A stroll down a jaundiced road with the last of the Howard haters
No shortage of confected outrage as a degree of ‘scandal’ engulfs academe.
Honour on campus, discuss. Guardian Australia, Wednesday:
Academic staff are protesting the University of Sydney’s decision to award John Howard an honorary doctorate, labelling it is “deeply scandalous and inappropriate”.
Great moments in penmanship. More Guardian Australia:
A letter of protest has more than 100 signatures of staff and PhD students demanding an alternative graduation ceremony be put on for students who will have theirs “effectively ruined” by the honouring of Howard. “To confer a doctorate on him is an insult to indigenous people, refugees, and anyone committed to multiculturalism, peace and social progress in this country and in the world,” the letter says and cites the Iraq war as a major reason for the protest. An organiser said, “Howard’s period in office exemplified the kind of prejudice and disregard for the social good which entirely goes against the (university) mission … The idea that the university would honour him is deeply scandalous and inappropriate.”
The most infuriating response possible, the Guardian Australia again:
Howard: “It is a free country — they are entitled to their view”
Why John Howard looks even better in retrospect, ABC’s The Drum website, March:
As prime minister, he led a competent, measured, centre-right but not hard-line conservative government. It wasn’t flashy, nor to the taste of inner-city, Labor and Green-voting elites, but it resonated very strongly with middle Australians in the suburbs and the regions who worked hard, paid their taxes and aspired for their children to have better prospects in life than their own … Not one of his successors has come remotely near him in terms of his grasp of people, politics and policy, and his rapport with mainstream Australia. (Kevin) Rudd was too arrogant and obsessed by elite opinion and his own brilliance; Julia Gillard was fatally diminished by how she became prime minister and the political disaster that was her 2010 election; Tony Abbott never adapted to positive government instead of negative opposition; and Malcolm Turnbull brought a sense of entitlement to the top job but so far not much of substance beside.
An eccentric, dissenting voice. Economics.org.au, April 2011:
It was suggested, by some fawning Liberal/Conservative types, on the occasion of the release of John Howard’s book Lazarus Rising, that prime minister Howard was Australia’s best ever PM. He was not so long in office when he had the opportunity to become popular with the city-trendies by taking away people’s guns following the Port Arthur shootings. Disarming the population is a dangerous act and one of the first things all dictators do; not that I accuse Howard of dictatorship tendencies (more than your average PM), but it was an act of violation of property rights and of self-ownership.
Still top of the pops, The Australian, March:
Twenty years after John Howard led the Coalition to victory at the 1996 election, voters have judged him the best prime minister of the modern era, followed by Bob Hawke and Gough Whitlam.