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John Howard

This Month

John Stone’s condemnation of excessive government debt caused by fiscal mismanagement, protectionism, and overregulated labour markets, and the disproportionate power wielded by trade unions, inspired a new generation of economic thinking.

The economic giant the political class tried to ignore

Despite being maligned by Australia’s political and economic establishment, John Stone had the necessary fortitude and the intellect to shift debate.

Former Treasury secretary John Stone has passed away.

John Stone, former Treasury secretary, dies aged 96

Former prime minister John Howard has remembered John Stone as a public servant with “superb intellect”.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock have a fight on their hands.

Roundtable screams of Chalmers’ style, but where’s the substance?

The treasurer is pushing big ideas and expectations for his economic talkfest in August. The practical results are much less certain.

Why a visit to the panda enclosure is never just about pandas

China used to give pandas to strategic allies. Now it loans them out, but it also isn’t afraid to use them as punishment.

Anthony Albanese during a press conference in Shanghai on Sunday.

The PM will not cross Taiwan red line with China

If Anthony Albanese can be faulted, it is over the erosion of Australian sovereignty by the blind extension of the American military footprint on our continent.

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Robyn Denholm, chair of Elon Musk’s Tesla.

Tesla chief is a world away from Musk’s meltdowns

The company’s investors are asking: Where is Robyn Denholm? At the footy!

Anthony Albanese in Newcastle, with his Fiji counterpart.

Rugby union’s politics and finances hit the limelight

With the code hanging by a thread, the British and Irish Lions tour appears make or break for the future of rugby in Australia.

June

Paul Keating designed superannuation to provide a comfortable retirement, not subsistence.

12pc super is 25 years late but worth the wait: Keating

Paul Keating says Coalition delays to increasing the super guarantee could have cost a retiree as much as $300,000.

56 per cent of Australians now feel welcome to country ceremonies have become divisive.

Why welcome to country is a brake on economic reform

Some will deride discussion of these matters as culture wars. But economic leadership can only begin from a shared sense of national identity.

“This is a revolution.” Dr Hewson told the Eastern Suburbs Leagues Club on  November 22, 1991 about Fightback!

Fix Howard’s problematic GST deal, Hewson urges Chalmers

The architect of the Liberal Party’s first GST policy says a rethink of federal-state responsibilities needs to be part of a tax reform agenda.

John Howard with his treasurer Peter Costello in Canberra on March 7, 2003. Eleven days later, Howard’s cabinet

Howard and Costello: This is how you do tax reform, Jim

John Howard and Peter Costello have weighed in on Jim Chalmers’ productivity and tax agenda, 25 years after implementing the GST.

The GST was one of the banner reforms of the government of John Howard and Peter Costello.

‘No one liked it’: Lessons for tax reform after 25 years of GST

The bitter brawl over the goods and services tax is worth remembering as Jim Chalmers opens the door to real reform for the first time in years.

Liberal leader Sussan Ley and former prime minister John Howard.

What Sussan Ley can learn from John Howard’s ‘lazarus’ moment

When the opposition is looking hapless, and you’re pondering why she even bothers, the new leader can look to John Howard, Tony Abbott – and even herself

May

‘I don’t think John Howard has met these Nats’

This week’s stunning split in the Coalition has been building for a decade and insiders blame the Nationals, who have become a party of protest.

Nationals MP Darren Chester has previously backed reforms other colleagues have opposed, such as marriage equality.

‘We risk achieving nothing’, warns Nats MP after Coalition split

Nationals MP Darren Chester says his party risks spending years in the wilderness achieving nothing if it fails to rejoin the Coalition.

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Nationals leader David Littleproud with Bridget McKenzie and Kevin Hogan on Tuesday.

Howard sounds warning over historic Coalition split

The Liberal Party will sit alone in opposition after the Nationals decided to walk away following the breakdown of negotiations over policy.

The divorce will only further damage the already bleak electoral prospects of the centre-right of politics at the next election.

Nats must reunite with Libs sooner rather than later

The prospect of prosecuting their agenda is made more likely if the Nationals end their self-imposed exile and recombine with the Liberal Party.

Willing Coalition? Liberal Leader Sussan Ley and Nationals Leader David Littleproud.

The longer the split, the harder it will be to reconcile

Sussan Ley, who used to hold her own in shearing sheds, is playing hard ball.

Prime Minister Albanese arrives in Indonesia and is met by Airlangga Hartarto, Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs.

After three wobbly years, Albanese’s second term is taking off

The stack of new Labor MPs is reminiscent of the “class of 96”, which acted as John Howard’s praetorian guard for many years.

Sussan Ley and Ted O’Brien.

Ley can’t win in 2028 but maybe she can carve a competitive Coalition

Sussan Ley’s challenge is so onerous that just making it to the next election will be achievement enough.

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/person/john-winston-howard-3sr