I count it as one of the real achievements of the time I’ve been Prime Minister of Australia. In a small way I have made a contribution to an even deeper and richer understanding and an even stronger set of bonds between our people and our two very great countries. I think the best of the relationship, good as though it’s been in the past, lies in the future and the contribution that many people in this room have made to that relationship is one that I salute …
John Howard’s speech to the American Australian Association, US Chamber of Commerce, Washington, 18 July 2005, in the presence of Rupert Murdoch
The meaning of John Howard’s ten years as Prime Minister of Australia – how Australia has been changed, how the era will eventually be seen – can most easily be grasped if it is accepted that the period of his rule can be divided into two almost equal halves.
The first half of Howard’s prime ministership came to its end with the Tampa crisis of late August 2001. Tampa was no mere incident in the life of the government. It brought to a definitive conclusion the time in which the government – under the shadow of the Hanson backlash against multiculturalism, Asian immigration, Aboriginal land rights and globalisation – had first slowed and then reversed the cultural trajectory of the Hawke and Keating years.