John Howard the Great Communicator : No , Really !

The rough and tumble of John Howard’s public school education left him with an electorally appealing ordinariness in a party renowned for a born to rule attitude. Howard was not brought up with the sense of noblesse oblige of an establishment figure such as Malcolm Fraser. His father owned a small petrol station and John Howard worked there on weekends while at school. Howard’s background may have made it more likely for him to accept the rhetoric of economic liberalism – self-reliance, markets and rising tides. It also helped shape his approach to political rhetoric. Howard’s rhetoric, while not especially inspirational, is well crafted. It has assisted in cultivating his image of ordinariness. Once classified as a poor public speaker, Howard has grown in the Prime Ministership to present a carefully nuanced image. This paper identifies why Howard’s rhetoric is successful: thorough preparation for an ‘on message’ delivery of information, his adept handling of interviews and his ability to present a compassionate persona in times of tragedy, such as following the Port Arthur shootings and Bali bombings. Howard’s political rhetoric is compared with other modern Australian leaders. While many Labor leaders have a penchant for stirring speeches, Howard has a record of electorally appealing prose. Introduction Barely a day would pass in Australian politics where journalistic or scholarly comment is not made upon the ‘style’ of John Howard as Australian Prime Minister. This is both a common and arguably distinctive line of inquiry. In consideration of the great volume of such commentary, some of which will be referred to in this paper, it appears that it represents a line of inquiry primarily concerned with characterising Howard’s political or rhetorical style, rather than determining his overall position with respect to policy and ideology. Analysing his ideology or policy approach is a more clearly understood method of analysis. Over time a leader’s stated positions and policy decisions can be summarised and critically evaluated to determine what it is that the leader actually believes as a matter of political ideology. Those beliefs can then be considered in a comparative context: they can be assessed with respect to other leader’s political positions on like-issues and also with respect to defined positions in political philosophy and the history of ideas. Ultimately, any given leader’s political character might be described by reference to some term or other which has some generally accepted common meaning. Hence a great deal of modern Australian inquiry revolves around