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Relaxed & Comfortable

The Rise and Fall of John Howard

John William Tate

Email: John.Tate@newcastle.edu.au

Copyright © John William Tate 2009

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Cast (in order of appearance)

Tony Abbott Former Liberal Party Leader and Prime Minister

Janette Howard Wife of John Howard

John Howard Australian Prime Minister

Malcolm Fraser Former Australian Prime Minister

Andrew Peacock Former Federal Liberal Party leader

Sir John Carrick John Howard’s friend and mentor

Jeff Kennett Victorian Liberal Party leader

John Elliott (voice only) Federal Liberal Party President

Joh Bjelke-Petersen (voice only) Queensland Premier

Paul Keating Former Australian Prime Minister

Pauline Hanson Independent Member for Oxley

Kim Beazley Federal Labor Party leader

Peter Reith Minister for Workplace Relations

Virginia Trioli ABC Radio presenter

Mark Latham Federal Labor Party leader

Kerry O’Brien ABC television presenter

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Staging Instructions

Media interviews, the Andrew Peacock / Jeff Kennett car phone conversation and most of

the parliamentary statements are direct from the public record.

Individual actors are able to play more than one of the characters as there is never more

than three cast members on stage in any one scene.

The longest monologues are those of parliamentary speeches. Parliamentary speakers

hold speech papers in their hand and so can refer to these if necessary. Tony Abbott

speaks from a lectern and can also have his lines in front of him if needed. In this way,

the need to memorize large amounts of monologue is avoided.

Background noise - cheers, calls of ‘hear hear’ and general uproar - is pre-recorded. The

voice of Joh Bjelke-Petersen and John Elliot is also pre-recorded.

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Act One

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Scene One

Tony Abbott enters at the rear corner of the stage dressed only in boxing robe, boxing shorts and boxing

boots. He walks diagonally across the stage to the front corner, on the audience’s right, and steps up to a

lectern. It is from this lectern, in this position, that he will be addressing the audience at various points

throughout the play. At the end of each scene where Tony has addressed the audience, the light should fade

on him so he is not visible to the audience.

Abbott: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for coming on this very special

night. Some of you may know me. I’m Tony Abbott, the Member for Warringah and

former Prime Minister of Australia. I’m also an amateur boxer. Indeed, along with the

Liberal Party and the Catholic Church, boxing is one of my great passions. I once

knocked out the former Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Joe Hockey,

with one punch at Sydney University during Rugby Union practice.

[Pause and then contritely]

Abbott: I had a fit of temper. It’s not something I’m proud of.

[Pause and then brightly]

Abbott: But Joe went down like a deck of cards.

[Pause]

Abbott: I first entered Commonwealth Parliament in 1994, and in my maiden speech

referred quite a lot to Warringah and to God, often in synonymous terms. I also referred

to ‘the contemporary politician I admire most’. That politician was John Winston

Howard. When I gave that speech he was merely the Shadow Minister for Industrial

Relations. Alexander Downer was leader of the Liberal Party. But eight months later,

John Howard was to resume leadership of the Liberal Party, and just over a year after

that, become Australia’s 25th Prime Minister.

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John Winston Howard. That’s who this story is about. A man who, in his political career,

has had more ups and downs than the Great Dividing Range. A man who, back in the

1980s, was written off by almost everybody. Who looked like a political corpse awaiting

cremation. And yet a man who, in the nineties, returned, phoenix-like, from the ashes of

derision and defeat, to become Australia’s second longest serving Prime Minister.

And then, on November 24th, 2007, after four election wins, it all ended. Not only did

this man lose a national election but he became the first Australian Prime Minister since

Stanley Melbourne Bruce to lose his own seat as well.

Pause

Abbott: No Australian politician has ever risen higher or fallen lower.

Pause

Abbott: We begin with a thirty-four year old John Howard winning the federal seat of

Bennelong, on Sydney’s North Shore, on the 18th

of May, 1974.

.

Lights fade on Tony Abbott and open on John and Janette Howard as a young couple sitting together in a

relaxed and affectionate fashion on the floor at the middle front of the stage

Janette (excited): Well, we did it. I knew we could do it and we did.

John: It was close.

Janette: The election?

John: No. The preselection. There were times when I thought Peter Coleman had it in the

bag. After all, he’s a sitting state member. I’m just a solicitor.

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Janette (hugging him): The Party must have thought you had qualities that he hadn’t.

Anyway, you’re not just a solicitor. You’re Vice-President of the New South Wales

Liberal Party. And you’ve already run for a state seat in Drummoyne.

John: I lost.

Janette: But it was an ALP seat. And you made a good showing. Also you helped Bill

McMahon in the last federal election.

John: He lost too.

Janette: But you were there. That’s what counts. Also you’ve got strong supporters in the

Party. Eric Willis and Sir John Carrick both said you have enormous potential.

John grudgingly acknowledges this.

John: I suppose so.

John produces a small bottle of champagne and two champagne glasses. Janette is pleasantly surprised.

John: I thought we should allow ourselves a small celebration.

Janette (excited): I’m game if you are. So long as your Mother doesn’t see us…..You

know what she’s like about alcohol.

John: I know. It’s because of Grandad Kell. She’s never liked any of us to drink.

He pops the cork and pours them both a glass. They sip and then reflect.

John: I wish Dad were here to see this. He had a passion for politics. One of the greatest

days of his life was when Bob Menzies ended petrol rationing.

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Janette: Was that because he ran a gas station?

John: No. It was just because he believed in the principle, you know? Market choice. In

fact, on some issues, he was a real conservative. He supported Menzies’ ban on the

Communist Party. Mum was opposed……

John pauses and then says in quiet reflection:

John: I think the smoking killed him in the end……Either that or the gas he copped at

Passchendaele.

Pause

John (sadly and quietly): I miss our chess games.

John sinks into a slightly morose silence.

Janette (brightly): Come on. Cheer up. You know he’d be proud of you.

She clinks their glasses. John is jolted back into the present, and they both drink.

John: Anyway, I’ve got some big shoes to fill.

Janette: What do you mean?

John: Sir John Cramer. He represented Bennelong since 1949.

Janette: You’ve got what it takes. Be confident. The bigger the shoes the more

comfortable the fit.

John: But Sir John really knew Bennelong. He was Lord Mayor of North Sydney for ages

before he entered Parliament.

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Janette: That’s true. But you’ll get to know Bennelong too. It just takes time. Anyway,

you’ve got some advantages he hasn’t.

John: Such as?

Janette: Well, for one, you’re a Protestant.

John laughs.

John: Janette Parker. Ever since I’ve known you you’ve always been the hard-headed

politician.

Janette (smiles): Too much time in the Young Liberals, I suppose.

John hugs and kisses her.

Scene Two

Abbott: It didn’t take John Howard long to rise in Parliament and gain the notice of the

new leader, Malcolm Fraser. After the 1975 election, when Malcolm became Prime

Minister, John became Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs. And then, less than

two years later, he became Treasurer. It was a rapid promotion after only three years in

Parliament. At the end of the swearing-in ceremony at Admiralty House, Malcolm took

John for a few drinks down at the Kirribilli Hotel.

Lights fade on Tony and open on Malcolm and John standing in the middle front of the stage, schooner

glasses of beer in hand, staring out at the audience. Malcolm is considerably taller than John. In speech and

manner, he commands an authoritative presence. John is young, eager, but slightly diffident in the presence

of his leader.

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Fraser: So how’s it feel to be youngest Treasurer the Commonwealth of Australia has

ever had?

Howard: So far, fine.

Fraser: You’ve done rather well for a fellow who failed Maths at Canterbury Boys High.

Howard: I guess so.

Fraser: Of course, your toughest job as Treasurer will be tax.

Howard: Tax?

Fraser: Taxation reform. Tax evasion is a national pastime in this country, at least among

the rich. The problem is that these are also the Liberal Party’s strongest supporters. You

tackle tax evasion and you’ll find people in your own Party trying to oppose you. I

wouldn’t be surprised if some of your own parliamentary colleagues crossed the floor on

the issue.

Howard (shocked): Crossed the floor?

Fraser: That’s right. There’s nothing like tackling vested interests to test where people’s

loyalty lies.

Howard (still shocked): Goodness.

Pause

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Fraser: I’ll also be relying on you to keep ahead of the Whitlam Opposition in the House.

They may look like they’re down and out but you can never take anything for granted in

politics, least of all Gough Whitlam.

Howard: Surely Whitlam is finished? After being sacked by the Governor-General, and

then losing this last election in a landslide, there’s nowhere else for him to go. He’ll have

to resign.

Fraser: Never underestimate the pride of Gough. He’ll stand on his dignity for some time

yet. Because of what the Governor-General did to him, he’s widely seen as a martyr. And

nothing arouses the loyalty of the Labor Party like a martyr. They’ll let him stay for

another term at least.

Pause

Howard: Maybe it would have been better not to have made him a martyr.

Fraser: What do you mean?

Howard: Maybe it would have been better to have let his Government run a full term.

After all, by 1975 Gough and his Ministers were like a moving train wreck. Everything

was going wrong for them. We could have had it all by 1977. Maybe we forced the issue

too early.

Fraser: Too early?

Howard: By blocking supply in the Senate and forcing the Governor-General to act.

Pause as Malcolm looks down at John.

Fraser (with paternal certainty): We did the right thing.

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Howard: Do you think so?

Fraser: They were bad for the country and they had to go. Everybody who mattered

thought so.

Howard: Yes, but I’m just saying we could have let them die of natural causes.

Pause

Fraser (firmly): We did the right thing.

Pause

Fraser: Anyway, the voters agree with what we did. Just look at our last election result.

They even gave us control of the Senate.

Howard: So nobody will block supply on us.

Fraser: Exactly. And I’ll be changing the Constitution so that no state premier can fill a

Senate vacancy with someone from a different party.

Howard: Like they did to Gough.

Fraser: That’s right.

Howard (smiling): Sort of pulling the ladder up from underneath us.

Pause as Malcolm does not appreciate the irony and looks down sternly upon John.

Fraser: Sorry?

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Howard (cowed): Nothing. Never mind.

Pause

Howard: Other than that, what’s our agenda?

Fraser: To have a few more drinks.

Howard: I mean in government.

Fraser: Oh, to roll back Whitlam’s socialism, of course. Do away with Medibank and all

the welfare rorts. Get this country back on an even keel.

Howard: Do you think that might be a bit excessive? After all, the people gave Whitlam a

mandate for change in 1972. And he won another election in 1974. What right do we

have to roll everything back?

Malcolm pauses and looks down at John. Perhaps, he thinks, he may not have made the right choice after

all.

Fraser (sternly): Whose side are you on?

John is intimidated.

Howard: I’m just asking, that’s all.

Fraser (again with paternal certainty): Look John, Australians, deep down, are a

conservative people. They might have been dazzled by Gough’s ‘It’s Time’ campaign

back in 1972, but by 1975 they’d well and truly had enough. They were frightened by too

much change. After all, these are the same people who voted Menzies in year after year.

What they really want is stability. Certainty. The knowledge that there’s somebody at the

helm they can trust. Who isn’t going to go off on wild schemes, like borrowing funny

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money from the Arabs. That’s what I intend to give them. Security and certainty. By the

time I’m finished, Gough Whitlam will seem like a momentary aberration.

John nods in agreement.

Malcolm then raises his glass to clink with John’s.

Fraser: So here’s to government.

John clinks his glass with Malcolm’s.

Howard: To government.

Pause

Fraser (firmly): And to staying there.

Scene Three

Abbott: Needless to say, after the heady excess of the Whitlam years, Malcolm Fraser

was like a bag of ice down your trousers…….But that didn’t bother the Liberal Party.

They were back in the saddle where most of them thought they belonged. All had been

set right with the world.

But when Malcolm contested the 1983 election and was defeated by Bob Hawke,

everything changed for John Howard. Not only did it usher in the Hawke-Keating years,

but it was also the beginning of that long, agonistic struggle between two leaders of the

Liberal Party - John Howard and Andrew Peacock. Forget Hawke and Keating. For most

of the 1980s the real opposition for Howard and Peacock were each other.

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Lights fade on Tony Abbott and open on Andrew Peacock and John Howard entering from opposite ends of

the stage. Peacock is well dressed and fashionable in a bright suit and colourful tie. He exudes the self-

confident air of a man who knows how attractive others find him. Both stand apart at either side of the

stage looking at the audience.

Peacock (smiling broadly and confidently): Please allow me to introduce myself. I’m

Andrew Peacock. Federal Member for Kooyong. You may have heard of Kooyong. It

encompasses places like Hawthorn and Kew. It is also Robert Menzies’ old seat. Many

say I inherited Menzies’ mantle. Of course, that’s not for me to say……but others have

said it. I first entered Parliament in 1966 and became a Minister three years later. During

the Fraser Government I was Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Pauses for acknowledgement.

Peacock: Malcolm Fraser and I didn’t get along. I challenged him for the leadership of

the Liberal Party in 1981. Alas, unsuccessfully. But that didn’t stop him, in 1983,

anointing me as his successor rather than John Howard.

As he says this he motions towards John Howard.

Peacock: This shows that when it comes to the Liberal Party, blood is not thicker than

Victoria.

Again pauses for acknowledgement and moves closer to the audience.

Peacock: I’ve been referred to as one of the most affable members of Parliament. It is a

sobriquet of which I’m rather proud. Not least because my affability has remained

undiminished despite all provocation. For instance, I’ve been called, among other things,

‘a B-grade movie actor’, a ‘gutless spiv’, a ‘painted perfumed gigolo’, and accused of

spending too much time under the sunlamp – all by that gutter fighter from Bankstown,

the Honourable Paul Keating. As Party leader I was also the victim of a long process of

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disloyalty and destablisation – and this from my Deputy who, at this moment, shall

remain nameless [looks at Howard]…….but still I remained affable.

Gives the audience a broad grin and moves even closer and more intimately towards it.

Peacock: There are some who always mistook my affability and general good humour for

a lack of substance [again looks at Howard]. But again, they shall go unmentioned. My

more loyal colleagues didn’t share this opinion……Neither have the many women I have

known.

John Howard sighs loudly and rolls his eyes.

Peacock: As well he might sigh, more out of envy than exasperation I expect. Some of

you may know some of the ladies I have partnered. One was the Hollywood actress,

Shirley Maclean……..I was also once married to Lady Susan Renouf.

Howard: You’ll have to be more specific than that.

Peacock: And generally, most of my ambitions have been fulfilled. All except one. I

never became Prime Minister of Australia. And for that I blame two people. Robert

James Lee Hawke, Prime Minister of Australia from 1983 to 1991. And my Liberal Party

colleague (extends his arm in his direction) the member for Bennelong, the Honourable

John Winston Howard.

Howard: Oh, that’s a shameless vindication. Blame is the last refuge of the vanquished.

Peacock (to the audience): He’s always eloquent when he’s wrong.

Peacock moves towards the middle of the stage and closer to the audience.

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Peacock: From the time I was elected Party leader, in 1983, and John was elected my

Deputy, he always saw me as an obstacle to his own ambitions. A temporary obstruction

to his own upward ascendancy.

Howard: That’s a baseless allegation.

Peacock: In his eyes, I was simply a leader awaiting a party room challenge.

Howard: I never challenged you for the leadership. You challenged yourself.

Peacock: He never saw me as legitimate. Didn’t think I worked hard enough. Didn’t think

I had policy substance. Thought I was just a media celebrity. But I did work hard. I

worked hard in Parliament, and I worked hard in my electorate.

Howard: There’s more to working hard in your electorate than being a hit with the ladies

down at the Kooyong Tennis Club.

Peacock (looking at the audience and pointing to Howard): You see? You see what I had

to put up with? Continual sniping. Continual carping. And all behind my back.

Howard: The Liberal Party needed new direction. It needed to move beyond the Fraser

years. You were simply Malcolm Fraser in a younger guise. Always embracing the

middle-of-the-road.

Peacock: And what’s wrong with the middle-of-the-road? Most of the voters reside there.

Howard: And you never believed in anything. You were always swapping principle for

pragmatism. You never believed in market reform.

Pause as Peacock throws up his hands and shakes his head.

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Peacock: You see, that’s the problem with you Sydney people. It’s always about money.

For twelve decades New South Wales has been banging on about market reform.

Howard: I understand your concern. Free trade has always made you Victorians uneasy.

The ghost of George Reid haunts the Melbourne Club.

Peacock: I agree with our former London High Commissioner, Sir Alexander Downer.

He said that the leadership of the Liberal Party should never fall into ‘vulgar Sydney

commercial hands’.

Howard: Oh that’s just typical. You Victorians have always believed you own the Liberal

Party.

Peacock: Sir Alexander Downer was a South Australian.

Howard: Just because Menzies created it, you Victorians have always thought of the

Liberal Party as your own private preserve. Well let me tell you something. It isn’t. The

Liberal Party is a national institution. Nobody has a right to leadership. It is the gift of

the parliamentary Party. Nobody is born to rule. Not even if they hold the seat of

Kooyong.

Peacock: And so that justifies your disloyalty to me as leader, does it?

Howard: What disloyalty? I’ve yet to see the proof.

Peacock: OK, you want proof? I’ll give it to you. Just after I lost the 1984 election to Bob

Hawke, you received a phone call at your home in Wolstonecraft. You thought it was

from Peter Reith, your parliamentary colleague. And you proceeded to bucket me.

Telling him that I was finished. That this election was my last. That I had no new ideas.

That it was all over for me……I can imagine your surprise when, at the end of the

telephone conversation, you realized that it wasn’t Peter Reith you were talking to at all,

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but rather Peter Rees, a journalist from the Melbourne Sun……Must have been quite a

shock for you?

Howard: My hearing aid wasn’t working properly.

Peacock: The issue wasn’t your hearing aid. It was your loyalty. I’d just lost an election,

and instead of support, I got vitriol from my Deputy.

Howard: Oh, you know how it is after election defeats? Everybody says everything to

everybody.

Peacock: Not if they’re a loyal Deputy they don’t.

Howard: I didn’t realize it was a reporter.

Peacock: That’s not the point. The point is, you said it…….You see, loyalty isn’t about

what you make or don’t make public. It’s about what’s inside you. Anybody from

Melbourne knows that.

Howard: Oh, here we go. The Sydney-Melbourne thing again. I suppose you’re going to

mention what school I went to next?

Peacock: The name momentarily escapes me.

Pause

Peacock: You see, John, whenever anybody asked, you refused to rule out a leadership

challenge. How can a leader function effectively when their Deputy continually refuses to

rule out a leadership challenge?

Howard: I wanted to be honest.

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Peacock (surprised): Honest? Malcolm Fraser said that the honest thing for you to do was

either support me as leader or resign as Deputy. You did neither.

Howard: I wanted to keep my options open.

Pause

Peacock: But all that changed on September the 5th

, 1985, didn’t it John? You finally

achieved your ambition. You became Party leader.

Howard: I didn’t seek it. You threw the Deputy leadership open for ballot.

Peacock: Because I was tired of the instability you were causing.

Howard: And when you didn’t get the Deputy you wanted, you resigned as leader.

Peacock: It was an act of principle.

Howard: It was the act of a petulant child who couldn’t get his own way. You didn’t tell

any of your colleagues that you would resign if you didn’t get the Deputy of your choice.

Peacock: Lucky for you that I didn’t, otherwise the vote might have gone the other way.

Howard: You just threw away your own leadership when it wasn’t even up for election.

Peacock shrugs.

Pause

Howard: It was the act of someone who wasn’t serious about power.

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Long pause

Peacock: And you’ve always been serious about power, haven’t you John?

Long pause as Howard gives Peacock a hard stare.

Howard: Dead serious.

Scene Four

Abbott: John Howard replaced Andrew Peacock as Opposition Leader in September

1985. By December 1988, Howard’s personal rating as preferred Prime Minister was

eighteen percent. And yet every morning he got out of bed and faced the Party, the

public, and the media, knowing he was going to cop a bucketing.……When John Howard

became Prime Minister over seven years later, people often wondered where he got his

legendary toughness and tenacity as a politician. He got it as Liberal Party leader in the

1980s when his popularity was abysmal, and when nobody, not even his own Party,

conceded him an inch. Here he is talking to his friend and mentor, Sir John Carrick.

Light fades on Tony Abbott and opens on John Howard and Sir John Carrick standing in the middle of the

stage.

Howard: What’s the press got against me? Look at this front cover from the Bulletin. It’s

got a picture of me, and then a caption underneath saying: ‘Mr 18%. Why on Earth Does

this Man Bother?’

Carrick: That’s your current approval rating as preferred Prime Minister, John. The

Bulletin didn’t make that up.

Howard: But they don’t need to phrase it that way. It’s insulting.

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Looking at the Bulletin in front of him, he shakes it angrily and says:

Howard: Bloody tabloid magazine!

He throws the Bulletin to the floor.

Carrick: It’s an image thing, John. Politics is all about image. You’ve got the ideas. You

just have to sell them better.

Howard: My Chief of Staff, Gerard Henderson, is always telling me that ideas are more

important than image. That it’s more important to be right than popular.

Carrick: Gerard’s a purist, John. Many of us were when we were young. But if you want

to win an election, you need to get the votes. Which means that, at election time, being

popular is even more important than being right. You can be right once you’re in

government. You’ve got to get there first.

Howard: So what would you suggest?

Carrick: Market yourself as leader. Show the public the human side of John Howard.

That you can be just as engaging as Bob Hawke.

Howard: Anything else?

Carrick: Market your policies in a way that the public can relate to.

Howard: Any suggestions?

Carrick: I think you should drop that new phrase you’ve got.

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Howard: You mean ‘incentivation’?

Carrick: Yes.

Howard: Why?

Carrick: It sounds silly.

Pause

Carrick: And the party is divided. Over policy. The media is calling it a battle between

the ‘wets’ and the ‘dries’. The ‘wets’ see you and your supporters as extremists, John.

They don’t believe you can win an election advocating free market reform.

Howard shrugs.

Carrick: They’re lining up behind Andrew Peacock.

Howard (contemptuously): Andrew Peacock doesn’t know if he’s a ‘wet’ or a ‘dry’ until

he’s counted the numbers.

Carrick: It may not only be Peacock you have to worry about. There may be other

challengers.

Howard: I doubt it.

At this point, over loudspeaker, we hear the distinct voice of John Elliott.

John Elliott: Pig’s arse! (burp)

Pause

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Carrick: So you need to remove this perception of you as an extremist.

Howard: Part of me isn’t extreme. In some ways I’m the most conservative leader the

Liberal Party has ever had.

Carrick: That’s just one side of you, John. On Anzac Day. The other side believes in

allowing the market to determine all the outcomes.

Howard: Do you think that’s a problem?

Carrick: I think the voters might see the contradiction. After all, Chris Puplick’s always

saying that if you want to get the government out of the boardroom then you need to get

it out of the bedroom as well. The idea seems to be that free market liberalism and social

conservatism don’t go together.

Howard (stubbornly): I think they do.

Carrick: You might, John, but do the voters?

Howard: We’ll see.

Pause

Carrick: Anyway John, good luck.

Carrick shakes Howard’s hand.

Howard: Yeah, thanks.

At this point Sir John Carrick exits the stage, leaving John Howard standing in the middle of it, looking

alone and forlorn. A loud speaker comes on revealing the distinctive voice of Joh Bjelke-Petersen:

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Well ho, ho, ho, its Joh for Canberra here and I’m Joh Bjelke-Petersen and I’m going to

be the Prime Minister of Canberra……no, the Canberra Prime Minister…….no, the

Prime Minister in Canberra, and don’t you worry about that because I’m like a bush fire

out of control. And you can rest assured that when I’m sitting on the Lodge in Canberra

I’ll be turning upside down in politics…..no, I’ll be turning politics upside down …..and

that John Howard and his Liberal Party colleague Bob Hawke need to watch out because

it’s all going to be a clean broom and a flat tax and getting the feet back on the country

again….. And you might have heard of an ABC program called Four Corners that did a

story on my police force in Queensland recently. It was by a New South Wales journalist

called Chris Masters and it was called the State in Moonlight……no, the Moonlight in

the State…..no, the Moonlight Serenade…….Well, whatever it was called, the Premier

who is Premier in my place in Queensland while I’m the Premier over here, Bill Gunn,

has ordered an inquiry. It’s going to be conducted by a man called Tony Fitzgerald. It

will be called the Fitzgerald Inquiry. And it’s an inquiry into Chris Masters and the

ABC……Tony Fitzgerald is a QC. A Queen’s Coroner. And he’ll be presenting his

Coroners Report on Chris Masters and the ABC. And then once we’ve inquired into

Chris Masters, and into the ABC, and into the rest of you, then you’ll see that the

Moonlight in the State will be the moonlight when I’m Prime Minister of Canberra. So

don’t you worry about that and ho, ho, ho it’s Joh for Canberra here and I’m going to be

Prime Minister of Canberra and …..(fades out).

Howard looks at the audience silently for a few moments after the voice has faded away and then, without

smiling or seeing the humour in what he is about to say, says:

Howard: Perhaps the Brisbane Line wasn’t such a bad idea after all?

Scene Five

Jeff Kennett stands at one corner of the stage opposite to Andrew Peacock at the other. Both are facing the

audience and have large 1980s-fashion mobile phones to their ear. Andrew Peacock is wearing the same

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bright suit and colourful tie as in his previous scene. Jeff Kennett is in the private school uniform of Scotch

College, his former alma mater, with short pants, long socks, tie and blazer.

Kennett: Hello, Andrew?

Peacock: Who’s this?

Kennett: Jeffrey

Peacock: Jeffrey who?

Kennett: Jeffrey Kennett.

Peacock (pleasantly surprised): Jeffrey, how nice to hear from you. Where are you calling

from?

Kennett: My car phone.

Pause

Peacock: Jeffrey, congratulations on your by-election win. It shouldn’t be too long before

you take government.

Kennett: Thanks. It was a good win…….By the way, I had the biggest run-in with your

little mate tonight.

Peacock: My little mate?

Kennett: Yeah.

Peacock: Why?

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Kennett: Oh, he got on the phone to congratulate me about the by-election win and he

asked if I was happy about the result and I said, ‘No, I’m not’. And he said ‘Why?’ and I

said, ‘Because of all the newspaper coverage about this ‘Joh for Canberra’ thing and the

total disunity in the Federal Coalition, and I told him that without all of that, at this by-

election……

Peacock: You’d have got yourself a ten percent swing instead of a seven percent swing.

Kennett: I said I would have got myself another four percent and I told him that he’d

stuffed it up for me. And he just went off his brain.

Peacock (surprised): Did he?

Kennett: He did. He went off his brain for a long time.

Peacock (excitedly): Did he really? Did he really go off his brain?

Kennett: He did. He said: ‘I didn’t like the way you kept me out of the campaign’, and I

said, ‘I wouldn’t have you in it’. I didn’t have any federal people in it.

Peacock: You didn’t have me. You didn’t have anyone.

Kennett: And I said to him, ‘Tomorrow when I address the Liberal State Council

meeting, I’m going to bucket the whole lot of you’.

Peacock (worried): Oh no, don’t do that, Jeffrey.

Kennett: I said, ‘Tomorrow, John’. And he said, ‘I know where your sympathies lie’. And

I said, ‘I couldn’t give a fuck. I have no sympathies anymore. You’re all a pack of shits,

and tomorrow I’m going berserk’. Well, he went off his brain again, and do you know

what I said to him at the end of it?

28

Peacock: No, what?

Kennett: I said, ‘Howard – you’re a cunt. You haven’t got my support and you never will

have. And I’m not going to rubbish you or the Party tomorrow, but I feel a lot better

having told you that you’re a cunt.’

Peacock (apprehensively): Oh, shit.

Kennett: And the poor little fellow didn’t know if he was Arthur or Martha.

Peacock (still apprehensive): Oh, shit.

Kennett: I just thought I should let you know.

Peacock: Well, tomorrow at the State Council Meeting, that’s your day Jeffrey. I told

Margaret this. I said, ‘At the State Council meeting, I’m getting out of the car. I’m

saying, ‘It’s not John Howard’s day, it’s not my day, it’s Jeffrey Kennett’s day.’ I’ll grab

the mike and say: ‘We had a great win yesterday and the only person who is deserving of

your support is Jeffrey Kennett, and if you don’t give him everything, you are letting

down the Liberal Party.’ And if the media asks me, I’ll say: ‘I don’t care what you ask

me, you can all go and get stuffed. This is Jeffrey Kennett’s day.’

Kennett: All I can say is I thought I should let you know where I ended up with your little

mate.

Peacock: Where are you?

Kennett: I’m on my way home.

Peacock: Right.

29

Kennett: I’m going home to have a reasonably early night and I’ll see you tomorrow.

Peacock: Look forward to it. I’m just so thrilled.

Kennett: Alright, mate.

Peacock: OK, mate. See you then.

Kennett: Give my regards to your good lady.

Peacock: OK mate. Ta. Bye.

Kennett: Bye.

Light fades on Kennett and Peacock and opens on Tony Abbott who pauses, smiling at the audience from

his lectern, before beginning.

Pause

Abbott: Two blokes sucking up to each other.

Pause

Abbott: It would be hard to know who had whose hand further down the other’s pants.

Pause

Abbott: But the full transcript of that car phone conversation was taped, as it was

occurring, by some civil libertarians and sent to the newspapers. The story was all over

the country the following Monday. Howard was furious and demoted Peacock to the back

bench. But that didn’t make it any easier for him to bear. For Howard it was a humiliating

30

episode, all the more so for being so unnecessary……Having said that, however, you

might remember that John Howard once bucketed Andrew Peacock on the telephone after

the 1984 election. He did so to the Melbourne journalist Peter Rees, who he mistook for

Peter Reith.

Pause

Abbott: I don’t think he used the C word, though.

Scene Six

Abbott: After the car phone conversation, things didn’t get any easier for John Howard.

He lost the 1987 election and in 1989 Andrew Peacock launched another leadership

challenge. This one had all the hallmarks of a Renaissance knifing, with the key plotters,

John Moore and Wilson Tuckey, boasting about it on the ABC’s Four Corners program.

All in all, it showed the brutal, unforgiving nature of Liberal Party politics.

At this point Andrew Peacock walks out onto the stage towards the audience, interrupting Abbott on the

way.

Peacock: Now hold on, hold on. I think that’s a little harsh, surely? I’ll admit that John

Moore didn’t behave entirely appropriately. And Wilson Tuckey needs a short leash at

the best of times. But I’m sure we’re all agreed that the leadership change was in

everybody’s interest. After all, John Howard was never ahead of me as preferred party

leader. The polls said so. And while I think he did the best he could, it really was time for

a change.

Pause as Andrew smiles convincingly and moves closer and more intimately towards the audience.

31

Peacock: On a more personal note, I’d just like to say how happy I am to have been given

this second opportunity to lead the Liberal Party. Second chances don’t come often in

politics, or in life, and I’d just like to say how very grateful I am for this one. A man of

my age and experience appreciates second chances, and realizes their value when they

come along. And so I’d just like to thank everybody who made this second chance

possible.

A light opens on one side of the stage (which is the opposite side to where Peacock and Abbott are

standing) revealing a smiling Paul Keating.

Keating: Can a soufflé rise twice?

Light fades on Paul Keating, leaving Andrew Peacock, who did hear this remark, looking stunned, silent

and slightly hurt in Keating’s direction. Light then fades on Andrew Peacock.

Scene Seven

Abbott: And so began John Howard’s wilderness years. Like those of his hero, Winston

Churchill, these were years where few, if any, believed he had any real future in politics.

Certainly almost everybody believed his chances of ever becoming Liberal Party leader

again were over. And yet, in 1993, after John Hewson lost the unloseable election to Paul

Keating by trumpeting a GST, John Howard nominated again for the leadership and lost

to Hewson by 17 votes. When Hewson was on his way out in 1994 and Alexander

Downer was positioning for the leadership, Howard again sought support for a leadership

bid, but eventually withdrew. “It was made quite clear to me”, he said, “that whatever

goodwill there might have been towards me, the Party wanted to move on.”

Pause

32

Abbott: At this point, it looked like it was all over. Almost any other politician would

have thrown in the towel.

Pause

Abbott: But when the new Party leader, Alexander Downer, launched his Liberal Party

policy document, “The Things That Matter”, and decided to improvise by describing the

Party’s domestic violence policy as “The Things That Batter”, everything turned around

for John Howard. Alexander might have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but

now he’d placed his foot there as well. His public approval rating fell to twelve percent

and the Liberal Party were looking for a new leader. Andrew Peacock had moved on and,

in order to assure his chances, John Howard did a deal with Downer’s Deputy, Peter

Costello, that if Costello did not nominate for the leadership, Howard would serve one

and a half terms and then hand over to him. Many years later, Howard would deny that

any such deal was made, but an independent witness, Ian McLachlan, says it was so. The

result was that, with Peter Costello standing aside, John Howard was elected,

unanimously and unopposed, as Liberal Party leader on the 30th

of January 1995. His

Lazarus return had been accomplished – triple by-pass and all.

Pause

Abbott: However winning back the Liberal Party leadership was only the beginning. John

Howard then had to win government. And to do that, he had to overcome a most

formidable obstacle. That obstacle came in the form of a politician. A politician who had

already seen off both John Hewson and Alexander Downer as Liberal Party leaders and

who, at that time, dominated Australian Parliament and Australian public life like a

colossus. I speak, of course, of none other than John Howard’s arch nemesis, the member

for Blaxland and Prime Minister of Australia - the Honourable Paul Keating.

Light fades on Tony Abbott as John Howard and Paul Keating enter from opposite sides of the stage. There

is a large table in the middle front of the stage with books on it. This is meant to simulate Parliament. Each

addresses the audience from opposite ends of this table.

33

Howard: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to inform the House that the parliamentary

Liberal Party has elected me as its leader. I am also happy to inform the House that the

honourable member for Higgins, Mr. Costello, continues as Deputy Leader of the Liberal

Party and Deputy Leader of the Opposition.

General cries of ‘hear hear’ from the Coalition benches.

Keating (arm outstretched in the direction of John Howard): It seems, Mr. Speaker, that

the member for Bennelong sees himself as another chance for the Prime Ministership.

The member for Kooyong had two go’s and he’s only had one. He demands another.

[Arm outstretched in the direction of an imaginary Alexander Downer]. The member for

Mayo, on the other hand, has a look of relief and satisfaction, Mr. Speaker. He has been

relieved of the heavy burden of office and is feeling better at last. Indeed, he has the same

look that the member for Bennelong had in 1983.

General cries of opposition from the Coalition benches.

Keating: Let me tell you about the member for Bennelong, Mr. Speaker, because in his

case, it really is a case of back to the future. This is a man who was Treasurer in the

Fraser Government - a Government that, after seven years of opportunity, left Australia a

moribund, inward looking industrial graveyard. A low growth, low investment, high

unemployment country. When John Howard walked out of office in March 1983, Mr.

Speaker, he walked out with his head down.

General uproar of opposition from the Coalition benches.

Keating: It was left to the Labor Party to remake the economy, Mr. Speaker. To take out

all the sclerosis that was put there when those opposite, the Liberal and National parties,

were asleep at the wheel. It all began with the Rip van Winkle years of the Menzies

Government and its successors, Mr. Speaker. They sat there for twenty years, with no

new investment and no new ideas. They sat there asleep at the wheel. And it wasn’t just

34

the Menzies Government. The Fraser Government had seven years of opportunity for

reform. They had control of both Houses of Parliament and a mandate for change in

1975. And what did they do? They comatosed the place!

General cries of ‘hear hear’ from the Government benches and uproar of opposition from the Coalition

benches.

Howard. The Prime Minister is very fond of quoting history, Mr. Speaker. Let me just

say one thing to him about that - you can rabbit on as much as you like about the past.

The more you talk about the past, the more you proclaim your embarrassment about the

present and the fact that you have nothing to say about the future. Above all, you have

expanded our foreign debt and presided over a nation in which the rich have got richer

and the poor have got poorer.

Parliamentary uproar from both sides.

Keating (laughing heartily): Oh, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker. This is a bit rich. This is a bit

rich. The Liberal Party accusing the Labor Party of allowing the rich to get richer and the

poor to get poorer! [Arm outstretched in the direction of Howard] This is the ‘born to

rule’ brigade, Mr. Speaker. The rump-end of our bunyip aristocracy. The Party that,

throughout its history, has barracked for the rich and the rich only. It is a party which

believes it has a right to govern in the interests of itself and its view of the world. A view

of the world held by those in the leather-padded reading rooms of the Melbourne and

Adelaide Clubs. …….Mr. Speaker, if the leader of the Opposition wants to be known as a

credible and honest person, then to say that his Party represents those that he cynically

and patronizingly calls the ‘battlers’ is both incredible and dishonest.

General cries of ‘hear hear’ from the Government benches and uproar of opposition from the Coalition

benches.

Howard (with anger): Mr. Speaker, this is precisely what I would expect from this Prime

Minister. A man who has no hesitation in introducing the divisive language of class into

35

parliamentary debate. Such language simply reflects this man’s origins, Mr. Speaker. It

reveals him as a man who acquired his political education at the feet of Jack Lang, and

who has put that education into practice amidst the bitter, partisan politics of the New

South Wales Labor Right. A man whose animosity to some of the most valued and

treasured traditions of this country is well known.

Repeated calls from the Government benches of ‘what traditions?’

Howard: The members opposite have asked me ‘what traditions?’ I will tell you ‘what

traditions’. I refer to the British traditions upon which this country was founded. The

traditions of monarchy, representative government, and the rule of law. Traditions which

have served this country so well for two hundred years and for which Australians have

fought and died in two world wars……This Prime Minister is opposed to this heritage

which binds and unites so much of this country, linking our past, our present and our

future.

General cries of ‘hear hear’ from the Coalition benches.

Keating (arm outstretched in the direction of John Howard): What we are witnessing

here, Mr. Speaker, what we are witnessing here is the putrid excrement of this man’s

inveterate conservatism.

Cries of outrage from the Coalition benches, which Paul Keating raises his voice to talk over.

Keating: What possible use, Mr. Speaker, what possible use could a modern Australia –

an Australia joining its region for the first time in its history, becoming an outward

looking country – what possible use could Australia have for a man who has described

himself as the most conservative leader the Liberal Party has ever had? What possible use

could he be to indigenous Australia? Or to Asia? Or to our immigration? He has no new

policies. He has simply dragged out the policies of his mentors, Sir Robert Menzies and

Sir John Carrick. Policies he is comfortable with. Policies from the 1950s and the 1960s.

36

It’s the white picket fence and the trip back down the time tunnel. These are the policies

that this man now wants to apply to a modern Australia.

Cries of opposition from Coalition benches.

Howard: Your hatred of Australia’s past is obvious. If it doesn’t include Second Empire

clocks, you’ve got no time for it.

Cries of agreement from the Coalition benches. Keating then looks at Howard, and says with accusative

intensity:

Keating: You are thoroughly outdated. You view tomorrow’s world through yesterday’s

mindset. Australia has passed you by.

General parliamentary uproar.

Howard: Mr. Speaker, I don’t believe in the dichotomies that this Prime Minister puts

forward. I don’t believe that Australia faces some kind of exclusive choice between our

past and our future, between our history and our geography. Such a choice is a phony and

irrelevant one proposed by those with ulterior motives. I don’t believe that Australia has

to abandon or apologise for its heritage in order to contribute to Asia.

Cries of ‘hear hear’ from the Coalition benches.

Keating: The problem with you conservatives is that you could never grasp that this is

Australia and not Britain. That while many of our institutions and traditions are British,

Australia is not. That our present and our future are entirely our own. You couldn’t grasp

it in the Second World War, and you can’t grasp it now…..The fact is that the

conservatives in this country never meet the challenge. They are found wanting on all the

major issues…..Well, we will not have a bar of it. You can go back to the fifties, to your

nostalgia, to your Menzies, your Caseys and the whole lot. They were not aggressively

37

Australian, they were not aggressively proud of our culture, and we will have no bar of

you or your sterile ideology!

General parliamentary uproar.

Howard: You’re a mug!

Keating: [leaning across the table to look directly at Howard and point at him]. Look

John, do not waste your time on me, son. I’ve been around. I know you. I know where the

skeletons are in your closet.

Then turning back to the audience.

Keating: You see Mr. Speaker, it is not by accident that, back in 1993, the Liberal Party

passed over John Howard when John Hewson lost the last election. It is not by accident

that they passed over John Howard again to go to Alexander Downer after John Hewson

was removed. He is the Liberal Party’s third preference. But in his arrogance he wants to

be Australia’s first preference. He is a person without any original political thoughts. A

person who is a part-time thinker, who has no original political ideas. And here he is,

after twelve years of Labor Party Government [makes a sweeping gesture], twelve years

of change that has made us the fastest growing economy in the Western world, here he is

bringing his miserable political carcass back to the Opposition front bench. [Arm

outstretched in Howard’s direction]. Here he is, limping in like the Bishop of Autun, the

Tallyrand of the Liberal party, scraping his way back into Australian history, seeking to

practice his miserable politics. If he had any pride, he would run himself out of public

life.

Parliamentary uproar.

38

Scene Eight

There is loud cheering. The spotlight opens on John Howard as he walks out from one side of the stage,

with a large smile, arms outstretched on either side above his shoulders. He is about to give his victory

speech at the Wentworth Hotel lectern. The lectern should have a blue sign on front which says, in white

lettering, Wentworth Hotel, and underneath, Sydney. The lectern is situated on the opposite side of the stage

to Tony Abbott’s lectern. When it is revisited by John Howard to deliver victory speeches at various points

in subsequent scenes it should always be in the same position with the same sign.

Howard: Can I say it is an immensely proud moment for me tonight, to lead back into

government the Liberal Party of Australia.

Loud cheers.

Howard: We have endured sixteen years without a federal electoral victory, and tonight is

an immensely proud and wonderful moment for our great Party.

Loud cheers.

Howard: We have been elected with a mandate, a very powerful mandate [cheers], and

whilst I will seek at all times unity and a common point of view, we have not been

elected to be just a pale imitation of the government we have replaced.

Loud cheers.

Howard: There is something unique about our nation and about being Australian….and I

commit myself and my future government to the service of all of the Australian people.

Thank you.

Extremely loud cheers.

The spotlight fades from John Howard and then opens on the middle front of the stage to reveal Paul

Keating, standing sad, dejected and alone. Still shell-shocked from his election loss, he relates the

39

following story with both a melancholy and a disbelief that what he is relating could actually have come to

pass.

Keating: Years ago, when John Howard was Liberal leader the first time around, I told a

little story about a child walking with his parents through a museum. The museum

displays all these exhibits from the 1950s. They are walking around the museum and the

child says to his Mother: ‘What’s that, Mum?’, and the Mother says: ‘Well son, that’s the

Morphy Richards toaster. We used to have one of those at home. We used to put the

bread in it. You had to wind it down and turn it on’……And they walk along a bit further

and the child says, ‘What’s this, Mum?’ And the Mother says: ‘That’s the Qualcast

mower, son. We had one of those at home too’. They keep walking and the child says:

‘What are these, Mum?’ And the Mother says: ‘That’s the Astor T.V. and the AWA

radiogram, son. We used to get all the news and all the programs on those’. Finally after

they’ve seen all the other exhibits, the kid comes across a figure in a glass case. He looks

at it a while and then says, ‘Who is this, Mum?’ And the Mother says: ‘That’s John

Howard, son. He’s a member of the Liberal Party’. And the kid says: ‘Was John Howard

around in the fifties, Mum?’. And the Mother says………“No son, he’s the future.”

Keating pauses, morosely shakes his head, and, in disbelief, says:

Paul Keating: I never thought it would come true.

40

Act Two

41

Scene One

Scene opens with the distinctive ABC radio news jingle and a pre-recorded announcement. All subsequent

ABC radio announcements in subsequent scenes also open with the same jingle.

Announcer: News has just broken of a massacre in Port Arthur, Tasmania. Police reports

suggest a lone gunman, firing a semi-automatic weapon, has killed thirty-five people and

injured twenty-five others.

Light opens on John Howard standing at the table in the middle of the stage representing Parliament.

Howard: Mr. Speaker, it would not be right for this parliament to proceed any further

without some reference to these enormous events. I say on behalf of the government that

few occurrences in Australian life have shaken the nation quite as much as this. I think

Australia has been shaken to the core.

General cries of ‘hear hear’.

Light fades on John Howard and opens on the other side of the table revealing Pauline Hanson in her

famous black maiden speech outfit.

Hanson: Mr. Acting Speaker, in making my first speech in this place, I wish to say how

proud I am to be here as the Independent member for Oxley. I come here not as a

polished politician but as a woman who has had her fair share of life’s knocks. My views

on issues are based on commonsense, and on my experience as a mother of four children,

as a sole parent, and as a businesswoman running a fish and chip shop.

Pause

Hanson: Immigration and multiculturalism are issues that this government is trying to

address, but for far too long ordinary Australians have been kept out of any debate by the

major parties. I and most Australians want our immigration policy radically reviewed and

42

that of multiculturalism abolished…….I believe we are in danger of being swamped by

Asians……

Pause

Hanson: Present governments are also encouraging separatism in Australia by providing

opportunities, land, moneys and facilities available only to Aboriginals. This nation is

being divided into black and white, and the present system encourages this. To survive in

peace and harmony, united and strong, we must have one people, one nation, one flag.

Pause

Hanson: I consider myself just an ordinary Australian who wants to keep this great

country strong and independent, and my greatest desire is to see all Australians treat each

other as equals as we travel together towards the new century.

Light fades on Pauline Hanson and opens on Tony Abbott.

Abbott: Pauline Hanson was John Howard’s worst nightmare. Not only because she went

on to form the One Nation Party and got close to a million votes for the House of

Representatives at the 1998 election, but more because she was saying things quite

similar to those John Howard had said in the past. As Liberal leader in the eighties, John

Howard had criticized the separatism that arises from treating Aboriginals as a distinct

group, separate from ‘mainstream’ Australia. He also expressed reservations about

multiculturalism and Asian immigration. This explains John Howard’s reluctance to

speak out against Pauline Hanson – for which he was much criticised. He knew that in so

doing, he would be alienating his own constituency.

Kim Beazley walks out to the middle of the stage. Again a table in the middle front of the stage represents

parliament.

43

Beazley: My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. Has the Prime Minister seen the

comments by former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser on the race debate when he said: ‘I

believe it’s extraordinarily dangerous for the future of Australia’? Has he also seen the

plethora of editorials from around the region on this subject? Will the Prime Minister

now show some leadership by putting an end to this divisive debate and declaring all

forms of racism unacceptable?

Parliamentary commotion.

Howard: Everybody should just calm down a little bit. Can I say, Mr. Speaker, that I

think one of the most salient things to come out of this debate over the past few weeks is

the extraordinary and, I think, disproportionate preoccupation of far too many people in

this country with just one maiden speech made by just one member of this Parliament.

Uproar from Opposition benches.

Howard (raising his voice to speak over the commotion): As to the newspaper editorials

in the Asian press that the Opposition leader refers to, they are absolutely wrong. I and

my Party will yield to nobody in our commitment to racial equality and racial tolerance. I

have never been reluctant to repudiate racism. I will never be reluctant to repudiate

racism. I have repeatedly praised, and I will continue to praise, the contribution of

Australians of Asian descent to the development of this country. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Interjection: What about the H word?

Scene Two

John Howard stands with his wife, Janette, in the middle of the stage.

Janette (with affection): So how’s this job going that you’ve always wanted so much?

44

John: It’s been a rocky ride so far. Some of those rural meetings about gun control got a

bit boisterous.

Janette: Surely they understand that gun control is a response to Port Arthur?

John: Some do and some don’t. My advisors tell me that you can’t buy PVC pipe or

insulation tape from any rural hardware in Australia for love or money.

Janette: Why?

John: People are burying their semi-automatic weapons.

Janette (shocked): Goodness.

John: But that’s not what I want to talk to you about.

Janette: Really?

John: I want to talk about tax

Janette: Tax?

John: Yes.

Janette: What sort of tax?

John: A goods and services tax.

Janette (shocked): A GST?

45

John: Yes.

Janette: But the electorate buried that with John Hewson back in 1993.

John: I know.

Janette: And you want to resurrect it?

John: I do.

Janette (perplexed and distressed): Why?

Pause as Howard thinks deeply.

John: It’s the one big contribution I can make. I couldn’t get a GST up under Malcolm

Fraser in the seventies. Now I’ve got the opportunity. It’s something I believe in. This

could be my only chance.

Pause

Janette: Of course, you know what they’ll say?

John: What?

Janette: That you’re going back on your word. That after the 1993 election you told the

press that there’d ‘never ever’ be a GST – that it was dead and buried. And yet here you

are exhuming it again.

John: I don’t think they’ll say that. After all, it’s not like I’m introducing it mid-term. I’m

going to an election on it, letting the people decide…….Anyway, I’m allowed to change

46

my mind on the GST. Paul Keating was its greatest champion at the Tax Summit in 1985.

He only decided he was against it when John Hewson embraced it in 1991.

Janette: I suppose so.

Pause

Janette (brightening): Anyway, there is an upside.

John: What’s that?

Janette: You’re going to an election on what is a proven vote loser.

John: How is that an upside?

Janette: Well, even if you lose the election, nobody can ever accuse you of being a

pragmatic, poll-driven politician ever again.

Scene Three

Loud pre-recorded chants of ‘MUA. Here to stay!’ ‘MUA. Here to stay!’ This continues for some time and

is only interrupted by Kim Beazley’s speech at the table representing Parliament.

Beazley: Will the Minister for Workplace Relations, Peter Reith, confirm for the House

that the recent ruling by the Federal Court of Australia on the waterfront dispute – a

ruling against Patrick Stevedores and in favour of the Maritime Union of Australia -

finally shows that the government’s conspiratorial efforts, in alliance with Patricks, to

force unionized labour off Australian wharves, has manifestly failed?

47

Loud cries of ‘hear hear’ from the Opposition benches and cries of opposition from the Government

benches.

Reith: I will do no such thing. The fact remains that the Maritime Union of Australia may

have seen this as an ideological fight, but the Government’s position was driven by the

absolutely dreadful productivity on Australian wharves.

Parliamentary uproar.

Lights fade on Beazley and Reith and open on Beazley again.

Beazley: I table before the house the Bringing Them Home report – a report on the past

removal of Aboriginal children from their families

Emotional pause

Beazley (visibly upset): I had an opportunity to read a fair proportion of this report last

night. I was going to read some of these cases but I cannot. This is a terrible, terrible

record. This is not a matter that we can sweep under the table…….As leader of the

federal parliamentary Labor Party, I move that this Parliament follow the example of the

Western Australian and South Australian Parliaments and apologise for these practices.

Sounds of ‘hear’ ‘hear’.

John Howard moves to the table in the middle of the stage.

Howard: My government does not support a formal national apology.

Cries of opposition from the Opposition benches.

Howard: Apologising for something clearly implies some direct personal responsibility.

However much we might now, in the fullness of time, regard these practices as

unacceptable, they were authorized by the laws of the time and were believed by a

48

significant number of people involved at the time to be carried out for a positive purpose

– for the protection and preservation of the Aboriginal children involved.

Cries of ‘hear’ ‘hear’ from the government benches and cries of opposition from the Opposition benches.

Howard: I do not believe we can ask one generation to accept legal responsibility for the

acts of an earlier generation.

Cries of opposition from the Opposition benches.

Howard: But not delivering an apology does not mean that I or my government do not

feel deep sorrow about the injustices suffered by Aboriginal Australians.

Cries of ‘hear’ ‘hear’ from the government benches and cries of derisive disbelief from the Opposition

benches.

Howard: Might I also say that I think the Opposition Leader is being less than candid on

this issue, because we now have evidence that in the Keating Government’s submission

to the Kruger case before the Australian High Court, the Keating Government adopted

the very same position on an apology that my government is adopting today.

Parliamentary uproar.

Lights fade on John Howard and Kim Beazley and open on Tony Abbott at his lectern.

Abbott: Was John Howard’s refusal to say ‘sorry’ to The Stolen Generation an act of

principle or an act of politics? One of the things that made John Howard such an effective

politician was that, with him, it was always hard to tell the difference. He showed later

that, when public opinion shifted, he was also willing to shift on matters which,

previously, he had seemed rock-solid on – such as the detention of the children of asylum

seekers. Was his refusal to apologise to the Stolen Generation also a case of trying to

appease public opinion? Or at least that part of the public that had deserted him for One

49

Nation? Or did he truly believe that the present generation should bare no responsibility

for acts of a past generation over which it had no control?

Pause

Abbott: Whatever the answer, John Howard won the 1998 election, even with the GST,

but with a substantially reduced majority.

Lights fade on Tony Abbott.

To the sound of cheers John Howard emerges from the side of the stage, arms outstretched above his

shoulders to acknowledge the applause. He walks up to the Wentworth Hotel lectern and produces his

speech from his inside breast pocket.

Cheers.

Howard: I want, first and foremost, to thank the Australian people for returning the

Government. I want to thank the Australian people for embracing a bold, economic

reform that is in the long-term interests of this country. I am immensely proud of the fact

that the Coalition stuck to its guns on the GST and the Australian people have come with

us.

Cheers.

Scene Four

Scene opens on an ABC radio news jingle and then an announcement as follows:

Announcer: Reports have just come in concerning a Norwegian container ship, the

Tampa, which has come to the assistance of four hundred and thirty-three asylum

50

seekers, most of them of Afghan origin, who were stranded on a sinking Indonesian

vessel.

Another ABC radio news jingle.

Announcer: Shocking reports have just come in that two Boeing 747 passenger airliner

jets have crashed into the side of the World Trade Center in New York City and another

into the western side of the Pentagon Building in Arlington, Virginia. A fourth passenger

jet crashed in a deserted field in western Pennsylvania, just near Camp David. This is

being referred to as a ‘second Pearl Harbour’.

Another ABC radio news jingle.

Announcer: News has just come to hand of an encounter between the Australian Navy’s

HMAS Adelaide and a vessel carrying two hundred and twenty three asylum seekers and

crew north of Christmas Island. According to reports, as the Adelaide approached the

vessel, children were thrown overboard. The Immigration Minister, Philip Ruddock, has

confirmed this.

Lights open on Peter Reith and Virginia Trioli facing each other from each end of the table in the middle of

the stage (absent its books). This simulates an ABC newsroom where Reith is being interviewed by Trioli.

The scene begins with the Drive program music.

Trioli: Welcome back to Drive on 774 ABC Melbourne. I’m Virginia Trioli. Now joining

us in the studio is the Defence Minister, Peter Reith. Thank you for joining us, Minister.

Reith: Hello Virginia.

Trioli: Mr. Reith, there has been some question as to whether children actually were

thrown into the water.

51

Reith: Well, it did happen. The fact is that children were thrown into the water. We got

that report within hours of that happening and I think some public comments were made

to that effect. I was told by the Navy that this had happened.

Trioli: You’ve got some photos to show this have you?

Reith: We have produced the photo on the basis that the identities are not shown publicly.

That is standard practice.

Peter Reith hands a photo to Virginia Trioli who looks at it.

Trioli: Mr. Reith, it’s a reasonably tight shot, I’d have to say, of three people in the water,

one woman who is wearing a head dress, and a younger boy, and it looks like a Defence

Force person as well. They are all wearing life jackets.

Pause as she again looks at the photo.

Trioli: Mr. Reith, there’s nothing in this photo that indicates these people either jumped

or were thrown into the water.

Reith: Well, you’re now questioning the veracity of what is being said. Those photos are

produced as evidence of the fact that there were children in the water. Those photos show

absolutely, without question whatsoever, that there were children in the water.

Trioli: Hang on a minute. The question was always whether they were thrown into the

water.

Reith (flustered): Well, well, I’ve just, I’ve just given you the evidence.

Trioli: No, you’ve given me images.

52

Reith (exasperated): Well, now you’re questioning the veracity of the Royal Australian

Navy.

Trioli: Mr. Reith, I’m a journalist. I’ll question anything until I’ve got proof.

Reith: Look, I didn’t come down in the last shower, Virginia. I produced the photos and

you are still questioning whether it happened.

Trioli: Like I said, Mr. Reith, I’ll question anything until I’ve got proof.

Reith (exasperated): Well Virginia, I mean, quite frankly, if you don’t accept that, then

you don’t accept anything I say.

Lights fade on Peter Reith and Virginia Trioli and open on Tony Abbott at his lectern.

Abbott: These three events – Tampa, September 11, and Children Overboard – changed

everything for John Howard. Up until then, the GST was so on-the-nose with voters that

the Government looked like it was doomed at the 2001 election. It had just lost the blue-

ribbon Liberal seat of Ryan to the ALP at a by-election and this foretold a massive defeat

at the next poll. Then, Tampa, September 11 and Children Overboard intervened and the

Government won the 2001 election with an increased majority. It seems that a strong

policy of border protection resonated deeply with many Australian voters.

Light fades on Tony Abbott and opens on Kim Beazley.

Beazley: But why did a strong policy of border protection resonate so deeply with so

many Australian voters? Was it because of the issues of territorial sovereignty that the

Prime Minister kept stressing – [raising his fist in the air] - ‘We will decide who comes to

this country and the circumstances in which they come!’ Or did border protection strike a

resonant chord with Australian voters because of who was on the Tampa?

Pause

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Beazley: To put the question another way. If instead of being a Norwegian container ship

carrying four hundred and thirty three Afghan asylum seekers, the Tampa had been an

Afghan container ship carrying four hundred and thirty three Norwegian asylum seekers,

would our political and emotional response have been any different?

Light fades on Kim Beazley and opens on Tony Abbott.

Abbott: Anyway, it wasn’t only Tampa that won John Howard the 2001 election. It was

also Children Overboard. Three years later, at the start of the 2004 election, solid

evidence emerged that the Prime Minister may have misled the Australian public over the

Children Overboard Affair. One of Peter Reith’s staff claimed that he had told the Prime

Minister, three days before the 2001 election, that there was no conclusive evidence that

children had been thrown into the water. Yet at no point during that election campaign

did the Prime Minister cast serious doubt upon the story.

Lights fade on Tony Abbott and open on Kim Beazley.

Beazley: You know, those who believed the Prime Minister deliberately misled the

Australian public at the 2001 election over the Children Overboard Affair must have

comforted themselves with the thought that, even if he won that election, the truth would

come out in the end…… However when the truth finally did seem to come out at the

2004 election, and it did appear as if he had been misleading us all along, what they

weren’t prepared for was his ability to convince us that all that was in the past and

nobody wants to talk about that now.

54

Scene Five

Scene opens with Peter Reith walking out to the middle front of the stage, pulling a 1990s mobile phone

out of his pocket, dialing a number, and then holding the phone to his ear. Peter Reith maintains a friendly,

fatherly tone throughout this conversation, in ironic contrast to the gravity of the issue being discussed.

Reith: Hello son? It’s Dad.

Pause

Reith: Yes, hi son…….How’s everything going in London? Is that merchant bank job all

it’s cracked up to be?

Pause

Reith: That’s great. Listen son, there’s something I need to talk to you about.

Pause

Reith: No, it’s not about safe sex. We’ve had that conversation before.

Pause

Reith: No son, it’s not about that either……Son, it’s about that phone card I lent you.

Pause

Reith: Yes, that one…[pause]…You haven’t by any chance lent it out to anyone else,

have you?

Long pause

Reith: Are you sure?

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Pause

Reith: Well, it’s just that the Commonwealth has discovered that it’s racked up about

fifty thousand dollars in phone charges.

Long pause

Reith: Yes, that is quite a bit.

Long pause

Reith: So are you sure you haven’t lent it out to one or two others?

Long Pause

Reith: Yes, it’s become quite an issue down here.

Pause

Reith: Yes, quite a big one actually.

Pause

Reith: Yes, it has affected me personally.

Pause

Reith: Oh, nothing much. I might have to resign from Cabinet, that’s all.

Long Pause

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Reith: Yes son, that’s true.

Long Pause

Reith: Yes, that’s true, too.

Long Pause

Reith: Yes, I have had a long political career.

Long Pause

Reith: Yes, I guess that’s true too, son.

Pause

Reith: Yes, everything does have to come to an end some time.

Long Pause

Reith: Yes son.

Pause

Reith: Yes, I’ll give your regards to Mum.

Pause

Reith: Yes son.

Pause

Reith: Okay, I’ll do that too.

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Pause

Reith: Thanks son.

Pause

Reith: Okay. Speak to you soon.

Pause

Reith: Yes son.

Pause

Reith: Bye.

Lights fade as Peter Reith, looking at the audience in a rather shell-shocked fashion, turns his mobile phone

off and places it back in his pocket.

Scene Six

Lights open on John Howard standing in the middle of the stage.

Howard: Good evening ladies and gentleman. Today the Government has committed

Australian forces to action to disarm Iraq. We have done this because we believe it is

right, it is lawful, and it is in Australia’s national interest. We are determined to join

together with other nations in a ‘Coalition of the Willing’ to deprive Iraq of its weapons

of mass destruction……Even in the most minute quantities, these weapons are capable of

causing death and destruction on a mammoth scale.

58

Lights fade on John Howard and open on Kim Beazley.

Beazley: Of course, just as with Children Overboard, the fact that it turned out that Iraq

had no weapons of mass destruction did not damage John Howard’s electoral fortunes.

He simply claimed, as did George W. Bush and Tony Blair, that he could only act on the

advice he had at the time.

Pause as Beazley moves closer to the audience, clasps his hands together and, smiling, speaks in more

intimate terms.

Beazley: You know, for many leaders in liberal democracies, advice is a wonderful thing.

They can make sure they only get the sort of advice they want to hear, and then, when it

turns out to be wrong, claim that they could only act on the advice they had at the time. It

is a perfect arrangement. In the meantime, they get to do whatever they want to do on the

basis of that advice, and once everybody knows that the advice is wrong, it is the

intelligence organizations who gave the advice that have to hold an inquiry into

themselves to make sure they do better next time.

Scene Seven

Abbott: On December 2nd

, 2003, the Australian Labor Party embarked on an untried and

radical move. In the wake of Simon Crean’s resignation, the federal Labor Party caucus,

to everybody’s surprise, voted Mark Latham in as ALP leader ahead of Kim Beazley by

47 votes to 45.

Long pause

Abbott: Now the Australian Labor Party has thrown up some interesting characters as

leader over the years. And all with their own distinctive styles of leadership. Each one of

59

these leaders has had a very different method of imposing his own will and direction over

Cabinet proceedings, particularly when faced with strong disagreement from Cabinet

colleagues and the prospects of Cabinet revolt.

Pause

Abbott: Gough Whitlam, I imagine, would have dealt with Cabinet revolt by explaining

to his colleagues, in his most unassuming manner, just how much more intelligent he was

than the rest of them. Bob Hawke would have dealt with Cabinet revolt by allowing

discussion to continue in a wide-ranging manner in the hope that consensus might

emerge. Paul Keating’s response would have been to draw on a raft of expletives and an

unbalanced temper to intimidate all around him.

Long Pause

Abbott: Mark Latham would have already sorted it out in the carpark.

Lights fade on Abbott and open on John Howard and Mark Latham emerging from opposite ends of the

stage. They meet in the middle and Latham then does his famous handshake with Howard, squeezing hard,

pulling Howard towards him, and standing on his toes to purposely tower over and look down on him, with

a forced grimace that is supposed to pass for a grin, barely suppressing all his rage and anger inside. John is

surprised by the grip of the handshake but also keeps a forced smile on his face, knowing that the cameras

are rolling. They then continue walking passed each other and then John Howard stops, looks back to make

sure that Mark Latham isn’t watching, and then, looking at the audience, wrings and shakes his hand and

mouths the word “ow”.

Scene Eight

Abbott: John Howard defeated Mark Latham at the 2004 election, resulting in his fourth

election win and an increased parliamentary majority. Paul Keating confronts him just

after the election result, with John Howard flushed with victory.

60

Lights fade on Abbott. Howard and Keating emerge standing at each lectern at opposite sides of the stage.

The “Wentworth Hotel” sign is removed from one of them. They stand at lecterns rather than meet in the

middle of the stage because the length of their dialogue may require each of them to refer to notes if all the

dialogue cannot be memorized.

Keating: So John, you must be feeling proud of yourself? Not only did you win your

fourth election in a row but you got control of the Senate. What’s it like to be in the

strongest electoral position of any Prime Minister since Malcolm Fraser?

Howard (shrugs and smiles): It feels good.

Keating: And to achieve it all in your fourth term. Not even Malcolm Fraser can compare

with you now.

Howard: I suppose not.

Keating: And so here you are with this enormous power. Unaccountable to nobody

except the electorate in three years time. What are you going to do with all this largesse?

Howard: Well, there’s always the sale of Telstra.

Keating: Yes, you’ve been trying for that for years.

Howard: And industrial relations reform.

Keating: Ah yes. An old dog doesn’t change his spots, does he?

Howard: We thought we’d call it Workchoices.

Keating: Good thinking. ‘Work’ ‘choices’. Always empower the people in the title. That

way they won’t notice how they’re emasculated in the text.

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Howard: I think that’s a little cynical.

Keating: For as long as I’ve known you you’ve wanted to individualise the labour

market.

Howard: That’s the only way to produce flexibility.

Keating: Yes…….downwards.

Howard: You’ve been using that line for years. Unions deny choice.

Keating: But they empower individuals.

Howard: They price people out of work. You can have as much union power as you’re

willing to pay for in unemployment.

Keating: I’ve heard that line before, too.

Long Pause

Keating: But there’s one thing I will say for you, John. You’ve certainly changed the

culture.

Howard: How’s that?

Keating: On Australia Day now, I notice young kids running around the place with the

Australian flag. They drape themselves in it. Or they tattoo it on their faces. The flag is

everywhere. That’s all down to you.

Howard pauses thoughtfully.

62

Howard: Yes, I suppose it is……I’ll accept responsibility for that.

Pause

Howard: And you know what, Paul?

Keating: What?

Howard: Every one of them has a union jack.

Pause

Keating: I mean it. I’m impressed. How you’ve managed to identify yourself with iconic

Australian events. It’s almost like if you don’t vote for John Howard, you don’t care

enough about Gallipoli.

Howard: You’re exaggerating.

Keating: You’ve managed to identify yourself with every resonant Australian historical

episode since 1788, with the exception of the Eureka Stockade.

Howard: That one belongs to your side.

Keating: Oh, I don’t know John? After all, all those blokes at Eureka were independent

prospectors protesting against a government tax. When you think about it, Eureka might

be an event close to your own heart.

Howard: How’s that?

Keating: A small business uprising.

63

Howard shrugs.

Keating: And the other thing you’ve done is you’ve changed the nature of Australian

conservatism. Under Menzies, conservatism used to be an elitist thing. If you read his

Forgotten People speech, it drips with elitism. You’ve made conservatism populist. In

fact, for you, ‘elite’ is a dirty word. A term of abuse. It’s what you call anybody with an

education who disagrees with you.

Howard: I do not.

Long pause

Howard: Anyway, we’re not that different. What about economic policy?

Keating: Oh, we’re miles apart there. The Liberal Party could never have deregulated the

financial markets like we did. You were too close to them.

Howard: And you could never have deregulated the labour market like we did. The

unions wouldn’t have let you.

Keating: So what are you saying? That we’re a happy marriage?

Howard: Call it serendipity.

Pause

Keating: Anyway, I would never have done what you did in education. Syphoning off all

that public money to expensive private schools. That was reprehensible.

Howard: Not all of those schools are expensive. Some are low-fee Christian schools. I

believe the growth in enrolment in these independent schools reflects a search by parents

64

for a more values-based education for their children. Government schools have become

far too politically correct and values neutral.

Keating: I’ve no problem funding small independent schools. State aid to those schools is

like state aid to Catholic schools. My problem is the funding you give to the big private

schools. You know, the expensive ones?

Howard: Parents have a right to choice.

Keating: Yes, but in the case of those schools, presumably at their own expense?

Howard: Not at all. Look, parents who choose to purchase a private school education for

their child are taking pressure off the public system. They deserve to be rewarded.

Keating: With public money?

Howard: Yes with public money…….So you’d take all that money away from them,

would you?

Keating: Yes, and give it to public schools more in need.

Howard: So you’d punish parents for choosing a private school education for their child?

Long pause

Keating: Look John, I see your point. You’d like to reward parents who take pressure off

the public system by choosing a private school education for their child.

Howard: That’s right.

65

Keating: But it works in other areas as well. For instance, I’d like to take pressure off the

public transport system by choosing a private alternative. Instead of traveling by train, I’d

like to travel by Porsche.

Howard: So?

Keating: So if you want to fund parents who send their kids to expensive private schools

because they’re taking pressure off the public system, then surely it’s only fair that you

fund my Porsche as well.

Pause

Keating: After all, it’s all about ‘choice’.

Long pause as John Howard looks at Keating quizzically.

Howard: What’s this thing you have about cars?

Keating: What do you mean?

Howard: You never let up about John Hewson’s Ferrari.

Keating: So?

Howard: Yet at that time, you were driving a Mercedes.

Keating shrugs.

Howard: And you kept going on about his house in Double Bay. And yet at the same

time, you were living in Elizabeth Bay.

Pause

66

Howard: John Hewson reckons he could have thrown a stone from his house at Double

Bay and hit your window.

Long pause

Keating: Well, it’s sort of like you presenting yourself as a ‘battler’.

Howard: I don’t present myself as a ‘battler’. I represent them.

Keating: Well, maybe you do John. And as you and I know, politics is all about

representation.

Howard: That’s right.

Keating: But at election time, you don’t present the people with a bigger picture. Instead,

you appeal to their basest motives. Rod Cameron says that your idea of an election

strategy is a big bribe and a big scare.

Howard: Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he? He was an ALP pollster after all.

Keating: And your foreign policy is on the nose.

Howard: What do you mean? We are a nation that is respected around the world because

we are prepared to stand up for what we believe.

Keating (with scepticism): Yeah right, John. Do you remember that United Nations vote

back in 2004 on the Israeli security wall? You know, the one they’re building to keep the

Palestinians out?

Pause

67

Howard: Remind me.

Keating: It occurred in August of that year. One hundred and fifty states in the U.N.

General Assembly voted to declare the security wall illegal under international law, and

request the Israelis to pull it down.

Howard: So?

Keating: Twenty-five states didn’t vote at all and ten abstained.

Howard: What’s that got to do with me?

Keating: Only six states out of one hundred and ninety one voted to support the security

wall and Israel’s right to build it. They included the United States and Israel.

Howard: That’s understandable.

Keating: They also included Australia.

Howard: I don’t apologise for that.

Keating: They also included three other states who are respected around the world for

standing up for what they believe.

Howard: Who?

Keating: The Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau.

Pause as Howard is embarrassed.

68

Howard: Well look, all of these questions are ultimately for the Australian people to

decide. And the Australian people have decided in my favour four elections in a row.

Remember, we live in a democracy. And in a democracy, the people are always right.

Keating: That’s like saying it’s okay to be really wrong, just so long as there’s a lot of

you.

Howard: That’s a disgraceful comment. You only say that because you were on the

wrong end of a decision by the Australian people.

Keating: Look John, the argument for democracy has never been that the people are

always right. It’s always been that if the people are to have power exercised over them,

they have a right to say by whom.

Howard: Well they certainly exercised that right in 1996, didn’t they Paul?

Keating: So you keep telling me.

Lights fade on John Howard and Paul Keating and open on Tony Abbott at his lectern.

Abbott: But four elections and a Senate majority after 2004 was John Howard’s high

point. His introduction of Workchoices divided his support base in a way that all his other

controversies, like Children Overboard or the Stolen Generation, did not. Other issues

also turned against him, like global warming and the Kyoto Protocol. His long time

colleague, Nick Minchin, suggested that his tenth anniversary as Prime Minister would be

a good time for him to retire, but he refused to heed the warning. However the biggest

blow came on December 4th

, 2006. That was the day the Australian Labor Party replaced

Kim Beazley as Labor leader with Kevin Rudd. Never let anyone tell you that leadership

does not matter in Australian politics. The only real difference between Labor under

Beazley and Labor under Rudd were the leaders themselves. Suddenly, with new ALP

leadership, public perceptions changed, the polls reversed, and now it was John Howard

69

who was on the back foot. Indeed so much was he on the back foot that he made a very

rare and very fatal blunder on the 7:30 Report when he was interviewed by Kerry

O’Brien from the ABC.

The introductory music to 7.30 Report begins. Howard sits across the table from Kerry O’Brien. Kerry is

dressed in a dark conservative suit but characterized by a bright, wild, almost fluorescent red wig with

sharp sticks of hair sticking out everywhere which is in sharp contrast to his rather formal manner.

O’Brien: Hello. Welcome to the program. The Prime Minister, John Howard, joins me

live in our Canberra studio. Welcome to the program, Prime Minister.

Howard: Thank you, Kerry.

O’Brien: Prime Minister, you said in very steely tones yesterday that you’ve never

walked away from a fight and you’re not going to start now. But are you entertaining

doubts about the wisdom of carrying on as leader after last week’s dreadful opinion poll?

Because why else would you ask Alexander Downer, your trusted offsider, to take

soundings about your leadership from your senior Cabinet colleagues in his Sydney hotel

room last week?

Howard: Kerry, I have never contemplated falling on my sword. In other words, I’ve

never contemplated saying to the Australian public – it’s all too hard, I’m going away,

and give the impression that I am frightened of defeat. I’m not. I don’t believe I’ll be

defeated at the next election and I don’t believe I’ll be defeated in my own seat. But

we’ve got a big fight……And what I did in asking Alexander to talk to my colleagues

was part of, I guess, a rolling dialogue that I had with Alexander about the Party and its

future.

O’Brien: But Prime Minister, you’ve always said that you’ll only stay on as leader for as

long as the Party wants you. But when faced with the message from your colleagues that

perhaps it is time to go, your response has been: ‘Well, I’m staying anyway’. Can you

70

understand why some of them are now wondering why you bothered to ask in the first

place?

Howard: Well Kerry, what matters is that after that meeting the parliamentary Party, in

the party-room, decided that they wanted me to stay. I want to stay. I’ve got a lot of fight

left in me and there’s a lot of things I still want to do.

Long pause

Howard: But look Kerry, can I just say something else? I’ve given a lot of thought to this,

and what I’ll be telling the Australian people is very simple. If the Australian people are

good enough and kind enough to re-elect me again, I would expect, well into my term,

that I would probably, certainly, form the view that it makes sense for me to retire. And

in those circumstances, I would expect, Peter would take over, though that would

ultimately be a matter for the Party to decide.

O’Brien (animated): So what you’re saying, Prime Minister, is that at some point in the

next three years, if you’re re-elected, you will retire from Australian politics?

Howard: That’s right.

Scene Nine

John and Janette Howard stand together in the middle of the stage in their usual position.

Janette (exasperated): John, what on earth were you thinking? You didn’t have to admit

to Kerry O’Brien that you were retiring. You’d already answered the question.

John (morosely): I know.

71

Janette: Now you’ve told the Australian public that if they vote for you they’ll be voting

for Peter Costello.

John: I know.

Janette: What could have possibly possessed you?

John: I don’t know…….I guess it was the leak about that meeting in Alexander’s hotel

room.

Janette: Why did you get Alexander to call that meeting?

John: Well, the Cabinet were jittery about the polls. Just like they were when I faced

Latham. And I figured if they wanted me out, they should have a forum to say so.

Janette: But you put your head on the block.

John: I know.

Pause

Janette (angrily): Ungrateful bunch. You deliver them four elections in a row, give them

ministerial seats, and as soon as the polls start going south, they start talking about new

leadership……It’s not like that in the Labor Party. The Labor Party used to allow people

like Doc Evatt and Arthur Calwell to stay on for as many elections as they cared to lose,

out of sheer loyalty and sentiment. In the Liberal Party, they’re only as loyal as the last

opinion poll.

John: Oh, I don’t think Labor is any different. Look at what they did to Bob Hawke and

Simon Crean……And before that, Bill Hayden…...Anyway, my colleagues were loyal up

72

to the point that I asked Alexander to call that meeting. Once I did that, and I let them

know I was considering my position, that encouraged them to think about alternatives.

Pause

John: And so they said I should go. I’m not sure I’d call that disloyalty. I was

disappointed that they didn’t rally around and urge me to stay, however.

Janette: That’s what I mean. ‘Ungrateful bunch’.

John: Anyway, once that meeting leaked, and the media knew that senior people in the

party thought I should move on, I could no longer claim, as I’d always done, that I’d stay

for as long as the Party wanted me. And that’s when I dropped the bucket to Red Kerry in

that interview.

Janette: You certainly dropped the bucket. It was an unforced admission. You didn’t have

to say it.

John: I know.

Janette: Now you’ll be going into the election with one arm tied behind your back.

They’ll see you as a semi-retiree. A caretaker Prime Minister.

John (with distress and exasperation): Janette, darling, I know.

Pause as Janette becomes pragmatic.

Janette: Well, the question is, what are we going to do now?

John: Well, I don’t want to pull out. They’ll think I’m running from Kevin Rudd.

73

Janette: And if you do pull out, you’ll be leaving the Party to Peter Costello. He’d have to

contest the next election.

John: Yes, that’s right. But our own Party polling suggests that if I stay and contest the

next election, I’ll not only lose the election, I’ll lose my own seat of Bennelong as well.

Janette (shocked): Surely not?

John: That’s what it says. And if I lose my seat, I’ll be the first Australian Prime Minister

to have done so since Stanley Melbourne Bruce in 1929.

Janette: And he contested the 1929 election on industrial relations.

John: I know. It’s an ominous sign. The trade unions have tarred Workchoices with the

blackest brush.

Long pause as Janette thinks.

Janette: John, even if you lose Bennelong, perhaps you owe it to the Party to fight the

next election.

John: What do you mean?

Janette: Well, all the polls say you’re going to lose to Kevin Rudd, don’t they?

John: I’m afraid so.

Janette: But they also say that you’re the preferred Prime Minister to Peter Costello,

right?

John: Right.

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Janette: So if the Coalition is going to lose the next election, Peter will lose by an even

bigger margin than you will.

Pause as John reflects on this.

John: Maybe.

Janette: So you owe it to the Party to stay on. To limit the damage. To salvage as many

seats as you can.

Pause as John reflects again.

John: Maybe you’re right.

Pause

Janette: Of course, they’ll say you can’t let go. That you’re rusted on to the job. That you

can’t imagine doing anything else.

John: Probably.

Janette (emphatically): But you owe it to the Liberal Party, John, to contest a fifth

election.

John: I suppose so.

Janette: So tell your colleagues that if they want you out, if they want Peter Costello

instead, then they have to push you out. They have to ‘own’ the decision.

John: ‘Own’ it?

75

Janette: They have to mount a leadership challenge. Otherwise, if you walk away on your

own, you’ll be dooming the Party to an even bigger defeat at the next election.

Pause

Janette: Which means you’ll be letting the Party down.

Lights fade on John and Janette and open on Tony at his lectern.

Abbott: But a fifth election victory was not to be. Like Muhammad Ali, and many of the

other boxers John Howard admired so much, he took on one fight too many.

Lights fade on Tony Abbott and open on John Howard standing at the Wentworth Hotel lectern with

Janette Howard standing near him. There are numerous cheers but these are more subdued compared to

previous elections. He quietens them down.

Howard: Thank you. Thank you. Please, please, please.

Waits as the cheers quieten down.

Howard: My fellow Australians, a few moments ago I telephoned Mr. Kevin Rudd and I

congratulated him and the Australian Labor Party on a very emphatic victory.

Boos in the audience.

Howard: This is a great democracy and I want to wish Mr. Rudd well. He assumes the

mantle of being the twenty-sixth Prime Minister of Australia and I want to say that there

is no prouder job in the world that anyone could occupy then being the prime minister of

this country.

Cheers.

76

Howard: Please, please. Can I also say to all of you at the end of my political career…..

Cries of ‘no’, ‘no’.

Howard:……can I also say that I owe more to the Liberal Party than the Liberal Party

owes to me. The Liberal Party has been unbelievably generous and loyal and forgiving

and understanding to me over the thirty-three years that I’ve been in Parliament, and I

will always feel greatly in debt to the Party that has meant so much to me.

Hugs Janette to resounding cheers and they both walk off stage as lights fade.

Lights then open on Tony Abbott at his lectern.

Abbott: And so it came to an end after eleven and a half years. The man who, back in the

1980s, had been written off by almost everybody, often in the most ignominious terms,

had eventually gone on to become the second longest serving Australian Prime Minister

after Sir Robert Menzies.

Pause

Abbott: Indeed, in some ways, John Howard’s record is even more impressive than

Menzies’. After all, for much of his prime ministership, Bob Menzies faced a divided

Labor vote, with many former Labor voters casting their ballots for the DLP. In fact,

Menzies would have lost the 1961 election if not for the DLP. John Howard, by contrast,

always faced a united Labor vote. And yet he still won, changing the face of Australian

culture in the process.

At this point Paul Keating storms onto the stage.

Keating: For the worst! For the worst! He changed the face of Australian culture for the

worst!

77

Abbott (exasperated): Oh come on, Paul. Get off the stage. Nobody likes a Prime

Minister who can’t retire.

Keating ignores this. Tony remains standing at his lectern.

Keating: Here we were, at a crucial point in our history, and we ended up with a man who

was driving ambitiously in reverse. A man with the values of my father’s generation. Let

me quote from Mungo Macallum.

Abbott (surprised): Mungo Macallum? Didn’t Gough Whitlam once describe him as the

‘tall, bearded descendant of lunatic aristocrats’?

Keating ignores this and pulls a slip of paper out from his pocket and reads it.

Keating: Listen to this: ‘For more than eleven years, John Howard led us on a voyage

driven by greed and fear, into parochialism and paranoia, selfishness and racism, bigotry

and corruption, and other dark places in the Australian psyche where we never should

have gone. It was a mean and ugly trip, and it will take us all a long time to recover.’

Abbott: That’s the sort of venomous bile that all Howard haters spout. Mungo never got

over the demise of the Whitlam Government. That’s why he moved to Byron Bay…..The

point is, Paul, that John Howard was a colossus. Nobody could touch him for most of

those eleven and a half years. And he defined the culture. He saw off four Labor leaders,

one of them twice. For all of that time, Australian politics was John Howard.

Keating: To our profound and lasting detriment.

Abbott: There were many Howard opponents besides you, Paul. The ‘wets’ of the Liberal

Party, for one. But who can remember them? What about John Moore or Wilson Tuckey?

Even Andrew Peacock and Jeff Kennett are fading in the public memory. The true

measure of John Howard’s ascendancy is the fact that nobody can remember his enemies.

78

Keating (emphatically): John Howard never changed. He was always the same suburban

reactionary. And he’s been in power long enough to put a large part of his suburban,

reactionary agenda in place.

Long pause

Abbott (calmly): You’ve never been able to cope with his having defeated you, have you

Paul?

Keating: Rubbish.

Abbott: That’s what your mate Jeff Kennett says – he says you could never get over

being beaten by John Howard.

Keating: Utter nonsense.

Abbott: You spent the next decade eating your heart out about it.

Keating: I did not. I renovated.

Pause

Abbott: And that whole time you had to watch him extinguish your legacy. Watch him

redraw the cultural map of the country before your very eyes.

Keating: Complete rot.

Abbott: Native title, Reconciliation. All your ‘Big Picture’ items. He warehoused them.

79

Keating: That’s not true. He started talking about Reconciliation during his final election

campaign. That’s how worried he was……..He would have promised a Republic too, if

he thought it would have helped.

Abbott: You don’t know him. There are certain bedrock issues on which he won’t budge.

Keating: Not at the price of defeat.

Pause

Abbott: Anyway, regardless of what you say about him, you can’t diminish his

achievement. You always claimed that, compared to you, Bob Hawke had an easy ride

through public life, because there were always people around to look after him. But

compared to John Howard, your own ride was as smooth as silk.

Keating: What do you mean?

Abbott: Nobody ever questioned your leadership credentials. The Labor Party either

loved you or feared you. But they never doubted you. Prior to becoming Prime Minister,

John Howard was neither loved nor feared. And he was always doubted. Nobody ever

gave him anything. He had to claw his way to the top, every single step of the way. In

this respect, he is like Richard Nixon. A man who nobody perceived as a legitimate

leadership aspirant but who, through sheer force of will, forced everybody to change their

minds.

Keating: And like Nixon, he came a gutser.

Abbott: Only at the end of eleven and a half years, Paul. That puts your four years and

two months in the shade.

80

Keating: Well, it was his economic rationalism that did him in in the end. He couldn’t

win with it in the 1980s. He had to pretend he didn’t adhere to it in 1996. And then, when

he had a Senate majority and he thought all his dreams had come true, he lost the 2007

election with Workchoices. The public rejected him for the same reason that they rejected

John Hewson in 1993 – because they’re scared to death of economic rationalism.

Abbott: That’s a little ironic coming from you. Who deregulated most of the Australian

economy back in the 1980s?

Keating: Ah, yes, but the public always trusted Bob Hawke and I to maintain the safety

net.

Abbott: Did they, Paul? Did they trust your word as a ‘gentleman’? Like they did with

your L.A.W. tax cuts?

Keating makes a dismissive gesture.

Abbott: You know Paul, it takes more than antique clocks, Italian suits and a harbourside

apartment to make a gentleman. That’s something we understand in the Liberal Party.

Keating gets animated and angry.

Keating: Gentlemen? Gentlemen? What would the Liberal Party know about gentlemen?

Was Malcolm Fraser a gentleman when he tore at the fabric of Australian democracy

back in 1975? Were Wilson Tuckey and John Moore gentlemen when they knifed John

Howard in the back in 1989? What would the Liberal Party know about gentlemen? The

Liberal Party’s idea of a gentleman is an assassin in a good suit.

Long pause.

Abbott (reflectively): Still, he certainly is a great figure.

81

Keating: Who?

Abbott: John Howard.

Keating: He is a tragic figure……For most of his Prime Ministership he was

untouchable. Children Overboard, the wheat scandal, the Iraq War. Nothing hurt him in

the polls. He could have had it all if he’d only packed it in on his tenth anniversary. He’d

have gone out as the most successful Liberal politician since Bob Menzies, and the 2007

election loss would have been Peter Costello’s fault. But instead he stayed on, whether

out of habit or hubris we may never know. But he stayed on. And in the end, he ended up

driving into a ditch.

Long pause

Abbott: And how does that make you feel?

Long pause as Keating considers his response.

Keating (smiling and folding his arms): Relaxed and comfortable.

Scene Ten

Curtain opens and music begins. John Howard walks out to centre stage singing the opening lines of “My

Way”.

And now, the end is here,

And I have faced

Bennelong’s desertion

My friends, I’ll say it clear

82

I’ll state my case

Of which I’m certain.

I’ve lost my seat, it is true

Maxine McKew

Won on poll day

But more, much more than this,

I did it my way.

Regrets, I’ve had a few

But then again,

Too few to mention

I did

What I had to do

And saw it through

Even pre-emption

I planned each charted course

Micro-managed

The media highway

But more, much more than this

I did it my way

Yes there were times, I’m sure you knew

When I did tell

A fib or two

My bottom lip protruded out

83

I invoked trust

And truth won out

I faced it all

And I stood tall

And did it my way

I’ve loved, I’ve laughed and cried

And found Andrew Peacock

Rather grating

But now, with years gone by

Peter Costello

Is still waiting

To think I did all that;

And may I say – not in a shy way,

Oh no, oh no not me,

I did it my way.

For what is a man, what has he got?

He’s got Janette

And that’s a lot.

To say the things he truly feels;

And not the words

Of one who kneels

The record shows

And the Party knows

84

I did it my way.

John Howard stands at center stage – arms outstretched acknowledging the audience’s applause.

Lights fade