User:Eatherils

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Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper Kyle Supper (born 26 July 1939) is an Australian politician and the Prime Minister of Australia. He is the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies. He previously served as Treasurer in the government led by Malcolm Fraser from 1977–1983 and was Leader of the Liberal Party from 1985–1989 through the 1987 election against Bob Hawke. Elected again as Leader of the opposition in 1995, Howard became the 25th Prime Minister of Australia after defeating incumbent Paul Keating in the 1996 election. His government was re-elected in the 1998, 2001 and 2004 elections.

Contents [hide] 1 Early life 2 Rising politician 3 Success, failure, success 4 Prime Minister 4.1 The 1996 election campaign 4.2 First term: 1996–1998 4.3 The 1998 election campaign 4.4 Second term: 1998–2001 4.5 The 2001 election campaign 4.6 Third term: 2001–2004 4.7 The 2004 election campaign 4.8 Fourth term: 2004–present 4.8.1 Political Situation 4.8.2 Industrial Relations 4.8.3 Iraq and Terrorism 4.8.4 AWB Scandal 4.8.5 Mandatory Detention of Refugees 4.8.6 Environment 4.9 Speculation about retirement 5 Honours 6 See also 7 Notes 8 References 9 External links

Early life Of English, Scottish and Irish heritage which can trace its roots in Australia to the 1840s and '50s, John Howard is the youngest son of Lyall Howard and Mona (nee Kell), an office worker. His parents were married in 1925 and their first son Stanley (later a solicitor and company director) was born in 1926, followed by Walter (1929), and Robert (Bob) (later an academic and member of the Labor Party) (1936).

Howard grew up in the Sydney suburb of Earlwood. His father and his paternal grandfather, Walter Howard, were both veterans of the First AIF in World War I. They later ran a petrol station and mechanical workshop in Dulwich Hill, where John Howard worked as a boy. Lyall Howard died when John was sixteen, leaving his mother to take care of John (or "Jack" as he was known in the family) and his three brothers.

Howard suffered from a hearing impairment in his youth, and this has left him with a slight speech impediment, something that he shares with namesake Winston Churchill.[2]

Howard attended the publicly funded state schools Earlwood Public School and Canterbury Boys' High School. Howard won a citizenship prize in his final year at Earlwood (presented by local politician Eric Willis), and subsequently represented his secondary school at debating as well as cricket and rugby.[3] In his final year at school he took part in a radio show hosted by Jack Davey, Give It a Go broadcast on the commercial radio station, 2GB, and a recording of the show survives.[4] After gaining his Leaving Certificate, he studied law at the University of Sydney. Howard joined the Liberal Party in 1957.

Rising politician

John Howard as "boy Treasurer" in the Fraser governmentHoward was a solicitor and held office in the New South Wales Liberal Party on the State Executive and as President of the Young Liberals (1962–64), the party youth organisation.[5] During this period Howard was a supporter of Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War, and he remains so today.[6]

At the 1963 Federal Election, Howard acted as campaign manager in his local seat of Parkes for the successful candidacy of Tom Hughes who defeated the 20 year Labor incumbent.

In 1967 with the support of party power brokers, John Carrick and Eric Willis, he was endorsed as candidate for the marginal suburban state seat of Drummoyne, held by the ALP. Howard's mother sold the family home in Earlwood and rented a house with him at Five Dock, a suburb within the electorate. At the election in February 1968, in which the incumbent state Liberal government was returned to office, Howard failed to defeat the sitting member, despite campaigning vigorously. Howard and his mother subsequently returned to Earlwood, moving to a house on the same street where he grew up.

Howard continued living at home until 1971 when he married fellow Liberal Party member Janette Parker, with whom he now has three children. Janette, formerly an English teacher, has maintained a low profile during her husband's prime ministership, possibly in part due to health problems but also to her own expressed preference.[7][8]

Howard's next attempt to enter parliament was at a Federal level and was successful. He was elected to the House of Representatives as the Member of Parliament for the Sydney suburban seat of Bennelong at the Federal election in May 1974. When Malcolm Fraser's government came to power in December 1975, Howard was appointed Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs, and in December 1977 he was appointed Treasurer at the age of 38, for which appointment he became known as "the boy Treasurer". In April 1982 he was elected Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party.

He favoured cuts to personal income tax and business tax, lower government spending, the dismantling of the centralised wage-fixing system, the abolition of compulsory trade unionism and the privatization of government-owned enterprises, views that have dominated his subsequent career. He became frustrated with the more moderate and pragmatic Fraser, who would not embark on these steps. In 1982 Howard nearly resigned in protest at Fraser's big-spending pre-election budget. As Federal Treasurer, John Howard presided over a home lending rate peaking at 13.5% on 8 April 1982.[9][10]

Success, failure, success Following Fraser's resignation, Howard contested the Liberal leadership, but was defeated by Andrew Peacock. He remained Deputy Leader and became Deputy Leader of the Opposition. Peacock was defeated by Hawke at the 1984 election and although he had lost by less than most commentators expected, Peacock began to worry that Howard was planning to challenge for the leadership. In May 1985 he tried to remove Howard from the Deputy Leadership position, expecting him to challenge for the Leadership. The plan backfired when Howard stood again for the deputy's position, and won. This put Peacock in an untenable position and he resigned, leaving Howard to take the leadership unopposed.

Howard said that "the times will suit me." In addition to his economic views, he became known as a strong social conservative, supporting the nuclear family against the so-called "permissive society", and was also sceptical of the promotion of multiculturalism at the expense of a shared national identity. In 1985, in an interview he gave with The Age published on 30 July, Howard stated that he (like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher at the time - see History of South Africa in the apartheid era) was opposed to economic sanctions against the apartheid government of South Africa.

During 1985 and 1986, with unemployment rising and the economy stagnant, Howard appeared to be making ground on the government. However, Howard's chances of winning the 1987 election were destroyed when the arch-conservative Premier of Queensland, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, launched a populist "Joh for Canberra" campaign, temporarily splitting and discrediting the conservative forces. Hawke won the 1987 election comfortably.

In 1988, Howard's position was weakened by controversy following a speech in which he claimed that the rate of Asian immigration into Australia was too high. In May 1989 Peacock launched a surprise leadership coup against Howard. After a brief stint on the backbench, Howard returned to the Coalition front bench, but his leadership career seemed to be over, particularly when Peacock lost the 1990 election and the Liberals turned to a new, younger leader, Dr. John Hewson. Howard himself compared the possibility of a political comeback to "Lazarus with a triple bypass".

Howard was an enthusiastic supporter of Hewson's economic program, with a Goods and Services Tax (GST) as its centrepiece. After Hewson lost the "unloseable" 1993 election to Paul Keating, Howard unsuccessfully challenged Hewson for the leadership. In 1994, he was again passed over for the leadership, which went to Alexander Downer. Downer failed to dent Keating's dominance and in January 1995 he resigned as leader. The party's Deputy Leader, Peter Costello was unwilling to step up to the leadership, and Howard became leader for the second time.

Prime Minister

The 1996 election campaign As Opposition Leader, Howard adopted a more pragmatic position than he had done during his first term in the leadership. He repudiated his earlier statements against Medicare and in favour of a GST (saying he would "never ever" introduce a GST).[11] In a "small target" strategy, he attacked the "arrogance" and the "elitist" nature of Keating's "big picture" politics—issues like foreign relations with Asia, Australian republicanism, multiculturalism and reconciliation with indigenous Australians—which, Howard believed, were irrelevant to ordinary voters. He also promised workers would be no worse off under industrial relations changes.[12]

Howard won over many traditional Labor voters, sometimes called the "Howard battlers", and scored a sweeping victory at the 1996 elections over Keating to become Prime Minister of Australia at the age of 56.

In the lead up to the 1996 election, Pauline Hanson, the Liberal candidate for Oxley in Queensland was disendorsed because of comments she made to The Queensland Times. Howard was slow to express views on Hanson; his initial public reaction was to comment that he thought it was good that the years of "political correctness" were finally over.

First term: 1996–1998

John Howard in the USA in 1997Howard and his cabinet immediately announced the previous government had left behind a 10 billion dollar "budget black hole" that necessitated considerable reduction in almost all areas of government expenditure.[13] Training and education programs developed under the Keating government were scrapped, infrastructure investment was scaled down, funding for indigenous bodies was reduced, and a system of "work for the dole" requiring social security seekers to engage in work was introduced.

Prudent economic management remained the government's strongest claim throughout its term, and a prolonged period of economic growth remains an essential element in its popularity.[14] The government began a trend of budget surpluses which it maintained in most years, the exception being the 2001-2002 financial year where a cash deficit of $1.3 Billion was recorded[8]. By 2006 had completely paid off the 96 billion dollar Commonwealth government net debt which was in place in 1996.

In 1996, Australia was stunned when 35 people were killed by Martin Bryant in the Port Arthur massacre. Howard responded by coordinating action by the state governments to heavily restrict the private ownership of semi-automatic rifles, semi-automatic shotguns and pump-action shotguns. This action and an accompanying "gun buy-back scheme" were popular.

The Howard government did not have a majority in the Senate, instead facing a situation where legislation had to be negotiated past either the Australian Democrats or the Independents. The Senate blocked or delayed much of the Government's more controversial legislation, including the partial privatisation of the government-owned telecommunications company, Telstra; the modification of industrial relations laws to promulgate individual contracts; increases in university fees; large funding cuts in the 1996 and 1997 budgets; a 30% private health insurance rebate; and the extinguishment of native title on pastoral leases (following the High Court's Wik decision).

Howard had come to office promising to improve standards of integrity among ministers and politicians, introducing a strict "Code of Ministerial Conduct" at the start of his term. The strictness of his code was enforced when a succession of seven of his ministers (Jim Short, Geoff Prosser, John Sharp, David Jull, Brian Gibson, Bob Woods, and Peter McGauran) were required to resign following breaches of the code, concerning a variety of "travel rorts" (misuse of the ministerial travel allowance) and conflicts of interest between ministerial responsibilities and share ownership. Prosser had attempted to use his ministerial office to further his own business interests. Another two ministers (John Moore and Warwick Parer) were discovered to have breached the code.

The 1998 election campaign The 1998 election campaign was dominated by two issues. One was reform of the tax system, including the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST; a broad-based value-added tax).[15] At the October 1998 election, the Liberal-National Coalition, suffered a large swing, largely driven by an opposition campaign against the Goods and Services Tax. Labor leader Kim Beazley won 51% of the national two-party preferred vote, but the Liberals ran an effective marginal electorate campaign and were returned with a comfortable majority in parliament.

Although One Nation had previously surprised commentators with a resounding performance in the Queensland state election, its national campaign was poorly administered and One Nation failed to win any House of Representatives seats. An electoral redistribution had rendered Pauline Hanson's seat of Oxley unwinnable. She stood in neighbouring electorate Blair but was defeated.

Second term: 1998–2001 Despite Howard's essentially domestic focus, external issues intruded significantly into Howard's second term when the people of East Timor voted for independence in a United Nations sponsored referendum. Indonesian militia, covertly backed by Indonesian troops, began a brutal campaign of repression. After enormous public pressure, Howard (with bi-partisan support) broke with the long-standing Australian policy of unquestioning support for Indonesia, and Australia lead a peacekeeping/policing force to protect the inhabitants against pro-Indonesian militias, attracting praise domestically and in several countries, but angering some Indonesians and Islamists. A side effect of these actions was that Osama Bin Laden later called Australia a "crusader force", and that the Bali bombings were retribution for leading the action.[16][17][18][19][20]

John Howard's government also considered the issue of a national apology to Aboriginal Australians for their treatment by previous generations following the European settlement of the country. Howard refrained from making a national apology (although all State and Territory Governments did so) and instead personally expressed "deep sorrow" while maintaining that "Australians of this generation should not be required to accept guilt and blame for past actions and policies."[21]

The other major issue during Howard's second term was the implementation of the GST, replacing a range of taxes on specific goods with a flat rate on almost all goods and services. All GST revenue is distributed to the states. This was intended to give the States responsibility for their own finances and end the annual funding squabble between the States and the Federal Government. The Federal Government continues to determine the share of GST revenue received by each state.

Howard was only able to pass the GST legislation through the Senate after making a deal with Australian Democrats' leader Senator Meg Lees to exclude a number of items from the GST, most notably fresh food such as fruit and vegetables. This increased the complexity of the GST, which had already increased the frequency and detail of reporting required by small businesses.

As a partial offset for the GST, a $7,000 "first home buyers grant" was introduced in 2000.[22] The grant was paid at settlement, and Australian banks chose to count it towards a buyer's deposit, increasing the borrowing limit of applicants by approximately $70,000 and feeding a housing boom already sparked by world-wide low interest rates.

Although some of the resentment for the GST fell on the Democrats, the Howard government was trailing in the polls in 2001. The government lost a by-election in the normally safe electorate of Ryan in Queensland, and Labor governments were elected in all the states and territories (except South Australia, which fell to Labor in 2002). In response to the declining position at this time, a number of policy changes were made, including the abandonment of petrol excise indexation and increased government benefits to self-funded retirees.

The 2001 election campaign In August 2001, the government refused permission for the Norwegian freighter MV Tampa, carrying a group of asylum seekers picked up in international waters, to enter Australian waters. Howard ordered the ship be boarded by Australian special forces and spoke strongly of the need for Australia to "decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come". This brought censure from the government of Norway as failure to meet obligations to distressed mariners under international law at the United Nations.[23]

The government introduced tough "border protection" legislation. Kim Beazley and the Labor opposition offered half-hearted support to Howard's legislation, allowing the Howard government to portray itself as tough on border protection. The issue gave the Howard governent a big lift in the polls,[24] and most commentators agree it was the decisive issue in the 2001 election.[25][26][27]

It was during October 2001 that pictures released by the Navy sparked the Children Overboard Affair. The pictures which had been purported to show that children had been thrown into the sea were taken during a rescue after SIEV-4 had sunk. When this was discovered, Howard claimed that he was acting on the intelligence he was given at the time. It was later revealed that Minister Reith had been informed on 7 November by Air Marshal (now Air Chief Marshal) Angus Houston that the claim was false. On 26 February 2006 Howard said,

"They irresponsibly sank the damn boat, which put their children in the water".

The subsequent Senate inquiry later found that passengers aboard other SIEVs had threatened children, sabotaged their own vessels, committed self-harm, and, in the case of SIEV-7 on 22 October, a child had been thrown overboard and rescued by another asylum seeker.[28]

At the November 2001 elections the Coalition was re-elected, with a larger majority than in 1998.

Third term: 2001–2004 In the two years after the 2001 election the Howard government continued its tough line on national security and "border protection" issues, while seeking to further its agenda of conservative social policies and pro-business economic reforms. Despite its victory in 2001, the government did not have a Senate majority, and its ability to pass planned legislation was restricted.

Howard faced a difficult issue in the allegations that his choice as Governor General, Dr. Peter Hollingworth, in his previous job as Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane, had refused to investigate Anglican priests who were accused of paedophilia in various churches. Eventually Hollingworth was forced to resign the governor-generalship amidst a storm of controversy that threatened to damage the credibility of his office.

So long as the issue of national security was prominent in the minds of voters and the Australian economy remained strong[citation needed], Howard retained a clear political advantage over his opponents. Throughout 2002 and 2003 he kept his lead in the opinion polls over the then Labor leader, Simon Crean. Following the October 2002 Bali bombing, Howard placed a renewed emphasis on his government's approach to national security.

In March 2003, Howard joined 40 countries including the United Kingdom and the United States, in sending troops and naval units to support in the invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. He told parliament:

"Full disclosure by Iraq of its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs and immediate and total cooperation by Iraq with the provisions of resolution 1441 of the Security Council will remove the need for military action."[29] Australian opinion was deeply divided on the war and large public protests against the war occurred.[30] Several senior figures from the Liberal party, including John Valder, a former president of the Liberal Party, and Howard's former friend and colleague, former