Tim Blair: Europe takes note of Howard’s words before his time

John Howard’s stance on border protection was slammed by self-hating snobs. Twenty years late, but Europe has finally caught up with the solid good sense of Howard, writes Tim Blair.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has taken a leaf from John Howard.

Certain Australians have always felt tremendous shame about our beautiful, peaceful, friendly nation.

They believe that Australia, viewed from enlightened foreign aspects, is a backwards, small-minded place – bitterly and irrationally hostile to outsiders and their superior ways.

They are mortified, or claim to be mortified, by how far Australia falls short of European sophistication.

These types, overwhelmingly of the left, are basically insecure and self-hating snobs whose notions of themselves are formed entirely by others.

They’re the adult equivalent of kids who demand to be dropped off three blocks away from school due to being ashamed of their parents’ car (understandable these days if it’s an EV. Easy, too, because EVs often spark out prior to reaching intended destinations).

And nothing distresses our anti-Australia crew more than democratic political leadership of which they disapprove. Mention former Prime Minister John Howard to these people and even now, some 16 years after Howard was voted out of office (and out of his own seat), they’ll rage and foam with fury.

Former Prime Minister John Howard delivering speech at National Press Club in 2001.

One line from Howard, improvised during his successful 2001 election campaign, particularly wounded our pro-sophistication colonial cringe community.

Speaking of Australia’s quest to halt illegal immigration, Howard memorably declared: “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.”

Seems reasonable enough, but those words and the Howard government’s border-protecting deeds boosted various individuals to peak claims of shame.

Notably, they decided that merely safeguarding our borders – philosophically identical, although on a larger scale, to putting up a fence or locking your house door – caused the rest of the world to hate us.

“Australia is rapidly becoming an international pariah,” former Family Court chief justice Alastair Nicholson wrote in 2014, “riding roughshod over solemn treaty obligations into which it has entered like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the UN Refugee Convention and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.”

Whatever you say, your judginess. Although “solemn treaty obligations” sounds like a terrific excuse the next time I roll up to home at 3am.

“Australia has become an international pariah,” former Australian immigration detention doctor John-Paul Sanggaran announced in 2015.

“Our policies and treatment of people fleeing persecution, war and torture are infamous for their cruelty and selfishness.”

John Howard was before his time.

Woo-hoo! If Australia was a mega-selling mid-’90s super songbird with a five-octave vocal range we’d be Pariah Carey. Our hard-earned international shame kept keeping time with our successful border shutdowns.

Of course those whose strategies threw open Australia’s borders weren’t too happy about it.

“We should be leading the global policy debate,” ex-PM Kevin Rudd wrote in 2016, offering a familiar concluding phrase: “Not turning ourselves into some pariah state.”

Yet Aussie travellers, then and now, rarely encounter any anti-Australian sentiment, much less the sort of hostility you’d expect for pariahs.

Once or twice I’ve been asked why Australia has no nuclear power plants, but that question assumes confusion or superstition on our parts rather than evil.

And a New Orleans friend just came right out and said it during our Covid lockdowns: “What happened to Australia’s testicles?”

Along with the role of the states, that crucial question is beyond the remit of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s inquiry-avoiding pandemic inquiry.

Likewise, we haven’t heard much this week from believers in the Australian pariah theory. They seem to have fallen oddly silent on immigration issues ever since a compelling recent statement from European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, took notes from Howard’s speech. (Photo by Rob Kim/Getty Images for Global Citizen)

You’ll recall Howard’s words: “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.”

Well, here’s sophisticated Euro boss von der Leyen during a visit last week to the refugee-swamped Italian island of Lampedusa: “We will decide who comes to the European Union and under what circumstances.”

Twenty years late, but Europe has finally caught up with the solid good sense of Howard and the voters who elected him.

As The Australian’s foreign editor Greg Sheridan told Sky News, this is all quite a shift.

“Now you’ve got the European Union, the most politically correct body on the planet, actually quoting Howard’s words,” he said.

“Actually, you hear this all around the world and all around America.”

Not bad. For pariahs.