Roger Wettenhall

The Australian ritual of a federal election campaign every two or three years is one in which voters are invited to participate in hyperbole. Reality is magnified a thousand times as the actors perform a finely choreographed political quadrille while their every word and gesture are scrutinised for meaning and analysed for nuance. Yet for all the expensive and lavish hoopla that now constitutes an election campaign, Australians are a reluctant people when it comes to getting rid of governments, however short they fall in expectations. On only eleven occasions in the 107 years of federation have they opted for change.

A flurry of books have been produced about the cultural aspects of John Howard’s governments: for example, Andrew Markus’s Race: John Howard and the Remaking of Australia (2001), Stuart Macintyre and Anna Clark’s The History Wars (2003) and Carol Johnson’s Governing Change: From Keating to Howard (2000). Useful edited collections have also been produced on each of the elections of 1996, 1998 and 2001, and on the republic referendum. In 2004 Robert Manne published an edited collection called The Howard Years, which was wider ranging than the cultural agenda, but generally critical in its tenor. But nine years since Howard defeated Paul Keating, there is still not a great deal of analysis.