Spite prevails over petulance in breakdown of Howard-Costello marriage

THE ex-PM has damaged his legacy, while his treasurer seems to have trouble handling the truth.

IF John Howard and Peter Costello went to marriage counselling, they would be told that they had irreconcilable differences.

Despite nearly 13 years of union as the leader and deputy of the Liberal Party, they cannot agree on whose fault it was that Howard overstayed his welcome and Costello never took over.

Howard blames Costello for his reaction to the mid-2006 disclosure that they had a deal of sorts that Howard would retire before completing two terms: before the 2001 election. Costello blames Howard for not letting go, thereby failing the renewal test and costing the Coalition government in 2007.

In fact they are both at fault, as is so often the case when a relationship breaks down.

I was at a dinner in Melbourne recently with a group of Costello acolytes, and to a person they agreed with John Hewson's public comments that had Howard not lost an election, it would have been necessary to carry him out of Kirribilli House in a box.

It begs the obvious retort: why didn't Costello challenge if he truly thought a handover was out of the question? Because he never had the numbers? He never had the courage? He never got the timing right? Or because he clung on to the faint hope that Howard would retire of his own accord, if only to preserve his legacy and do what few political leaders end up doing: choose his own time of departure.

Costello claims he didn't challenge because he didn't want to cause the sort of damage such action creates for a political party. If that's true it's an admirable stance. But if he believed Howard was leading the party to destruction caused by a failure to renew, didn't he have an obligation to challenge to save the party? The lesser evil, as it were?

I suspect the real reason Costello never challenged Howard was a mixture of all of the above, which frankly is why he never had what it took to become leader. Politics isn't pass the parcel; every kid doesn't win a prize. It is a brutal business and Howard was one of the most brutal of them all, a smiling assassin.

Howard's outward politeness masked his inner political savvy, a point that comes out strongly in his memoir, Lazarus Rising, an honest open window into his character (albeit with the inevitable subjectivity autobiographies carry). There is a lot of interesting detail in the book and many insights into Howard's thinking and approach to government. But his ability to play Costello for years is the most fascinating contemporary take out, at least for political junkies.

And that's what he did. Costello had an easy ride to the deputy leadership of the Liberal Party, in fact into parliament. Howard knew it and used the easy ride against him. Costello thought he had a straightforward deal to become prime minister after a term and a half in power. He therefore sat back and waited for the handover, failing the gritty test (as well as the test of political intuition) in the process.

Howard had more than enough wiggle room to get out of their little understanding, and he was well within his rights to string Costello along as much as he wanted. He even had a legitimate argument in defeat following the 2007 election, claiming he was the better choice to take the party to that election, given his sustained strong approval ratings and the question marks surrounding Costello's popularity with voters. And no one can disprove the speculative assertion.

But in the autobiography Howard gives the game away. He admits he hung on to the leadership out of spite. He didn't want to give the impression he was being forced out by a deputy who effectively called him a liar publicly over their broken deal. He thereby put his ego first, not the Liberal Party.

He lost the moral high ground, not to mention his hard-earned status as a loyal servant of the conservative side of politics (even if blind conservative foot soldiers never realised this).

Howard's reaction to Costello's public petulance was understandably human. Who wouldn't want to use their power to send a message back to someone acting as Costello did? But it wasn't leadership, far from it.

And for Costello's part, not having the nous to avoid the petulance was remarkable.

Costello, in his anger and disappointment, can't accept Howard stayed only because of his reaction and that of his supporters to the outing in mid-2006 of the so-called deal. They say that was merely an excuse. That's not what a line-up of Howard's friends, staff and close colleagues believed when I interviewed them for Howard's biography, and it wasn't the understanding I had about Howard's retirement plans when commencing the project.

I wanted to put out the book after Howard had completed his time in office but before the 2007 election. My understanding was that I could do both.

Years from now the achievements and failures of the Howard period will be what defines his time as prime minister, as it should be.

Sadly for Costello, when that time comes he won't get the credit for the Coalition's time in office that Paul Keating gets for his role as treasurer during Bob Hawke's prime ministership. That's because Keating went on to become prime minister, carving out a more prominent place in Australia's history, which includes his pre-prime ministerial career.

Meanwhile, it is Howard who has damaged his legacy because of the way he has approached the leadership issue in his autobiography.

Howard claims he couldn't have written an autobiography without addressing the leadership issue, which, of course, is true. But there is a lot of space between not addressing it at all and addressing it the way he did. That is the space Howard should have occupied.

Peter van Onselen co-authored (with Wayne Errington) John Winston Howard: The Biography (Melbourne University Press).