by John Howard
I set up a cabinet policy unit whose head was to be the secretary of cabinet. This body interacted with the political and bureaucratic arms of government. It was physically located adjacent to my office, and as its first head I appointed Michael L’Estrange. He was to become one of my most valuable and trusted advisors in the whole time that I was Prime Minister. A Rhodes scholar, he studied at Oxford University before returning to Australia and joining the public service. He had a disciplined and enquiring intellect and an enormous capacity for hard work. Michael won the confidence of senior ministers very quickly and, as someone who had worked in the public service, he started with a measure of respect from the bureaucracy.
As promised, I established a National Security Committee of cabinet, which was to have the task of dealing with all Foreign Affairs and Defence issues, subject to really major decisions being referred to the full cabinet for final endorsement. It was to prove one of the most successful administrative decisions I took.
The consistency and discipline the Howard Government displayed regarding Foreign Policy and Defence was due overwhelmingly to the effective way in which this committee operated. It comprised, as well as the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, the Treasurer, the ministers for Foreign Affairs and Defence, and the Attorney General. It was attended on a full-time basis by the head of the Prime Minister’s Department and the secretaries of Foreign Affairs and Defence, the Chief of the Defence Force, the Director-General of the Office of National Assessments (ONA) and the Director-General of ASIO. Other senior officials such as the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Secretary of the Attorney General’s Department were invited to attend on an ad hoc basis. It worked remarkably well as a group and there were no occasions when any information of any consequence leaked from this body. Crucially this arrangement guaranteed that there would be a whole-of-government consistency on Foreign Affairs and Defence matters. I felt that governments in other parts of the world could have profited from copying the Australian model.
Controversially, I did not re-appoint six secretaries who had served in the Keating administration, including the Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Michael Keating.
He almost certainly would have stayed, for a time at least, if I had asked him, but Michael Keating fully expected that I would want somebody else, and volunteered this to me. He helped me with the initial stages of the transition in a very positive way. Before he left he gave me two pieces of advice about the running of cabinet, which I found very easy to accept because they reflected my own instincts. He said that I should always start cabinet on time, and that I should make sure that all of the major decisions of the Government were owned by the full cabinet. I sensed that although he may have proffered that advice in the past, it had not always been followed.
For the position of secretary of my department I chose Max Moore-Wilton, colloquially known in the trade as ‘Max the Axe’, which reflected some of his cost-cutting activities in the NSW bureaucracy. I chose Max because he had a mix of public service and business experience. I recalled his days in the Department of Trade, years earlier in the Fraser Government; also his vigorous attempts to reform the Australian National Line (ANL), which ultimately led to the Labor Government not reappointing him as chief executive of that body. He then did a number of jobs in the NSW public service and won good reviews from senior ministers in the Greiner and Fahey governments.
Max did not disappoint. He brought the right combination of commonsense, administrative skill and good humour to a very difficult job. He returned to the private sector in 2003 and was succeeded by Peter Shergold; different in stye but equally as effective. Peter had a wonderfully creative policy mind and was a consummate public service networker. I was fortunate with both of them.
Nicole Feeley stayed on as my chief of staff with Grahame Morris occupying a new parallel position as chief political advisor. Arthur Sinodinos remained not only as principal economic advisor but also somebody with a general policy brief. Some months later, Nicole recommended a number of senior advisor appointments to my staff. One of these was John Perrin, who assumed responsibility for Social Security and related issues, including Health. His thoughtful and constructive advice played a big role in shaping the social policies of my Government.
My critics frequently accused me of ignoring symbolism. Nothing could be more wrong. Their problem was that they have never liked a lot of my symbols. Symbols are important. That is why I always took a strong position, either positive or negative, when urged to embrace a symbolic act. My first symbolic act was to resume the practice followed by most recent prime ministers of flying the Australian flag on the bonnet of my car. In an act of contempt for Australia’s principal national symbol, Paul Keating had discontinued this practice. That had not been the wont of Bob Hawke, who made no bones about his respect for the Australian flag. Nor did Kevin Rudd or Julia Gillard make Keating’s mistake.
I also restored an oath of allegiance to the Queen in the oath to be taken by ministers. Unless and until Australia became a republic, it was right that ministers swear an oath of loyalty to the Queen. I did slightly alter the oath to include a commitment to serve the people of Australia ahead of the swearing of allegiance to the Queen, and, in deference to the fact that at some time in the next few years there would be a referendum on whether or not Australia became a republic, ministers were only asked to swear allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II and not her heirs and successors.
Despite urging from a number of people, I did not restore knighthoods. It would have been possible to have done this within the Order of Australia, and without partially resuming the awarding of imperial honours, which had been formally abandoned as a result of a Commonwealth–state agreement in the early 1990s. For me this was an on-balance decision as in some respects the knighthood system, properly applied, was a way of giving special recognition to certain people. I knew, however, that I had other fish to fry, and as a strong supporter of the constitutional monarchy continuing in Australia, I did not wish to be seen to be reviving an honour which to many, even conservative Australians, was somewhat anachronistic.
There was nothing symbolic about the economic task faced by the new government. Peter Costello and I knew that the first budget would be crucial, not only in changing the financial and economic direction of the country but also in shaping perceptions of how strong the Government would be in dealing with the necessity of economic reform. A new government has a lot of political credit in the bank. There is almost an expectation that it will do tough, unpopular things during the early months of its stewardship. The people knew that Australia had a big deficit and too much debt. They were prepared for change, and I judged that if the pain were fairly spread, the community would accept some tough decisions to get the economy back on its feet.
That was the path we took; we publicly embraced a goal of bringing the budget back into balance within three years. This was quite a challenge, as at that time growth, although improving, was still quite sluggish. Having publicly committed to the goal, the Treasurer and I knew that we would be harshly judged if we didn’t reach it.
On 12 March, the day after the new government had been sworn in, Peter Costello announced that our aim was to return the budget to an underlying balance by 1997–98. He said that we would achieve that by cutting the deficit by $4 billion in 1996–97 and a further $4 billion the following year; thereafter we would keep the budget in surplus during periods of economic growth. It was an audacious promise, but it was delivered. From the very moment that Peter Costello became Treasurer, he was unambiguously committed to putting Australia’s budget back into surplus and keeping it that way. It was an objective that we shared. Having restored the budget balance, it was common ground between us that we would never by design go back into deficit.
Despite the huge majority the Coalition had won in the House of Representatives, it did not control the Senate. The Labor Party did not believe in the mandate theory of g
overnment, especially when it was in opposition. Our mandate for industrial relations reform was clear. It was spelled out in great detail before the election and had been the subject of extensive debate over many years prior to 1996. The Australian public knew that a Liberal Government wanted to change unfair dismissal laws and give workers and employers the option of making their own contracts outside the award system, subject to the value of the award being the bedrock on which negotiations for those agreements took place. These were crystal-clear alternatives at the time of the election, and the Coalition won with a huge majority.
Despite this the Labor Party simply opposed every single change we wanted for industrial relations. Our way forward was with the Democrats. The independent Tasmanian senator Brian Harradine, although supportive of many of the Government’s positions on social issues, remained at heart a real Labor man when it came to industrial relations. It was in other areas that I was to find Brian Harradine not only a genuine negotiator and helper of the Government in office, but on particular issues a strong supporter.
In May 1996, a bare two months after the change of government, Peter Reith introduced his workplace relations legislation. It was immediately opposed by the Labor Party, and Reith commenced a long and, ultimately, reasonably successful negotiation with Andrew Murray, the Democrats’ spokesman on industrial relations, and Cheryl Kernot, the Leader of the Australian Democrats. Reith was a good negotiator. He knew that he had to give something in order to obtain the support of the Democrats. They were willing to go half-way or even a little more with the Coalition. They accepted the desirability of having Australian workplace agreements outside the award system but subject to a strict no-disadvantage test, which was our campaign promise anyway — but in the negotiations they insisted on a further tweaking of the test.
The real sticking point and the biggest disappointment was that we were not able, ever, to shift the Democrats on unfair dismissal laws. Not only was this frustrating but it ran completely counter to the pro-small business opinions of the Democrats’ founder, Don Chipp. He frequently criticised the unfair dismissal laws and understood their impact on small business. Over the years that followed, the Coalition would try on more than 40 occasions to get amendments loosening the impact of these laws through the Senate, but could never garner the support of the Democrats. Increasingly the Democrats were falling into the hands of new class politicians, who were often to the left of the Labor Party. The one conspicuous exception to this proved to be the leadership which Meg Lees showed over tax reform.
Some of my colleagues agitated for a Senate confrontation on workplace relations, with a view to having a double-dissolution election. I never thought that this was worth the candle, with no guarantee that a double dissolution would give us control of the Senate. Although I was unhappy with many of the compromises hammered out with the Democrats, we were nonetheless able to achieve a substantial part of our workplace agenda.
Reith won deserved praise for his capacity to negotiate with the Democrats. One of the major elements of the new legislation was, of course, the creation of Australian workplace agreements. They remained an option and, in the case of many industries, including the mining industry, an extremely valuable one for more than 11 years until their abolition immediately after the Rudd Government was elected. No evidence had been produced showing that workers had been disadvantaged under the Australian workplace agreements legislated in 1996, and which contained the no-disadvantage test.
In winning a lot of plaudits from his colleagues for negotiating an arrangement with the Democrats, Peter Reith attracted some fleeting attention as a potential leadership successor, some years into the future. Some stories even began appearing that I was promoting Reith as a rival to Peter Costello. I was not. Reith was, however, attentive to colleagues on the backbench and understood, from the beginning, the importance of senior cabinet ministers visiting electorates, particularly marginal ones.
Another major election promise was kept when, with the support of Brian Harradine, we obtained Senate approval for the sale of one-third of Telstra. Both the Labor Party and the Democrats had campaigned against the sale of any part of Telstra, so Harradine’s support was crucial. With this bill through, we were able to establish the Natural Heritage Trust and continue to keep faith with the pro-environmental stance taken during the election campaign.
I was very grateful to Brian Harradine for the support he gave in the Senate for our New Schools policy. Under the previous government, it was extremely difficult for a new independent school started in an area already serviced by a government and a Catholic parish school — which was the case in most areas — to attract federal government funding. In response to urgings from Sydney Anglicans, who wanted to establish a system of low-fee Anglican schools, I announced a policy change to achieve this.
We legislated for the change, and predictably the Labor Party, still cornered by the education unions, opposed it. So did the Australian Democrats. To his great credit, Brian Harradine saw the virtue in what we were proposing to do. He was a true believer in freedom of choice in education. When the Labor Party moved a Senate amendment which would have severely undermined our proposal, Harradine voted with the Government, as did Senator Mal Colston, to whom I will return later, and the Labor Party abandoned its tactics, lest it be seen as being too opposed to more independent schools. I remain intensely proud of this change as it has resulted in a rapid expansion in the number of low-to moderate-fee-level independent schools. The Anglicans have been active but so have others, and this of course is an area where, subject to the requisite educational standards being met, the assistance is available irrespective of religious affiliation or to a group that has no religious identification at all.
Early in my prime ministership I had also decided on an important diplomatic appointment. That was to invite Andrew Peacock to serve as Australian ambassador to the United States. He accepted with grace, and the opportunity of this appointment pleased me immensely. Andrew had unmatched political contacts on both sides of the American political divide and he would go on to fill the position for three years with effortless skill. Andrew’s wife, Penne, is a Texan, and they currently divide their time between the two nations.
I have described some of the early political and policy challenges of my newly won office. There was also a massive adjustment for my family. Janette had left the paid workforce when I was elected to parliament, with our daughter, Melanie, being born just a few months later. She never returned to teaching, at which she excelled, because with my being away on a regular basis with parliamentary sittings and other commitments, the intensive parental care and attention we wanted our children to have would not have been possible. That was our choice; neither of us has ever regretted it. I have always been conscious of the professional sacrifice that Janette made, and although she did it freely, I could not have achieved what I did in politics without it.
In every way imaginable, I was lucky to meet Janette. Not only did I love her enough to want to spend my life with her, but from the beginning we enjoyed talking to each other on all conceivable subjects; 40 years later we are still at it, including politics. Janette is a highly intelligent, independent, opinionated woman who was never reluctant to express her views to me on the issues of the day, even if they were at odds with mine. We had some lively arguments. But once I had taken a decision that was it, not because she accepted that I was right, but I was the elected person. She was highly critical of those husbands, wives and others who exploited their positions to publicly air their thoughts, knowing full well they would attract attention because of who they were related to. She frequently said that if she wanted to inflict her views on the public, she would run for parliament herself. This was one of the reasons she never did many press interviews. I was fortunate that Janette enjoyed politics, was never at me to leave and has kept her intense interest beyond my active participation. In part because she was an only child, Janette is self-reliant, something she was keen to pas
s on to our three children.
The pattern of our life as a family was well settled before I became Prime Minister; by then our youngest was 16. There had been many stressful times for Janette. I have never forgotten arriving home from Canberra one Friday evening in October 1981, when I was Treasurer, to find her in the midst of the chaos of an almost totally dismembered house, which was in the throes of having a storey added. She was calmly handling three children, the youngest of whom, Richard, was then 14 months, as well as caring for her mother, Beryl Parker, who was staying with us as her husband had died just two weeks earlier. She had set up a makeshift bed for her mother in the partially built stairwell area. I marvelled at her capacity to keep it all together.
Janette’s mother was a big part of our lives. She bought a home unit immediately behind our Wollstonecraft home, moving there in early 1982, only a few months after Janette’s father died. It was the ideal arrangement, as she had the security of living near us but the independence of her own home. She watched her three grandchildren grow up, influencing them in different and always positive ways.
When I became PM we looked at the possibility of staying at Wollstonecraft, but it was soon apparent that the costs involved in extra security, which in turn would inconvenience our neighbours, meant it was not realistic. As Richard still had two more years at the nearby Shore school, and Melanie and Tim were at university, both in Sydney, we decided to base the family at Kirribilli House, knowing full well that I would spend as much if not more time at the Lodge. Janette did not wish to move too far from her mother, who continued in her Wollstonecraft unit.