Although I’m not fond of the idea of nominating the incumbent as it suggests a focus upon the ephemeral and not necessarily what will last, I am going to nominate the current Australian PM John Howard anyway. I think history will judge him very harshly.
He has repeatedly played to xenophobia and hatred, and re-introduced an ugliness to Australian politics that I thought had vanished with the ‘White Australia’ policy of the 70s. Whether it is reconciliation with our aboriginals, Kyoto, refugees, the republic, relations with our neighbours he can be relied upon to be a narrow minded insular bigot at all times. He is the worst type of conservative, one that wants to return us to a fabled or vanished past, and the spirit of change of his government is “Not on my watch”.
Even though most Australians are in favour of us becoming a republic, he made sure this wouldnt happen. This was despite the fact that he was in power with only 48% of the vote, and he had lost the popular vote to Kim Beazley in our own version of the Bush/Gore fiasco. He is an old fashioned monarchist who insisted upon presenting to the public a model for the republic that did not have popular support, and refused to put up for referendum the version the public actually wanted. I consider this abuse of position but as he insisted on being in control of the process even though he is opposed to the very concept we had no choice. So we continue with a foreign queen who to most young Australians means nothing.
With total contempt for the overwhelming opposition of the Australian public to war in Iraq he committed us to the war without even a parliamentary debate until it was a fait accompli. He then ignored the debate that did occur, which included the Senate passing a vote of no confidence in his government. Two months after the war he announced he did not see any need for an enquiry as the war “already seems like ancient history”
He has in effect sold our nation to Washington and made us mercenary whores and the chief brown-nosers of the Pacific. He parrots whatever line the Bush administration is currently espousing. When Washington was unhappy with the French he speculated publicly about how we could remove the UN veto right from France. When Washington announced its pre-emptive doctrine he announced he also reserved the right. We have become clowns, walking two steps behind a bully and saying “Me too! What he says!”
He is an inveterate liar. When challenged on his claim that he kept his promises he announced that all the broken ones didn’t matter as they “weren’t core promises”. He shamelessly manipulated a lie that refugees trying to enter the country had thrown their children overboard (Do we want these sort of people he cried) in order to win the last election. He claimed he was not aware the ‘overboard’ claim was false, even though it appeared in the Australian press before the election and even I knew it. We now know that at the time he was telling the Australian public that war with Iraq would reduce the risk of terrorism he had in his possession the British intelligence report telling him the opposite.
He has set back race relations in this country by years. Until last week he had as a member of his cabinet Wilson Tuckey a man who was convicted in the 1960s of beating an aboriginal with an iron bar. He was incapable of saying the word ‘sorry’ when it came to reconciliation with aboriginals, he was not sorry but had instead a ‘sincere regret’ he said. To justify war with Iraq he told us that he had compassion for the Iraqis suffering under Saddam at the same time as refugees from that same Saddam when they arrived here are imprisoned in prison camps out in the desert.
Our foreign policy has become one of bluster and posturing on one hand and toadying on the other. Our domestic politics revolve around the manipulation of xenophobia and fear as vote winners. We have ceased to be the progressive nation that former governments of both sides of politics had made us over the last 30 years.
And I am ashamed.