The inside story of a savvy operator

JOHN Winston Howard's autobiography, Lazarus Rising, truly is a mammoth tome.

John Howard

JOHN Winston Howard's autobiography, Lazarus Rising, truly is a mammoth tome. At more than 700 pages, it captures extraordinary details of the political life and times of Australia's second-longest-serving prime minister.

For a reader interested in the details behind policy decision-making and political calculations during Howard's years of service, the book is a must-read. It covers the wilderness years (1983-96) very well and offers a virtual blow-by-blow account of the Coalition's time in power under Howard's leadership.

As an autobiography by a former partisan combatant, the book is naturally somewhat self-serving in parts, but Howard has tried hard to get behind his decision-making and offer rational reasons to combat the criticism he faced at the time.

No doubt detractors of the former PM will not be satisfied with his explanations and, in true Howard style, he is unrepentant about most of the actions he took. But Howard at least has engaged with the criticisms he faced.

Howard is more sanguine about his time in opposition and, for anyone who did not live through the Liberal Party's wilderness years or has not taken a detailed look at exactly what happened, the book is a good summary with interesting behind-the-scenes accounts from the unique perspective of one of the key players.

More disappointing is Lazarus Rising's failure to delve much into the pre-parliamentary career and life of Howard. I recall that when writing Howard's biography, my co-author and I had had difficulty in extracting insights into Howard's pre-political life. He simply didn't like talking about his personal background all that much. Howard's reluctance then has been matched in his own narrative of what shaped his interest in politics and his values, as passed down from family and friends.

One suspects that Howard doesn't have much time for books that purport to psychoanalyse their subjects. A feature of Howard's reading of history has been to gravitate towards books based on hard facts rather than interpretation.

But when it comes to his own life, political philosophy or even, for example, the reasons behind what went wrong in his relationship with Malcolm Fraser (the man who gave Howard his first promotion into the ministry and to the treasurership), Lazarus Rising is a disappointment.

Even a thorough reading of the book will not enlighten readers sufficiently on these moments in Howard's life.

Perhaps a testament to Howard's popularity as prime minister, indeed his enduring popularity, is the strong sales of Lazarus Rising. It was a bestseller when it was released, breaking all previous records for political biographies in this country. The man who could muster only two biographies before contributing his own volume outsold autobiographies of his contemporaries on both sides of the political divide.

In terms of the narrative behind the book, Lazarus Rising will be a tough read for anyone who tries to do so from cover to cover. This is partly because Howard has provided so much detail about the events in which he has been involved. And the length of his parliamentary career, not to mention the seniority of the offices he held during much of that time, put him at the centre of so much decision-making.

Striving not to miss points along the way, Howard has given more detail to some events than he should have for such a book. To be sure, it is a bonus for historians and avid readers of politics. But for anyone who was simply a fan of his prime ministership and wants to read a book about him to be better informed, it will be too much.

Nonetheless, I have found the book an enduring bonus to have included in my library, because as a point of reference to events from the period it focuses on, its only rivals are Paul Kelly's The End of Certainty and The March of Patriots.

The best chapter in Lazarus Rising, certainly while we are within years of Howard having exited the political stage, was the one that dealt with Howard's leadership tensions with his treasurer, Peter Costello. The book brings together a decade's worth of tensions, addressed issue by issue in one neat summary. Of course, as you would expect, the chapter is Howard's justification of his actions. But it is also a fascinating read in terms of what he was thinking at the time as events unfolded, as well as now that time has passed. You get the impression that Costello's diaries, which were published soon before Howard's autobiography, played a role in Howard's chapter on the leadership - a sign that tensions between the two will not be dying down any time soon.

So far as policy analysis is concerned, which undoubtedly represents the longer-term value of the book, Howard's justification for introducing Work Choices is particularly interesting. The reader gets an excellent sense of the decade's long struggle for industrial relations reforms that defined so much of Howard's career.

The end point of Work Choices, which played such an important role in bringing Howard undone (something he argues against in his book) is neatly put into the context of a lifetime of fighting for a more flexible workplace environment, chiefly as a means to improving business output.

Howard is an able writer, even if he lacks flair to add tension to the events he's covering. Little known is that during his wilderness years Howard wrote a regular newspaper column and enjoyed doing so. But he was always battling word length constraints. So it was with Lazarus Rising: I understand even the long-form version readers are served up was heavily redacted.

For anyone interested in modern Australian politics, Lazarus Rising is a must-read. My only advice would be to do so being prepared to cherry-pick those moment that interest most.

Peter van Onselen is The Australian's contributing editor and a professor of politics at the University of Western Australia. He is a co-author (with Wayne Errington) of John Winston Howard: The Biography (Melbourne University Press, 2007).