Lazarus Rising

by John Howard

  The party assembled in an atmosphere of relief and anticipation on 30 January. Alexander Downer was impeccable. Just before the party meeting was due to start, he walked from the Leader of the Opposition’s suite to my office and together we headed for the party room. He announced his intention to resign the leadership, thanked the party for its loyalty and forbearance and called for nominations to fill the vacant position. I was the only nominee and was elected unopposed, with acclamation. The deputy leadership was not in contention, and after a short speech from me, paying special tribute to Alexander, the party meeting ended.

  Shortly afterwards, I held a news conference and set out the goals of my leadership and the principles which would guide a Coalition Government if we were to win the next election. I remain intensely proud of how close our behaviour in government reflected the goals I put down in that first news conference of my renewed leadership of the Liberal Party. I 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 cohering unit of our society. And, I believe very passionately in an Australia drawn from the four corners of the earth, but united behind a common set of Australian values.

  In those simple direct sentences I had set out so much of what would guide me and my colleagues in government.

  Against all expectations, after both April 1993 and May 1994, Lazarus had had his triple bypass. Many people saw my return to the leadership as a case of the last man left standing. There was truth in this because the party only came back to me after three alternatives — Peacock, Hewson and Downer — had failed, but there were more substantial reasons. That I had been prepared to stick it out despite several rejections told my colleagues of my resilience and determination. They knew me as a conviction politician. To them, and, by extension, the Australian public, I stood for certain things. They may not always agree with those things, but at least I had convictions. At a time when the public was feeling just a little tired of packaged politics and spin, this was seen as an asset.

  I had become more inclusive. More than they thought I had during my first stint as leader, I would embrace the Liberal Party for what it really was — a broad church. It was the party of Mill as well as Burke. I would not abandon or seriously compromise strongly held views and values, and my colleagues did not want me to do that. What they wanted, however, and they sensed I would now do, was allow all viewpoints to be fully heard before decisions were taken. My colleagues also knew that I could match Paul Keating in the rough-and-tumble of political combat.

  There were millions of my fellow Australians literally aching for a change of government. I was keen to get to the task of delivering this and absolutely determined not to let them down.

  20

  THE ROAD TO THE LODGE

  On the evening of Friday, 1 March 1996, the day before the federal election which swept away Paul Keating’s Government and at which I became Australia’s 25th prime minister, I took my staff to the Café Stivelle in Hunters Hill, in my electorate of Bennelong, for an end-of-campaign thank you dinner. This had been a mammoth journey for most of us, with the 33-day intensive part of the campaign merely the culmination of more than 12 months of unceasing hard work and dedication. My staff had been magnificent.

  It was a beautiful balmy evening, and I wandered to the open-air part of the restaurant as I had spotted Paul Kelly, editor-in-chief of the Australian newspaper with his wife, Margaret. They had come across from their nearby residence for a late dinner. Paul told me that he had the latest Newspoll results, which would appear as the main story in the Australian on election day. The poll showed the Coalition with a two-party-preferred vote of almost 54 per cent against 46 per cent for Labor. If repeated in the election, it would give the Coalition a strong win.

  I was a little nervous about the poll being run heavily by the newspaper, because in my pre-election state of nerves, I thought it might scare people back into voting Labor. I reflected to Paul Kelly that those poll numbers were almost identical to the Newspoll about a month after I had returned to the leadership, and that through the 12 months which had followed, a virtual straight line could be drawn through the polls showing consistent relative levels of support for the Coalition and the Labor Party. The Australian public had been ready for a change of government for a long time but had been waiting for the Coalition to give it a strong enough reason to vote for that change.

  For the previous 13 months, the Coalition had put sustained pressure on the Keating Government. Displaying impressive unity, our team had achieved the right blend of aggression and policy direction. The Australian people knew what a Howard Government would be like, but I was determined that the election would be a referendum on the Keating Government.

  I knew that from the time the party took me back as leader, the Coalition’s political fortunes would stand or fall on my capacity to nail Paul Keating. That is what I set out to do from the very beginning, both in the parliament and elsewhere.

  As if on cue, parliament had re-assembled in February 1995 surrounded by a huge blockade of trucks established by timber industry workers and contractors who were protesting against the Keating Government’s forestry policies, especially in Tasmania, which they saw as too accommodating to the greenies. This blockade was a potent symbol of where a party will find itself if it plays opportunistic, interest-group politics devoid of long-term policy consistency. For years Labor had chased the green vote, yet it continued its pretence to be the true friend of the blue-collar worker. The two had collided over forest policy, and the truckies wanted to know whose side the Prime Minister was really on. They had good reason to think it was the greenies, and that is why they had come to Canberra with their trucks.

  In the first sitting week I led a most effective parliamentary censure against Keating, which reminded the Australian public, and more particularly our colleagues, that he could be matched — indeed bested — in the parliament, and that we should not feel intimidated by his rhetoric and capacity for verbal abuse. My line that the Australian people had enjoyed ‘a bare five minutes of economic sunlight’ before returning to recession really resonated with the public. It was exactly how people felt, especially in the wake of the savage increases in interest rates late in 1994.

  The March Canberra by-election was a real gift. As Sports Minister, Ros Kelly had been wounded by the ‘Whiteboard Affair’, with its allegations of political favouritism in the awarding of sports grants, and obviously wanted to leave politics as soon as possible. The Government, nonetheless, was within a year of an election and it was a foolhardy indulgence at such a time for a by-election to take place. It was a sign that Paul Keating’s arrogance had really got the better of him. Canberra is a Labor town just as Washington DC is a Democratic Party stronghold. Whatever the explanation might be, except in very atypical circumstances, such as December 1975 and the by-election of 1995, Canberra votes solidly for the Australian Labor Party. That political aphorism ‘Looks like Killara but votes like Cessnock’ is normally true of the national capital.

  Predictably, Canberra returned to the ALP at the general election. The by-election swing to the Coalition in Canberra was a fantastic 16 per cent, way beyond what both the Labor and Liberal parties expected, and delivered the seat to the Liberal candidate, Brendan Smyth. Getting such a huge boost so early in my leadership was invigorating. It hurt Keating a lot as it raised serious doubts about his political judgement. Hard heads in the Labor Party could not understand why he had permitted the by-election to take place. For the Liberal Party, the victory was muted by it occurring on the same day that the Fahey Government in New South Wales lost to Bob Carr.

  Throughout 1995 I was heartened by the ineptitude Paul Keating displayed in relation to certain people. Carmen Lawrence was the prime example. Political commonsense suggeste
d that she should stand down until questions relating to whether or not she had committed perjury, and other issues coming out of the Marks Royal Commission, had been disposed of. In keeping her, he violated an important principle of the Westminster system: a minister should resign or stand aside when his or her continued membership of the cabinet is damaging the government. If Paul Keating had applied that principle to Carmen Lawrence in 1995, she would have been gone early in the year and a great deal of prime ministerial energy would have been conserved for other pursuits.

  Another example was his pursuit of Kerry Packer. They had fallen out, but it was foolish of Keating to conduct a personal vendetta against the owner of the most powerful TV network and also, courtesy of his knockabout style, quite a popular figure with many Australians. Packer had enraged Keating with the complimentary remarks he had made about me during an interview on his own network. I was grateful for the comments. Keating’s obsession with Packer reached absurd proportions when he devoted a large chunk of a news conference he gave in Germany to attacking Packer and alleging some secret deal he had made with me regarding the repeal of the cross-ownership media prohibitions. This was a ludicrous charge. I had been publicly opposed to the cross-media prohibitions from as far back as 1987.

  The Republican Advisory Committee, chaired by Malcolm Turnbull, had reported in 1994, and mid-way through 1995 Keating intended to tell parliament of the Government’s proposals to convert Australia into a federal republic. Alexander Downer had proposed the holding of a constitutional convention to debate the issue. I confirmed this sensible and pragmatic policy. It allowed the Coalition to appear responsive to discussion of a republic without in any way selling the pass on the substance. It also laid the groundwork for my being able to declare, when the referendum of 1999 was approaching, that the Liberal Party would allow its members a free vote, which was the only feasible approach.

  Keating’s statement to parliament on 7 June proposed the establishment of an Australian republic, with a president effectively chosen by the government of the day. It was an emotional moment for the Prime Minister, and for most of his parliamentary colleagues.

  Virtually all of the Australian media were lyrical in their praise of the Prime Minister, not only for his proposal but the substance and delivery of his speech as well. I knew that I faced a considerable challenge in responding. Many of my colleagues were very discomforted by this issue. Whatever their own feelings might be, they had been savagely spooked by the level of media support for a republic and the polls, which up until then had shown majority, if not overwhelming, support for dumping the monarchy.

  Only when the debate crystallised around the retention or rejection of a fundamental element of our system of government would proper perspective be brought to the issue. What many of my somewhat nervous colleagues did not appreciate was the innate conservatism of the Australian electorate, and its highly commendable instinct to resist change unless a convincing case had been made.

  Responding to the Prime Minister, I said that I personally opposed change, but if the Coalition were to win the next election it would establish a constitutional convention to debate the issue. My speech, predictably, was dealt with critically in most of the Australian media. The truth was that most journalists wanted a republic, were quite excited with Keating’s speech and loathed the conservative position that I had taken.

  The day after my reply I lunched with the management and senior editorial staff of the Fairfax newspaper group in Sydney. Fairfax was completely gung-ho for the republic, and one by one they sneered at the position that I had taken. The only exception was Ross Gittins, Fairfax’s economics editor, who declared that he was an agnostic on the subject, largely because he did not think it important. On this issue I had the unmistakable impression that most journalists, holding the strongly republican views that they did, decided that it was one of those occasions when they could go their hardest, without any real regard for balance.

  The wall of opposition to my position on the republic from the Australian media was unnerving. I waited for the polls conducted after Keating’s speech and my response with some trepidation. To my immense relief they had not shifted. Despite several weeks of press criticism of my position and comment pieces which overwhelmingly praised Keating’s republican blueprint, support for the Coalition had not fallen. This vindicated my judgement that, to most Australians, the republic was a diversionary second-order issue. It also meant that there was latent support in the Australian community for maintenance of the constitutional status quo.

  Health policy had proved, over the years, to be a bugbear for the Liberal Party. The Fraser Government had made numerous changes to its health policy, which had been both unsettling and politically damaging. Returned to office in 1983, the Labor Party under Bob Hawke had introduced Medicare, which largely reprised the Hayden Medibank policy of 1975 with a number of refinements, including the introduction of a 1 per cent Medicare levy. In 1990 the Coalition’s position on health had been a shambles. We had no policy. The Coalition’s policy, in 1993, proposed big cuts to bulk billing and a paring back of the Medicare rebate. It was quite easy for the Labor Party to depict this as taking a scalpel to Medicare.

  After the 1993 election I concluded that the Coalition’s health policy had played a much bigger role in our defeat than was commonly acknowledged. Back as leader, I knew that the Coalition must accept Medicare as a reality. We had to renounce any intention of making major changes to it. Michael Wooldridge, my shadow Health minister, had the same view. So, during an interview with Laurie Oakes on 4 June on the Sunday program, I lanced the Medicare boil. I said, ‘We absolutely guarantee the retention of Medicare; we guarantee the retention of bulk billing; we guarantee the maintenance of community rating.’ I could not have been more explicit. I went on to say that the Liberal and National parties were committed to helping people with their private health insurance costs, and would lay out, probably during the campaign, how that help would be given. In government, we kept our word. We not only preserved Medicare, we made it better.

  Given the outcome of the 1993 election, there was an understanding within the party that a GST was off the agenda, at least for the next election. On 1 May 1995, I spoke to a business gathering in Sydney and, answering a question, made it plain that a GST would not be policy for the next election. I was vague about what would happen ‘some years into the future’. The Labor Party and the media seized on my comments as evidence of some secret agenda, and the following day I was emphatic that we would not introduce a GST. I said that we would ‘never ever’ bring in a GST. In government we did revisit the GST, but had the political honesty to present it in full detail to the electorate at the 1998 election, thus giving the Australian people the opportunity of voting us from office if they were unwilling to support our plan and change of heart.

  In two areas the Coalition moved to neutralise attacks from the Government. It had been long-standing Coalition policy to privatise the near-monopoly telecommunications provider, Telstra. Recognising some of the public sensitivities regarding this issue, the Coalition resolved that, in its first term, it would offer for sale only one-third of Telstra. This was seen as a reassuring compromise. It did not retreat from our previously held position, but moved at a pace that was less likely to alarm people who had real reservations about Telstra passing from public ownership.

  The other area was industrial relations. I decided that, in order to bullet-proof the Coalition against attacks from the Labor Party and the unions, we should provide what I described as a ‘rock-solid guarantee’ that in negotiating a contract outside the award system, no worker could be paid or receive less than the value of the aggregate award conditions. This became enshrined in the 1996 legislation as the ‘no-disadvantage test’. It meant that during the campaign I could always answer criticism that we were stripping away people’s conditions by saying that if somebody went into a contract of their own volition without the involvement of a union, then that person must re
ceive, as a minimum, the value of the award conditions. I announced this commitment in a major speech at the beginning of 1996. It took the wind out of union and Labor sails.

  As the year wore on there was continued pressure from the Government and numerous journalists that the Coalition should release more details of its policies. For good reasons I resisted.

  Unlike other Opposition leaders before and since, my principal policies and values were already well known. Peter Reith once told me that I was ‘a walking policy’. I could never be a small target. There would, of course, be specific additional policies released during the campaign. I did, however, deliver a series of what I called ‘headland’ speeches, five in number, which dealt in general and philosophical terms with the way in which the Coalition would govern.

  In one of those speeches, to the Australian Council of Social Services, delivered on 13 October, I took head-on the constant claim from the Labor Party, and some of its acolytes in certain welfare groups, that a Howard Government would weaken the social security safety net. I had already directly addressed the Medicare issue but I wanted to go further. The genuinely needy deserved an assurance from me that they would not be out in the cold under a Coalition Government.

  I gave specific assurances that a Howard Government would not force workers off awards; would not put a time limit on the receipt of unemployment benefits; would maintain existing sole-parent arrangements; would maintain the real value of pensions and other social security benefits; and in addition I repeated the pledge on Medicare. This was an important speech. Even some of those most cynical about us were willing to adopt a ‘wait-and-see’ attitude as a result of my address to ACOSS. During our years in government the really vulnerable were looked after.