A True Leader defending the West

John Winston Howard in America 2008.

Howard stands firm in US speech
By staff reporters
March 06, 2008

JOHN Howard has made his first major speech since losing last year's federal election and has stuck by his signature policies since abandoned by Coalition.

The former Liberal prime minister spoke at a ceremony where he received the Irving Kristol Award from the right-wing American Enterprise Institute at a large black-tie dinner at the Washington Hilton in the US today.

Mr Howard made two key criticisms of the Rudd Government, which swept him from office last November.

Mr Howard said Australia should not withdraw its combat troops from Iraq, despite there being bipartisan support of this in Canberra.

"I am disappointed that Australia's battle group will be withdrawing from Southern Iraq in June as one of the new Labor Government's election commitments rather than making a greater contribution to training the Iraqis to maintain their own security," Mr Howard said.

The former prime minister argued that since the US implemented the so-called troop surge strategy there had been progress in Iraq, though this had been under-reported in the left-leaning Western media, which did not like to acknowledge good news stories out of Iraq.

"It would be a tragedy if those gains were surrendered now by premature drawdowns," Mr Howard said. Mr Howard also said it was "profoundly naive and dangerous" to view the Afghanistan conflict as the "good war" and Iraq as a distraction from winning the war on terror.

He said "no-one should doubt what is at stake in Iraq", adding "we simply cannot afford to lose in either" war.

Mr Howard also argued that Australia should not roll back his Government's industrial relations reforms.

"That will be a mistake. It will be the first time in 25 years that a major economic reform in Australia has been reversed,'' Mr Howard said.

"In particular, bringing back the old unfair dismissal laws will stifle employment growth amongst small businesses."

The Opposition has retracted its threats to block or slow the ALP moves to reverse the Howard Government's Work Choices and federal Oppostion Leader Brendan Nelson has even admitted to mistakes in implementing the policy.

More than 1200 conservative figures attended the event to honour Mr Howard, who entered to the strains of Waltzing Matilda and a standing ovation and was introduced as a "great friend of freedom, John Winston Howard". However, despite US President George W. Bush being in Washington, he did not attend the dinner to honour his friend and political ally Mr Howard. No current senior members of the Bush Administration were there.

Among those present were former UN ambassador John Bolton, former World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz; Lynne Cheney, the wife of Vice-President Dick Cheney; and disgraced Cheney adviser Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who was found guilty in court for lying over a media leak.

Mr Howard used his hour-long Irving Kristol Lecture to defend conservative causes and economic liberalism, promoting their role in the fight against threats to freedom and democracy, particularly "Islamic fascism".

"In the protracted struggle against Islamic extremism there will be no stronger weapon than the maintenance by Western liberal democracies of a steadfast belief in the continuing worth of our own national value systems. And where necessary a soaring optimism about the future of freedom and democracy,'' he said.

"We should not think that by trading away some of the values which have made us who we are will buy us either immunity from terrorists or respect from noisy minorities. If the butter of common national values is spread too thinly it will disappear altogether."

He also praised family units, saying marriage remained a "bedrock social institution". "Taxation laws should promote, not penalise, marriage. The taxation system should generously recognise the cost of raising children,'' he said. "This is not middle-class welfare. It is merely a taxation system which with some semblance of social vision."

Announcing the award, the AEI described Mr Howard is “one of the world's most successful democratic politicians” and a "steadfast friend of the United States". “As prime minister, Howard affirmed the independence of Australia's central bank, continued the deregulatory policies of his predecessor, balanced the budget, reorganized the country's welfare system, privatised the Australian telecommunications giant Telstra, reformed labor laws, and cut taxes,” it said.

“Australia's economy soared, even during the Asian financial crisis that devastated so many of its neighbours, growing every year for the past 16 years.

As the editorial page editor of The Australian and former AEI staff member Tom Switzer has written, "(Howard) presided over the longest economic boom since the gold rushes of the nineteenth century." “In foreign policy, Howard was a steadfast friend of the United States.

When asked by an interviewer about the Iraq war, he said, "I am not going to be part of a policy which leaves the job unfinished and leaves behind (to) one or two other countries the responsibility of completing the job; that is not the Australian way of doing things."

Mr Howard's address to the institute dinner could be a pointer to his future job. He has signed with a prominent speaking agency, the Washington Speakers Bureau, in the strongest hint yet of how he plans to supplement his parliamentary pension in civilian life.

The former prime minister is listed as a speaker on the organisation's website alongside former British prime minister Tony Blair, former US secretaries of state Colin Powell and Madeleine Albright, and other members of the international elite.

Initial report by David Nason

http://www.news.com.au/

Text of his Speech here.