John Howard, former Prime Minister and author of The Menzies Era, chats to John Purcell

[@saveyourbacon6164]

In Robert Menzies: The Art Of Politics, Troy Bramston notes that Menzies was telling people privately in 1974 that 'The idiots now running the Liberal Party will drive me round the bend'. I feel sure Menzies would not have a favorable opinion of John Howard, his Prime Ministership, and his government. In the 'Forgotten People' address, Menzies identified the suburban family as the heart of the nation, and established the principle that government policy should have the suburban family as its focus. He enunciated the six most important words ever spoken in a political context: The Rich Can Look After Themselves. This meant that it is improper for government policy to favor the rich. It must be focused on the common good of everyone. Menzies would be appalled at what the Liberal party has become. My belief is that the Liberals have a long-term plan to shift the distribution of the tax burden away from the rich and onto the general population. It started with the GST, where 50% of the benefit of tax cuts went to the top 20% of income earners. The Howard Government was responsible for the disgraceful rort of the cash 'refunds' (actually handouts) for unused franking credits, a tax benefit which exists in no other country, and by the time of the 2019 election, where the ALP foreshadowed its abolition, it was costing $6 billion annually and this cost was set to grow in time to $10 billion. The Liberals insisted it would stay, and unexpectedly won the election. Now, the Labor Government has implemented a cap of $3 million on superannuation balances which don't face taxation at 15%. The Liberals opposed this, despite it also being a disgraceful rort, and insisted they will remove the cap whenever they return to government (I hope the crossbench in the Senate will prevent this from happening). While the Liberals were in office from 2013 to 2022, the national debt grew from $257 billion to $853 billion, because of all the measures they were implementing to benefit the rich. They have been acting completely contrary to the principles laid down in the 'Forgotten People' address. During Menzies' Prime Ministership, the national debt was paid down steadily from its peak in 1946 of 120% of GDP. John Howard, over his 11 years and eight months as Prime Minister, paid down the debt from $100 billion to $58 billion. The Rudd and Gillard Governments were forced to borrow on a huge scale to fund the stimulus to the economy to prevent it going into recession as the Global Financial Crisis gathered pace. But the Liberals, from 2013 onwards, had no crisis to deal with, and should have paid the debt down throughout their 9 year term. Instead, they did the complete opposite, wantonly and disgracefull almost quadrupling the debt. Robert Menzies and John Howard on the one hand, and the Liberal Governments from 2013 onwards, on the other, can't both be right. If the Liberals do regain government, they will still be under the same pressure to deliver for their wealthy constituencies, and will again cause the national debt to grow much faster than the economy. The voters should expect this to be the pattern in future whenever the Liberals are in government. They are hardly much different from the conservative extremist idiots of the Republican Party. Every Australian should be aware of the effects of the national debt growing faster than the economy for many years on end. The cost of servicing it grows faster than tax revenues, and becomes an ever-greater proportion of all budget outlays each successive year, forcing ever-increasing stringency on all other budget outlays. An ever-increasing proportion of the wealth generated by the economy each year must be expended servicing the debt, leaving an ever-reducing proportion to serve as the national income. The rich continue to get their oversized share, and everyone else is faced with ever-declining living standards. This is a betrayal of the children, grandchildren and future descendants of the present generation, forcing them to pay the cost of the profligacy of today (mainly benefitting the rich) in the form of ever-declining living standards. The Labor Party are the true heirs of the Menzies legacy, as presented in the 'Forgotten People' address. The Liberals should be taken by the scruff of the neck and have their noses rubbed in this fact. It should be seen as a stinging rebuke to them. The Labor Party has moved into the space on the political spectrum exemplified by the 'Forgotten People' address, because the Liberal Party has shifted to embrace right-wing extremism. The Albanese government is implementing measures to return Australia to a sustainable fiscal trajectory, and the Liberal Party is resisting everything they propose.

[@kylebird91]

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[@Ozipeter]

Some politicians know how to play politics, Howard knows voters..

[@ozwunder69]

He knows short memory and drunkard sport fan simps for the ayn Rand suppository of all wisdom losers!

[@saveyourbacon6164]

When John Howard's government was elected in March, 1996, I had the feeling that 'this bloke is going to be in for a long time, because he has the measure of the mug Australian voter, and they don't have the measure of him'.

[@stevenmonash624]

John Howard in his own deluded way trys to align himself with Menzies with which there is no comparison between a statesmen and a dill.

[@ozwunder69]

Menzies the guy that said 5 weeks before WW2 that history will label Hitler as one of the great men of the century and then a week after German surrender I would prefer communism over fascism at inaugural liberal club meeting?

[@NewhamMatt]

Some of the things that Howard misses: 1. Menzies' handling of the economy was driven by the consistent post-war growth inherent around much of the Western world. This came to a crashing halt during Whitlam's era and Whitlam, like Menzies, neither expected the growth to stop, nor did he seek to modernise the economy in order to handle it. In fact, most of that modernisation was the result of Keating and Hawke moving the Labor Party away from the left and bringing in the market driven economy that Menzies could have done in a far more methodical manner during the boom years. 2. Our engagement with Asia (with the exception of the Vietnam War) is hardly worth mentioning compared to the Whitlam era and the years that followed. While Holt did begin to dismantle the White Australia Policy, McMahon was still criticising Whitlam's visit to communist China in 1972, a criticism undercut when President Nixon made the same trip a matter of weeks later.