Saturday Paper has a Ho-Ho-Howard Christmas slagging off the former PM
Did you burn Christmas lunch yesterday? Don’t worry because … The Saturday Paper’s front page, Saturday:
It’s all John Howard’s fault.
Did you get little Susie a Star Trek toy instead of a Star Wars one? It’s not your problem. Remember … The Saturday Paper, Saturday:
It’s all John Howard’s fault.
And did your wife find a Christmas gift in your coat pocket with another woman’s name on it? Just tell her … The Saturday Paper, again:
It’s all John Howard’s fault.
The Saturday Paper ’s Mike Seccombe really doesn’t like Howard. Schwartz Media’s weekly newspaper, Saturday:
Examine almost any contemporary political problem, from Australia’s growing economic inequality to the declining performance of our school students relative to the rest of the world, to our dying coral reefs, and you will find the fingerprints of John Winston Howard.
Never mind the peace and prosperity Howard’s government created. Peter van Onselen in The Weekend Australian, November 11:
Howard was the last quality leader following on a golden run from Bob Hawke to Paul Keating to Howard. He reformed the tax system, gun laws and industrial relations.
And the fact the four prime ministers after him squandered it all. Dennis Shanahan in The Australian, November 25:
The 2007 election (where Howard lost power to Labor’s Kevin Rudd) marks the beginning of leadership changes, a failure of economic reform, a fragmentation of the mainstream political parties, the first two minority governments since Federation and a loss of public faith in the parliamentary and political processes.
Seccombe’s lefty rant got the main headline and the main picture on this pre-Christmas edition of The Saturday Paper. While this was relegated to the side … Saturday:
Exclusive: How the Greens failed me over rape
It’s a very brave and disturbing account of how the so-called progressive Greens deal with predatory men in their ranks. The anonymous account in The Saturday Paper, continued:
Currently the ACT Greens has more than 700 members. Every one of them now knows what happened to me. Of that 700, I have received the support of four individuals. An additional two people sent me messages of alliance. The rest were silent.
But The Saturday Paper team decided to put this rubbish front and centre. Seccombe, continued:
Even though Howard has been gone from the prime ministership almost as long as he was there, we still live to a significant extent in his Australia … when same-sex marriage was legalised … there was such unbridled, widespread joy. It was a rare victory over his dark legacy …
Howard hasn’t been prime minister for years. As a Disney ice queen once said … Queen Elsa in Frozen, December 26, 2013:
Let it go, let it go …
And it’s time The Saturday Paper learned a thing or two about real news. Maybe it should get a new year’s subscription to The Australian? Our advert in The Weekend Australian, Saturday:
100 reasons to subscribe to The Australian … Get news from a news brand that invests in quality journalism.