Vikki Campion: It’s time Albo apologised to John Howard for ageist comments

When John Howard turned 60, Anthony Albanese described the then-PM as a ‘fossil’ … belonging to museums and historical texts’. Now 60 himself, Vikki Campion wonders if Albo has revised his ageist view.

Happy 60th, Mr Albanese.

Now that you have celebrated this milestone, do you still believe that prime ministers of your vintage are “antiques” and “a remnant of the past that should be put on display, but not in government” — as you said when John Howard turned 60?

In a 1998 debate on then-prime minister John Howard’s leadership, open to pillory policy and promises, you got stuck into two things none of us can ever control: his age, 60, and his height, 176.5cm.

At 60, John Winston Howard was, according to your Hansard record, a “fossil”, “a man small in every sense”, “a little man”, an “anachronism” “belonging to museums and historical texts” but too old to serve, who “probably wishes good old Ming had dosed the country with formaldehyde when he had the chance”.

You were 35 when you etched heightism and ageism into Hansard — proving youth is no guarantee of a tolerant or accepting mind.

Does 1.5cm, the only difference between you and Howard today, give you all these rights to weaponise personal, physical insults? Are you such a supreme specimen that you have never considered saying sorry?

Attacking a person’s body, not the policy, is the most unsophisticated form of debate.

Then-prime minister John Howard in 1998.

You celebrated your ageism again five years ago, reposting a video of the speech on Facebook.

In 20 years, did you never temper your views to such an extent as to offer an apology?

If it was exuberance, then what is it now apart from discrimination?

Hopefully, now you can recognise that at 178cm, yourself being 1.5cm taller doesn’t make you a comparative physical Adonis.

Maybe you wrote it believing yourself as some parliamentary Peter Pan who would never grow up, describing Howard as “yesterday’s man”, “at home with mum, wearing his shorts and long socks, listening to Pat Boone albums and waiting for the Saturday night church dance”.

As opposed to you, boogying in the VIP section at Midnight Oil concerts, and taking a taxpayer-funded trip to the Queensland taxpayer-funded Folk Festival, alongside spoken word performances, poetry slams, talks on “eco-anxiety”, “the magic of hypnosis”, Kevin Rudd’s latest book, and workshops on “non-verbal story-telling” and “speed friending”.

In 1999, you repeated that line that “anachronisms belong in museums and historical texts, certainly not in parliament or in leadership positions”. You called Howard the “voice of the impotent”, who “never escaped from what Barry Humphries refers to as the “Age of Laminex”.

A young Anthony Albanese taking aim at Howard in the chamber.

Your mentor Tom Uren, a veteran of Australia’s political left, remained uncriticised by you in the parliament, as a septuagenarian.

You were there as a member of the parliament when Howard passed the Age Discrimination Act, making us the first country in the world to appoint an age discrimination commissioner. Yet your Facebook speech repeat act on your #ThrowbackThursday post shows we live in a pervasively condescending society where you, as Prime Minister, celebrate ageism but condemn sexism, racism, and homophobia.

How did you refer to Ita Buttrose at the Mardi Gras or Lisa Wilkinson at the women’s march?

It’s time to acknowledge you were wrong to be an ageist.

Long ago, people could deal with insults such as yours front on, as prime minister George Reid did when someone heckled on his body shape, implying he looked pregnant when asking “what he was going to call it”.

He replied: “If it’s a boy, I’ll call it after myself; if it’s a girl, I’ll call it Victoria. But if, as I strongly suspect, its nothing but piss and wind, I’ll name it after you.”

The new an improved Albanese with capped teeth, and styled eyebrows and hair. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

You took umbrage, in that speech, at Howard repeatedly “bringing up his past”. “In every performance, all we get are his life’s grievances … the accumulated bitterness and bile of 13 long years in opposition,” you said.

Perhaps you thought you would not spend 20 years in opposition and would never tell your log-cabin, single-parent housing commission story ad nauseam.

In that same speech, you condemned Howard for not meeting the Spice Girls, taking it as an attack on the “youth of Australia” — that Howard “thought they were infantile and stupid”.

Howard wasn’t dazzled by red-carpet celebrities. He never got caught up in parties. That’s why his supporters were known as Howard’s battlers.

Unlike you, he didn’t rush to the red carpet at awards nights and premieres with musicians, actors and TikTok stars.

Or engage celebrities such as former LA Lakers centre Shaquille O’Neal into the Voice, before insisting you didn’t want any foreign interference in our referendum, or getting Russell Crowe to narrate your election ads.

After smashing Howard for his makeover, his dental work, his eyebrows and new glasses, ask yourself, would you have been comfortable on that red carpet at the GQ Awards or the Hamilton premiere without your capped teeth, your styled eyebrows and hair?

Mr Howard would likely still win preferred prime minister over you from retirement. He got a higher primary vote in a Coalition loss than you got for the Labor Party in an election win.

If you are that large, with that extra 1.5cm, then maybe you are big enough to offer an apology, because Mr Howard is large enough to accept it.

Howard, aged 68, left Australia in a stronger position than any other prime minister in memory. Your prime ministership is in its infancy, and your legacy is yet to be judged.

All we have seen from you so far is soaring electricity prices, nine increases in interest rates, vanity projects, class warfare, cash giveaways and tokenism, investing in hope and emotions while destroying the foundation of superannuation created by Labor prime minister Bob Hawke, who then was 62, and older than you.

So maybe age is just a number.