We've all heard Enoch Powell's observation: "All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure." Politicians, the British Conservative argued, always seek one more success, and their ambition pulses as long as their heart beats, but sooner or later they fall. Anyone interested in reading the Australian book version of the same idea should consult Peter Hartcher's To the Bitter End: The dramatic story behind the fall of John Howard and the rise of Kevin Rudd (Allen & Unwin), which Peter Costello launched in Canberra last week.
When he celebrated a decade in power in March 2006, John Howard was on the highest political mountain. Unemployment was at a historic low, his fellow citizens were fat and happy, and Australia was the envy of the industrialised world. The Wall Street Journal and London's Daily Telegraph compared him favourably to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher respectively. He was seemingly invincible. And yet his successful 12-year-old government was annihilated 18 months later, and our second-longest-serving prime minister lost the seat he had held for nearly 35 years. It was not supposed to end like that.
Hartcher, international editor of the Sydney Morning Herald and one of Australia's leading political commentators, explains why it all ended in tears: longevity of the government, WorkChoices and climate change. All of these are plausible explanations for the coalition's election loss, but Hartcher's account of those final months is a mixed one.
At times, he produces a dramatic, albeit overstated, behind-the-scenes narrative of Howard's downfall. At other times, however, Hartcher tells us what we already know about the leadership rivalry: the intense disputes over fiscal policy (the treasurer was a true fiscal conservative, whereas the PM was a big spender); Ian McLachlan's note on the alleged 1994 deal to pass the torch of leadership to Costello after two terms; Costello's failure to challenge a wounded Howard who had lost the support of all but one of his cabinet colleagues (Philip Ruddock) during that turbulent September week of the Apec summit; and the Athens Declaration of May 2005 when the PM responded to journalists' questions about whether he'd stay and fight Kim Beazley at the next election; and so on.
From the outset, Hartcher depicts Howard in September to November 2007 as being "out of touch, too old, too tired". It's not just that he fell asleep during one important strategy meeting, a charge Howard emphatically denies. It's also his "intense mood swings" in the run-up to the election two months later. "He frequently vented his frustrations on senior staff, yelling and shouting," Hartcher writes. "The oscillations of the Prime Minister's moods were so punishing on those around him that they had persuaded Arthur Sinodinos to leave Howard's employ the year before, after more than a decade as his aide."
All of Howard's senior aides with whom I've spoken deny these accusations. "There were obviously stressful days, but I don't think I ever heard him even raise his voice," Howard's senior foreign policy adviser Andrew Shearer told me. "For example, I was with him more than anyone else during the Apec week -- surely a good reason to shout if ever there was one [given the relentless speculation that he'd resign] -- and can testify to his extraordinary resilience and civility under massive pressure."
"John Howard's treatment of staff is best reflected by the remarkable stability in its composition over such a long period in government," argues long-time chief of staff Sinodinos. Other confidantes, such as press secretary David Luff and political adviser Stephen Galilee, vouch for their boss's grace and dignity under constant pressure during the second half of 2007. "Unfailingly," speechwriter John Kunkel wrote last year, "he was calm, polite, professional and appreciative." All of this is a far cry from the moody, emotional and intemperate prime minister portrayed by Hartcher. Howard, in other words, was no Captain Whacky.
Still, Hartcher has some interesting things to say about Rudd's thin skin and political opportunism. We learn, for example, how he intellectually seduced the Left to win the Labor leadership in late 2006, only to become an economic conservative to neutralise Howard in 2007.
What Hartcher rightly has to say about the succession issue that haunted Howard and Costello to the bitter end may well haunt Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. With the Prime Minister in the polling stratosphere, that sounds inconceivable. But just as the skies were very blue and clear for Howard in March 2006, so the skies are blue and clear for Rudd today. And just as Howard could not defy the Powell theory of the inevitability of let-down, so will Rudd eventually come down. After all, if political giants -- from Woodrow Wilson to Margaret Thatcher to Bob Hawke -- could not survive the epidemic of disappointment that has raged through the profession for decades, why should the nerdy Rudd, whom Howard once told intimates was a "class swot", escape their fate?
Ever since he became Labor leader in December 2006, Rudd has been overwhelmingly popular with the Australian people. But as we head into the next federal election, and as the economic crisis starts to take its toll, it is a fair bet that "events" against which Harold Macmillan famously warned -- bad decisions, unintended consequences of policy, screw-ups in cabinet, a deteriorating economy -- could force the thin-skinned Rudd onto the political back foot. Even a friendly press won't be able to sugar-coat the bad news.
Read Hartcher and one is left thinking that just as succession talk haunted Howard and Costello, and Bob Hawke and Paul Keating before them, it is bound to dog Rudd and Gillard (as long, of course, as the opposition cleans up its act). According to Hartcher, there is no succession understanding between the pair. But he also points out that it was Gillard who brought the essential bloc of Caucus votes, principally from the Left faction, to the joint Rudd-Gillard ticket that allowed Rudd to beat Beazley in December 2006. Hartcher says she came up with at least as many votes as Rudd -- and probably more, according to her key people.
If this is indeed the case, and Rudd's popularity takes a dive, then prepare for another succession crisis in the nation's capital. As it happens, two biographies on Gillard are due for publication in the run-up to the next election. The timing could not be better.
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