Andrew Murray (WA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

Senator O’Brien’s motion before us reads:

That the Senate notes that:

(a)

over a decade in office the Howard Government has established a new low for government integrity and accountability; and

(b)

the Howard Government’s record is littered with scandals involving rorts, waste and incompetence.

The key words that we are asked to react to are ‘low’, ‘integrity’, ‘accountability’, ‘rorts’, ‘waste’, ‘incompetence’ and ‘scandals’. The issue of evaluating a government such as that of John Howard, the Prime Minister, is difficult at this time because it is a work in progress. It is 10 years on its way, and more years are to come. I think you need to separate a judgment of such things into a number of areas but, for the purposes of my remarks, I will separate my judgment into the areas of politics and policy.

If you look at the Prime Minister from the perspective of politics, you will see that he deserves to be admired. I find that there is a churlish inability of many people who are opposed to the ideas and political positioning of the Prime Minister to recognise his political competence. It is no accident that there have only been two prime ministers who have reached double figures in time serving the Australian people in 105 years of our country’s history. It requires good health, luck and all those sorts of things but, most of all, it requires a great deal of political skill and ability. For my own part, I want to acknowledge that I recognise and respect that ability and the way in which he has been able to overcome both his critics and opponents to apply his view of how Australia should be governed.

I am also affected in my remarks by a natural respect I have as a small ‘d’ democrat for the institutions of democracy and for our Constitution. Therefore, I have a natural respect for the prime minister of the day. It is a respect I accord to those prime ministers I have known, Mr Gough—I am sorry, I mean Mr Whitlam.