87 Facts About John Howard

1.

John Winston Howard was born on 26 July 1939 and is an Australian former politician who served as the 25th prime minister of Australia, from 1996 to 2007, holding office as leader of the Liberal Party of Australia.

2.

John Howard was born in Sydney and studied law at the University of Sydney.

3.

At the 1974 federal election, John Howard was elected as a member of parliament for the division of Bennelong.

4.

John Howard was promoted to cabinet in 1977, and later in the year replaced Phillip Lynch as treasurer of Australia, remaining in that position until the defeat of Malcolm Fraser's government at the 1983 election.

5.

In 1985, John Howard was elected leader of the Liberal Party for the first time, thus replacing Andrew Peacock as Leader of the Opposition.

6.

The John Howard government called a snap election for October 1998, which they won, albeit with a greatly reduced majority.

7.

The John Howard government was defeated at the 2007 federal election, with the Labor Party's Kevin Rudd succeeding him as prime minister.

8.

John Howard lost his own seat of Bennelong at the election to Maxine McKew, becoming only the second prime minister to do so, after Stanley Bruce at the 1929 election.

9.

John Howard's government presided over a sustained period of economic growth and a large "mining boom", and significantly reduced government debt by the time he left office.

10.

John Howard was known for his broad appeal to voters across the political spectrum, and commanded a diverse base of supporters, colloquially referred to as his "battlers".

11.

John Howard's critics have admonished him for involving Australia in the Iraq War, his policies regarding asylum seekers, and his economic agenda.

12.

John Howard is the fourth son of Mona and Lyall John Howard, who married in 1925.

13.

John Howard is descended from convict William Tooley, who was transported to New South Wales in 1816 for stealing a watch.

14.

John Howard was born and raised in the Sydney suburb of Earlwood, in a Methodist family; the site of his family home is a KFC restaurant.

15.

John Howard's mother had been an office worker until her marriage, while his father and his paternal grandfather, Walter Howard, were both veterans of the First Australian Imperial Force in the First World War.

16.

In 1955, when John Howard was aged 16, his father died, leaving his mother to take care of him.

17.

John Howard suffered a hearing impairment in his youth, leaving him with a slight speech impediment, and he continues to wear a hearing aid.

18.

John Howard attended Earlwood Primary School and Canterbury Boys' High School.

19.

John Howard won a citizenship prize in his final year at Earlwood, and subsequently represented his secondary school at debating as well as cricket and rugby union.

20.

John Howard began working for the firm of Stephen Jaques and Stephen as a junior solicitor.

21.

John Howard subsequently moved to a smaller firm, which became Truman, Nelson and Howard after he was made a partner.

22.

John Howard married fellow Liberal Party member Janette Parker in 1971, with whom he had three children: Melanie, Tim and Richard.

23.

John Howard was a member of the party's New South Wales state executive and was federal president of the Young Liberals from 1962 to 1964.

24.

John Howard supported Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War, although has since said there were "aspects of it that could have been handled and explained differently".

25.

At the 1963 federal election, John Howard acted as campaign manager for Tom Hughes in his local seat of Parkes.

26.

In mid-1964, John Howard travelled to London to work and travel for a period.

27.

John Howard volunteered for the Conservative Party in the electorate of Holborn and St Pancras South at the 1964 UK general election.

28.

John Howard's mother sold the family home in Earlwood and rented a house with him at Five Dock, a suburb within the electorate.

29.

At the election in February 1968, in which the incumbent state Liberal government was returned to office, John Howard narrowly lost to Coady, despite campaigning vigorously.

30.

At the 1974 federal election, John Howard successfully contested the Division of Bennelong, located in suburban Sydney.

31.

John Howard supported Malcolm Fraser for the leadership of the Liberal Party against Billy Snedden following the 1974 election.

32.

When Fraser won office at the 1975 federal election, John Howard was appointed Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs, a position in which he served until 1977.

33.

In December 1977, aged 38, John Howard was appointed Treasurer, in place of Phillip Lynch.

34.

John Howard was the youngest Treasurer since Chris Watson in 1904.

35.

John Howard came to favour tax reform including broad-based taxation, a freer industrial system including the dismantling of the centralised wage-fixing system, the abolition of compulsory trade unionism, privatisation and deregulation.

36.

John Howard supported the Campbell report, but adopted an incremental approach with Cabinet, as there was wide opposition to deregulation within the government and the treasury.

37.

John Howard's election depended largely on the support of the "drys", and he became the party's champion of the growing free-market lobby.

38.

John Howard subsequently called a leadership ballot, which he chose not to contest.

39.

John Howard defeated Jim Carlton by 57 votes to six, thus becoming Leader of the Opposition.

40.

John Howard was in effect the Liberal party's first pro-market leader in the conservative Coalition and spent the next two years working to revise Liberal policy away from that of Fraser's.

41.

John Howard was not helped when the federal Nationals broke off the Coalition agreement in support of the "Joh for Canberra" push, which led to a large number of three-cornered contests.

42.

John Howard publicly suggested that to support "social cohesion" the rate of Asian immigration be "slowed down a little".

43.

The comments divided opinion within the Coalition, and undermined John Howard's standing amongst Liberal party figures including federal and state Ministers, intellectual opinion makers, business leaders, and within the Asia Pacific.

44.

Many Liberals later nominated the issue as instrumental in John Howard subsequently losing the leadership in 1989.

45.

The loss of the Liberal Party leadership to Peacock deeply affected John Howard, who admitted he would occasionally drink too much.

46.

John Howard was a supporter of Hewson's economic program, with a Goods and Services Tax as its centrepiece.

47.

John Howard was Shadow Minister for Industrial relations and oversaw Jobsback section of Fightback.

48.

Hewson had pledged to resign if defeated in 1993 but did not resign to block John Howard from succeeding him.

49.

Media speculation of a leadership spill ended when, on 26 January 1995, Downer resigned as Liberal Leader and John Howard was elected unopposed to replace him.

50.

The Coalition subsequently opened a large lead over Labor in most opinion polls, and John Howard overtook Paul Keating as preferred prime minister.

51.

John Howard focused on the economy and memory of the early 1990s recession, and on the longevity of the Labor government, which in 1996 had been in power for 13 years.

52.

In May 1995, John Howard pledged that the GST would not be implemented by the Liberal Party as, the since retired, Hewson's defeat in 1993 was a rejection of the GST.

53.

The consensus of most opinion polls was that John Howard would be the next prime minister.

54.

John Howard departed from tradition and made his primary residence Kirribilli House in Sydney rather than The Lodge in Canberra.

55.

Early in the term John Howard had championed significant new restrictions on gun ownership following the Port Arthur massacre in which 35 people had been shot dead.

56.

John Howard repudiated Hanson's views seven months after her maiden speech.

57.

From 1997, John Howard spearheaded the Coalition push to introduce a Goods and Services Tax at the subsequent election; this was despite saying, before winning the prime ministership, that it would "never ever" be part of Coalition policy.

58.

John Howard called a snap election for October 1998, three months sooner than required.

59.

John Howard himself finished just short of a majority on the first count in his own seat, and was only assured of reelection on the ninth count.

60.

John Howard ultimately finished with a fairly comfortable 56 per cent of the two-party preferred vote.

61.

In 1998, John Howard convened a constitutional convention which decided in principle that Australia should become a republic.

62.

At the convention John Howard confirmed himself as a monarchist, and said that of the republican options, he preferred the minimalist model.

63.

John Howard outlined his support for retaining the Australian constitutional monarchy.

64.

In September 1999, John Howard organised an Australian-led international peace-keeping force to East Timor, after pro-Indonesia militia launched a violent "scorched-earth" campaign in retaliation to the referendum's overwhelming vote in favour of independence.

65.

John Howard made a personal apology before the release of the report.

66.

In 1999 John Howard negotiated a "Motion of Reconciliation" with Aboriginal Senator Aden Ridgeway.

67.

John Howard did not commit to serving a full term if he won the next election; on his 61st birthday in July 2000 he said he would consider the question of retirement when he turned 64.

68.

The government's position on "border protection", in particular the Tampa affair where John Howard refused the landing of asylum seekers rescued by a Norwegian freighter, consolidated the improving polls for the government, as did the 11 September 2001 attacks.

69.

John Howard led the government to victory in the 2001 federal election with an increased majority.

70.

In October John Howard responded to the 2002 Bali bombing with calls for solidarity.

71.

John Howard was assured of reelection on the third count, ultimately winning 53.3 per cent of the two-party preferred vote.

72.

On 21 December 2004, John Howard overtook Bob Hawke to become the second longest-serving Australian prime minister after Sir Robert Menzies.

73.

John Howard denied that this constituted a deal; Citing strong party room support for him as leader, John Howard stated later that month that he would remain to contest the 2007 election.

74.

Six weeks before the election, John Howard indicated he would stand down during the next term, and anointed Costello as his successor.

75.

In December 2006, after Kevin Rudd became Labor leader, the two-party preferred deficit widened even further and Rudd swiftly overtook John Howard as preferred prime minister.

76.

John Howard chaired APEC Australia 2007, culminating in the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting in Sydney during September.

77.

John Howard was not exempt from this criticism on the grounds of racism.

78.

John Howard supported the Bush administration's 2007 surge strategy in Iraq, and criticised Democrat US presidential candidate Barack Obama for calling for a complete withdrawal of Coalition troops by March 2008.

79.

John Howard lost his seat of Bennelong to former journalist Maxine McKew with 44,685 votes to John Howard's 42,251.

80.

John Howard was only the second Australian prime minister to lose his seat in an election since Stanley Bruce in 1929.

81.

Media analysis of The Australian Election Study, a postal survey of 1,873 voters during the 2007 poll, found that although respondents respected John Howard and thought he had won the 6-week election campaign, John Howard was considered "at odds with public opinion on cut-through issues", his opponent had achieved the highest "likeability" rating in the survey's 20-year history, and a majority had decided their voting intention before the election campaign.

82.

In January 2008, John Howard signed with the speaking agency called the Washington Speakers Bureau, joining Tony Blair, Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright, and others.

83.

John Howard was available for two speeches, Leadership in the New Century and The Global Economic Future.

84.

John Howard was the subject of a lengthy interview series by The Australian columnist Janet Albrechtsen in 2014, which aired as a featured story on Seven Network's Sunday Night, and again in January 2015 as its own five-part series on Sky News Australia entitled John Howard Defined.

85.

In November 2017, John Howard launched the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation, headed by Simon Haines, formerly professor of English at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

86.

In 2017, John Howard endorsed a "No" vote in the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey and joined the campaign against same-sex marriage.

87.

In October 2021, John Howard endorsed Dominic Perrottet to succeed Gladys Berejiklian as Premier of New South Wales following Berejiklian's resignation as Premier.