to work.  Howard does acknowledge that politically the reforms damaged the government but he stands by them as good policy.  He also stands by the need for ongoing economic reform and he criticises the Rudd/Gillard government for their re-regulation of the labour market.  Howard reminds us that the human dividend of a well managed economy was an unemployment rate of 3.9 per cent and faster growing real wages.

Lazarus Rising is an important read for anyone who is interested in Australian political history.  We will not see another John Howard -- he is one of a kind.  In the modern political era his tenacity and unwillingness to concede is second to none.  He is not without imperfections, but Howard is a patriot, a conservative, and a believer.

John Howard's contribution to Australian public life was outstanding and arguably will never be matched.  His government was one of political giants, with him the biggest of all.  He describes his government in the following terms to finish the book:

Long years in government -- which had been our good fortune -- are of little avail unless the power and opportunity it brings are put to good purpose.  Over almost 12 years we had done that in every area of Commonwealth Government responsibility.  Australia was indeed a stronger, prouder and more prosperous nation than it had been in March 1996.  That undisputed legacy was to gather strength over the ensuring few years.

He uses the book to stand up for his beliefs, for his friends and for his contribution.  He deserves to sit with Sir Robert Menzies in the upper ranks of our leaders.

This book is an important addition to that legacy.