Free Republic

THREE of the biggest decisions of the Howard years - the GST, the intervention in East Timor and the Pacific solution - were decided with virtually no consultation with cabinet, it can be revealed for the first time. A new television documentary, which is based on more than 20 hours of interviews with John Howard and 180 hours of interviews with key players in Australia and overseas, confirms how dominant the former prime minister was in running the affairs of the nation for almost 12 years. ..... That same lack of consultation is clear regarding Mr Howard's historic letter of...

IT may seem like the perfect opportunity to score a political point - the Labor Government recommending John Howard, the architect of the GST, for Australia's highest honour for his services to politics and the economy - but the former prime minister is playing a straight bat. Fresh from watching the Australian cricket team play in the West Indies, and travelling to England, Mr Howard wasn't interested in playing games. Nor did his right-hand man Arthur Sinodinos -- the soul and direction of Mr Howard's office for 10 years, who has also been honoured in the Rudd Government's first Queen's...

MOST of the former members of the Howard government are trying to distance themselves from their former leader. Yet in the US the former prime minister is being welcomed into the conservatives' mosh pit like an ageing rock star. He is going to the US late next month for several weeks in a long farewell. He has agreed to address at least four prestigious audiences, with more appearances yet to be arranged. He is scheduled to speak to a private gathering of Republicans in Las Vegas. In Boston he will be hosted by Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of...

The federal coalition's popularity with voters could be turning around, according to a new poll. The coalition's primary vote has jumped three percentage points, while Labor's has dropped five, according to a Galaxy poll taken exclusively for The Daily Telegraph at the weekend. The poll shows Labor still leads the coalition - 53 per cent to 47 per cent on a two-party preferred basis - but it is a significant narrowing of the gap on previous polls. In May, Labor was at 57 per cent and the coalition at 43 per cent on a two-party preferred basis, while in April...

JUST what was that ghostly and unfamiliar noise we heard over the weekend? Good heavens - it was the sound of a country's political leader actually exercising leadership. The Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, ordered his nation's cricket team to pull out of a scheduled tour of Zimbabwe in September and even threatened to suspend the players' passports if the sport's governing body did not abide by his decision. His reason was that the proposed tour would be an "enormous propaganda boost" to Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, a "grubby dictator" who was behaving "like the Gestapo towards his political opponents"....

THE Prime Minister has fired another salvo in his growing war of words with US presidential hopeful Barack Obama, saying the senator had dodged his criticism of his Iraq withdrawal plan. Senator Obama today challenged John Howard to commit another 20,000 Australian troops to Iraq after the Prime Minister said his call to bring American troops home by March 2008 would be a victory for al Qaeda in Iraq, who would be hoping for a Democrat win in next year's presidential election. The US senator accused Mr Howard of "empty rhetoric" in his criticism of his stand, as Australia has...

PRIME Minister John Howard has blasted US presidential candidate Barack Obama, saying his policy of withdrawing troops from Iraq will destabilise the entire Middle East. Senator Obama, who is aiming to be the first black American president, has vowed to withdraw US forces if elected. But first, he must secure the Democratic nomination by overcoming his chief rival, Hillary Clinton. Senator Obama has introduced a bill to remove US combat forces from Iraq by March 31 next year - but the legislation has virtually no chance of becoming law while George W Bush is president, and the presidential election is...

RECENT speeches by John Howard and Petro Georgiou have led many commentators to lament the decline of small-l liberals in the Liberal Party and the betrayal of the Menzies tradition of liberalism. But stand back and look at the history and today's political scene and you will find a different story. Start with the Menzies tradition. Hardly a day goes by without some media sophisticate crying foul that the conservative Howard Government has undermined the party founder's Liberal philosophy. But bear in mind that although Robert Menzies had many pragmatic aspects and was too socialist for some tastes, he could...

HE power-walks in the morning with an ear-piece monitoring radio news and comment programs. He fits in radio talkbacks during the day. And almost every night he's on TV talking about issues as diverse as what to teach our children, tests for migrants, Telstra CEO salaries, the Iraq war, Solomon Islands, water, mines in PNG. When Parliament isn't sitting he's travelling the country. Always with admirers around him. School kids have rated him in the class of a pop star. On Labour Day - in NSW - today, what's the bet he won't be relaxing? Where does the hyperactive John...

AUSTRALIA has a vital national interest in the promotion and maintenance of stability in our region. Yesterday the Government received a formal request from the Government of East Timor for military assistance to help that country in the restoration of security, confidence and peace. The Government has agreed in principle to this request, and, subject to the final agreement of East Timor to the conditions of the mission, Australia is preparing to send an Australian Defence Force battalion group of approximately 1300 personnel to help our near neighbour. This action follows a significant deterioration in the security situation in East...