J Howards views on everything.. will it include how he lost his seat ?

[Rocket23]

Look, it would be nice if all politicians always stuck to their guns when right and always changed their mind when they were wrong (as subjective as 'right' or 'wrong' are). The reality is that politicians are not like that. You have the principled ones, and the compromisers.

Personally? I'll take a politician who always stands up for what he believes in over one who bends with the wind any day. They will always make some crappy decisions along the way, but they will make some tough ones too - and the tough decisions are the ones that benefit people in the long run. Plus, you know what you are going to get when you vote for them because they follow through.I think Gough Whitlam was a horrible, horrible PM but he stuck to his guns and implemented reforms he believed in and was elected for. Even though Whitlam was IMO wrong a lot more frequently than Rudd, Whitlam also achieved a lot more than Rudd did through strength of his convictions.

And at the end of the day, a strong government is needed to push through real reforms. Any government can come in afterwards and fix the bad decisions. Look at WorkChoices.

Good post. The bolded bit pretty much is what I was trying to get at. Doesnt matter which party they belong too!

 

[Caesar]

There is a difference between tough decisions and wrong decisions.

Give me a politician who is willing to listen to community opinion and re-assess the pathway, rather than one that is blind, bullheaded and wrong anyday.

I give you George Bush and Stephen Conroy as two prime examples.
John Howard falls under the same category.

These politicians will stick to bad decisions, and lie, deceive and bully to get their way.

Afterwards, when it all falls apart, everyone else needs to just fix the mess.
(See GFC, Iraq War, soon to be internet filter)

Like I said, find me a politician who balances strong leadership with compromise perfectly - they are exceptionally rare. The attributes of Howard that gave us unpopular courses of action like the Iraq War are the same ones that gave us gun control, a GST and waterfront reform.

You make this out to be a negative characteristic, but every great leader in history has been bullishly, stupidly pigheaded, certain of their own convictions, and rarely open to compromise or reversal of their course of action on anything. It is the only way they achieved the great heights they did. Look at Pitt the Younger and the slave trade, Lincoln and emancipation, Roosevelt and the New Deal, Churchill and the defence of Britain. None of those leaders would have achieved anything if they'd 'listened to community opinion' and 'reassessed the pathway'. That's how you end up with Neville Chamberlains.

The knack is just to make more good decisions than bad ones. Which of course means you need to couple strong leadership with intelligence and good judgement, otherwise you end up as a George W. Bush.

By no means am I saying we need fearless leaders all the time. Constant change is good for nobody. Careful, cautious administrators have their place to keep things ticking over and not changing the status quo too much. But they aren't the stuff of great leadership.

 

[RU486]

Further, I just shudder at all those that think that sticking to your guns when wrong is an admirable trait.

Wrong about what exactly? Your opinion is just as subjective.

 

[Daytripper]

There is a difference between tough decisions and wrong decisions.

Give me a politician who is willing to listen to community opinion and re-assess the pathway, rather than one that is blind, bullheaded and wrong anyday.

I give you George Bush and Stephen Conroy as two prime examples.
John Howard falls under the same category.

These politicians will stick to bad decisions, and lie, deceive and bully to get their way.

Afterwards, when it all falls apart, everyone else needs to just fix the mess.
(See GFC, Iraq War, soon to be internet filter)

Were the general community wholeheartedly against Iraq anyway ? From memory it was at worst only 45-55 against in the polls. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Whilst the anti Iraq groups war were certainly more vocal than the pro Iraq war groups, that does not mean that their opinion is any more worthy than the other.

And if it was so unpopular he would have got thrown out in 2004 irrespective of the Latham factor.

 

[PottSie2]

There is a difference between tough decisions and wrong decisions.

Give me a politician who is willing to listen to community opinion and re-assess the pathway, rather than one that is blind, bullheaded and wrong anyday.

I give you George Bush and Stephen Conroy as two prime examples.
John Howard falls under the same category.

These politicians will stick to bad decisions, and lie, deceive and bully to get their way.

Afterwards, when it all falls apart, everyone else needs to just fix the mess.
(See GFC, Iraq War, soon to be internet filter)

And Rudd and Gillard .... and pretty much every politician.

Howard took on some pretty unfavourable reforms, give the man credit for that. He had a lot more wins than losses and that shows with his re-election, as opposed to the Rudd/Gillard circus.

 

[asanque]

I respectfully disagree with the views above.

However, I am greatly impressed with the detail in the arguments above.

I apologise in advance that due to lack of time, my responses will be brief to some well thought out posts.

1. Was the Iraq war decision wrong?

(a) Pursuant to the UN, the only justification for invasion of another country is 'self-defence'.
(b) The US pushed this self-defence issue based on Iraq containing WMD
(c) The US refused to allow the UN time to complete weapon inspections before invading
(d) Australia wilfully participated in the invasion despite knowing at the time that evidence was potentially flimsy.
(e) No WMD existed as verified by the UN

Australia therefore participated in an illegal war.

This is not even counting the collateral damage of hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties.

My contention is that invasion of another country requires UN approval and this was never received. Accordingly, the decision to invade was wrong.

I advocated this position before the war on Iraq, and its sad to see my worst fears justified.

In addition, the majority of the nations worldwide were against the Iraq invasion and so were the majority of the Australian population. I can attempt to source figures if required.

Caesar: In respect of Howard's initiatives, he was there for a long period of time, what do we have to show for it?
1. Gun Reform - This is a tick
2. GST - This was supposed to simplify our tax system. Have you seen the size of the Tax Act?
3. Workchoices - Presumably bad as subsequently scrapped

I'm scratching my head to see what other major reforms that Howard instituted.

On the other hand we have:
1. Iraq War - debacle
2. Telstra privatisation - debacle (i.e. we now need the NBN)
3. Lack of infrastructure - negative
4. Sale of government assets - negative (i.e. we needed the Future Fund to rectify shortfalls in government pensions)
5. No investment in clean energy - negative (i.e. see how the electric car went overseas)

It always puzzled me as to why Howard was so popular.

Sure our economy did well, but much of that was driven by the mining boom and economic reform by Keating.

I also note our interest rates are still lower than during the Howard government, despite 'promises' to the contrary.

At the end of the day, Howard was wedded to power. He would do anything to keep it even at the cost of his own party (i.e. leadership tussle with Costello).

He also proved he would say anything, play the racist card and cater to the lowest common denomination to retain power.

Anyway, my short post has become quite long

 

[Schism]

I respectfully disagree with the views above.

However, I am greatly impressed with the detail in the arguments above.

I apologise in advance that due to lack of time, my responses will be brief to some well thought out posts.

1. Was the Iraq war decision wrong?

(a) Pursuant to the UN, the only justification for invasion of another country is 'self-defence'.
(b) The US pushed this self-defence issue based on Iraq containing WMD
(c) The US refused to allow the UN time to complete weapon inspections before invading
(d) Australia wilfully participated in the invasion despite knowing at the time that evidence was potentially flimsy.
(e) No WMD existed as verified by the UN

Australia therefore participated in an illegal war.

This is not even counting the collateral damage of hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties.

My contention is that invasion of another country requires UN approval and this was never received. Accordingly, the decision to invade was wrong.

I advocated this position before the war on Iraq, and its sad to see my worst fears justified.

In addition, the majority of the nations worldwide were against the Iraq invasion and so were the majority of the Australian population. I can attempt to source figures if required.

Caesar: In respect of Howard's initiatives, he was there for a long period of time, what do we have to show for it?
1. Gun Reform - This is a tick
2. GST - This was supposed to simplify our tax system. Have you seen the size of the Tax Act?
3. Workchoices - Presumably bad as subsequently scrapped

I'm scratching my head to see what other major reforms that Howard instituted.

On the other hand we have:
1. Iraq War - debacle
2. Telstra privatisation - debacle (i.e. we now need the NBN)
3. Lack of infrastructure - negative
4. Sale of government assets - negative (i.e. we needed the Future Fund to rectify shortfalls in government pensions)
5. No investment in clean energy - negative (i.e. see how the electric car went overseas)

It always puzzled me as to why Howard was so popular.

Sure our economy did well, but much of that was driven by the mining boom and economic reform by Keating.

I also note our interest rates are still lower than during the Howard government, despite 'promises' to the contrary.

At the end of the day, Howard was wedded to power. He would do anything to keep it even at the cost of his own party (i.e. leadership tussle with Costello).

He also proved he would say anything, play the racist card and cater to the lowest common denomination to retain power.

Anyway, my short post has become quite long

"The market will take care of it". Just ask meds. Apparently the market will provide a better alternative to the NBN. And if anyone believes that, have fun paying your absurd amounts for shit wireless in large regional centres still in 10 years time. And have fun if you're living on one of the vast swathes of suburban land where you still can't get decent ADSL1 speeds let alone ADSL2. Have fun paying ludicrous amounts of money for cable access. But the market will take care of it. The market took care of it alright.

I've said this before on here but when i was working and living in Townsville this year, i had to get telstra wireless because where i was staying could only get ADSL1,and 2 other adults were using it as well. Telstra was the only wireless coverage, and it cost a small fortune for dodgy, slow, sporadic, laggy and essentially unsupported wireless net access. It was useable for email, slow web surfing, and gaming if you want to play games from 1998 or something, that were designed for 56.6k modem play. Download speeds were ok sometimes, but of course you'd need to be a millionaire to pay for reasonable download quotas on telstra wireless. Download quotas which count upload as well.

 

[Dont be a lemon]

Well at least we now know the answer as to how biased QANDA is.

out of 20 million Australians they manage to 'choose' that shoe thrower to be one of the select 100 in the audience.....FFS Hicks.

QANDA is a shiteful show. Its a program made by the masturbating left for the masturbating left.

Damn rabid left winger ABC!!@@!!@@!!@!@!@!@

 

[Caesar]

My contention is that invasion of another country requires UN approval and this was never received. Accordingly, the decision to invade was wrong.

I'm not making a value judgement about the correctness of invading Iraq, I'd just say that I have much less faith than you in the infallibility of UN judgement on these matters. Following UN decisions on what was and wasn't appropriate intervention in Bosnia and Rwanda made the problems worse.

In general I am in favour of abiding by international law, but the reality is the UNGA is composed mainly of corrupt, anti-democratic governments and the UNSC is made up of self-serving superpowers with so much influence as to render it virtually impotent at endorsing any sort of decisive action.

I like the UN but I don't think that we should always equate its decisions to automatically being the 'right' course of action.

Caesar: In respect of Howard's initiatives, he was there for a long period of time, what do we have to show for it?
1. Gun Reform - This is a tick
2. GST - This was supposed to simplify our tax system. Have you seen the size of the Tax Act?
3. Workchoices - Presumably bad as subsequently scrapped

I'm scratching my head to see what other major reforms that Howard instituted.

On the other hand we have:
1. Iraq War - debacle
2. Telstra privatisation - debacle (i.e. we now need the NBN)
3. Lack of infrastructure - negative
4. Sale of government assets - negative (i.e. we needed the Future Fund to rectify shortfalls in government pensions)
5. No investment in clean energy - negative (i.e. see how the electric car went overseas)

The GST has been widely accepted as a good tax reform by pretty much everyone except the Greens. The system as a whole is still excessively complex, but that's sort of a wider issue.

In addition to what you've mentioned, the industrial reforms involved in the waterfront dispute took balls, as did the East Timor Intervention. Same goes for the Northern Territory intervention, although the jury is still out on that particular escapade.

The 'negative' items - suffice to say they are mostly at least arguable depending on your point of view. For example I opposed the sale of Telstra in the form it occurred, but there are nonetheless good arguments that it was the right thing to do in order to maximise the investment before obsolescence took over, pay down government debt and create a sovereign wealth fund to deal with future cash flow issues.

But I digress. At any rate my point was not really to argue that Howard was a great leader, just to point out why many people see his strength of conviction as a positive rather than a negative point - despite his perceived errors of judgement in some areas. All else being equal I prefer leaders who will govern based on the convictions they were elected with than those who are quick to follow the polls.

 

[Schism]

I'm not making a value judgement about the correctness of invading Iraq, I'd just say that I have much less faith than you in the infallibility of UN judgement on these matters. Following UN decisions on what was and wasn't appropriate intervention in Bosnia and Rwanda made the problems worse.

In general I am in favour of abiding by international law, but the reality is the UNGA is composed mainly of corrupt, anti-democratic governments and the UNSC is made up of self-serving superpowers with so much influence as to render it virtually impotent at endorsing any sort of decisive action.

I like the UN but I don't think that we should always equate its decisions to automatically being the 'right' course of action.


The GST has been widely accepted as a good tax reform by pretty much everyone except the Greens. The system as a whole is still excessively complex, but that's sort of a wider issue.

In addition to what you've mentioned, the industrial reforms involved in the waterfront dispute took balls, as did the East Timor Intervention. Same goes for the Northern Territory intervention, although the jury is still out on that particular escapade.

The 'negative' items - suffice to say they are mostly at least arguable depending on your point of view. For example I opposed the sale of Telstra in the form it occurred, but there are nonetheless good arguments that it was the right thing to do in order to maximise the investment before obsolescence took over, pay down government debt and create a sovereign wealth fund to deal with future cash flow issues.

But I digress. At any rate my point was not really to argue that Howard was a great leader, just to point out why many people see his strength of conviction as a positive rather than a negative point - despite his perceived errors of judgement in some areas. All else being equal I prefer leaders who will govern based on the convictions they were elected with than those who are quick to follow the polls.

You do try hard but your Howard/Liberal party worship is there to see in all the relevant threads. Basically you defend everything and anything they say or do, but are always diplomatic and reasoned. But it's there billy, i seeeeee you

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

 

[Caesar]

If I come off like that it's probably because I tend to lend my voice to the side of the argument that I feel is being least well articulated. There's plenty of stuff I like about Labor, and dislike about the Liberals, but given the balance of the board that stuff tends to be fairly well-trodden.

I don't deny that the Liberal philosophy theoretically appeals to me more than Labor's. But then again, I have supported Labor in 3 of the last 4 federal elections. And I also prefer the Hawke/Keating governments to Howard's - an odd position if I'm really a Coalition disciple.

I certainly don't think you have to worship Howard or the Liberal Party to acknowledge that he was a pretty good PM.

 

[Schism]

If I come off like that it's probably because I tend to lend my voice to the side of the argument that I feel is being least well articulated. There's plenty of stuff I like about Labor, but given the balance of the board that stuff tends to be fairly well-trodden.

I don't deny that the Liberal philosophy theoretically appeals to me more than Labor's. But then again, I have supported Labor in 3 of the last 4 federal elections. And I also regard the Hawke/Keating governments as superior to Howard's - an odd position if I'm really a Coalition disciple.

What are you trying to say...that the myriad "****IGN FAGIT HOMO LEFTIST COMMY HIPPY ASSASSINS" posts are less than articulate?

 

[Caesar]

I'm just saying that this is a left-leaning board, which tends to mean that the perspective from that side of the aisle tends to be better explored. This thread is a good example.

I'm not trying to compare the intelligence of people who favour particular viewpoints. I'll leave that to Grin.

 

[Big John]

Of all the questions, even the Iraq and Tampa ones, the Hicks questioning got him all arced up. I truly believe he hates David Hicks, for whatever reason and will never believe in his innocence or forgive him.

It's hard when you're in a public forum like that where every question attacking him gets a clap not to back flip and say "I made a mistake with Hicks and I'm sorry." Good on him for sticking to his guns, whether or not you believe in his politics.

The only reason David Hicks is a free man today is because his continued arrest without trial became a political problem for John Howard. It was a very convenient deal the U.S. government, Howards great allies struck that set Hicks free a couple of months after a federal election.

 

[Nankervis brothers]

Michelle Grattin reports below on a stinging attack Costello makes of Howard, which will be printed in todays Age. See Howard Failed Country and Party here:

http://www.theage.com.au/national/h...arty-costello-20101026-172d4.html?autostart=1

Clearly Costello has not taken the olive branch Howard has offered him over the last two days with his gushing (and essentially hollow) accounts of Costello's time as treasurer. No love lost that is for sure. In fact, some of what of Costello says is spiteful in the extreme. He insinuates, for example, that Howard's legacy can be surmised as a Trivial Pursuit question - 'name the PM's to have lost their own seats......etc'.

As for Howard's legacy, i agree with Kennett's comments earlier in the week. Howard inherited a governement from Hawke/Keating where all the micro and macro economic reforms needed to catch an upturn in the global economy had been made. He just had to ride it, and make sure his government did no damage. He mananged that, but left no real legacy of his own (other than, IMO, lowering the colours of political debate through fostering 'dog-whistling' on divisive social issues). Howard had little to no vision, but perhaps that was appropriate for the time. Like other Liberal (Tory) Governments before him, he just had to consolidate difficult reforms made by previous ALP governments. I suppose, in the grand scheme of things, there is something to be said for that too.

I also agree with Costello's suggestion that Howard is incapable of owning up to any mistake he made politically or his government made. His inability to back down on any issue, his inability to admit any fault, is without doubt Howard's greatest weakness.

 

[Chief]

Mr Howard's decision was ''a tragic miscalculation'', writes Mr Costello, pointing to those MPs who lost their seats at the 2007 election. ''Some of them have never had a job since.''

Which draws the question, why should we have ever had these unemployable dolts in Parliament?

 

[Nankervis brothers]

Which draws the question, why should we have ever had these unemployable dolts in Parliament?

Good point.

As Fraser pointed out on Q and A recently there are too many career politicians these days. There are too many pollies who have done nothing whatsoever outside of the rarefied world of politics, and too few that have entered politics after a successful career elsewhere. Tony Abbott is an excellent example. He has done nothing with this life other than student politics, a brief period in the clergy, and then back to politics. Beyond the lala land of politics, people like him are kind of unemployable. At least Julia can fall back on law, i suppose.

 

[PottSie2]

Good point.

As Fraser pointed out on Q and A recently there are too many career politicians these days. There are too many pollies who have done nothing whatsoever outside of the rarefied world of politics, and too few that have entered politics after a successful career elsewhere. Tony Abbott is an excellent example. He has done nothing with this life other than student politics, a brief period in the clergy, and then back to politics. Beyond the lala land of politics, people like him are kind of unemployable. At least Julia can fall back on law, i suppose.

I'm sure there are many examples. Is working in a union a real job?

At least Abbott is a CFA and Surf Life Saver ... has probably done more for this country than most politicians put together.

 

[Daytripper]

Good point.

As Fraser pointed out on Q and A recently there are too many career politicians these days. There are too many pollies who have done nothing whatsoever outside of the rarefied world of politics, and too few that have entered politics after a successful career elsewhere. Tony Abbott is an excellent example. He has done nothing with this life other than student politics, a brief period in the clergy, and then back to politics. Beyond the lala land of politics, people like him are kind of unemployable. At least Julia can fall back on law, i suppose.

Not quite true. Abbott worked as a journalist for The Bulletin, he was also press secretary to Hewson and did spend some time in the private sector as well on other things.

He's hardly unemployable.

I do agree though that there are too many politicians who have lived their whole life in a political bubble and have little experience of the outside world.

 

[asanque]

I'm not making a value judgement about the correctness of invading Iraq, I'd just say that I have much less faith than you in the infallibility of UN judgement on these matters. Following UN decisions on what was and wasn't appropriate intervention in Bosnia and Rwanda made the problems worse.

In general I am in favour of abiding by international law, but the reality is the UNGA is composed mainly of corrupt, anti-democratic governments and the UNSC is made up of self-serving superpowers with so much influence as to render it virtually impotent at endorsing any sort of decisive action.

I like the UN but I don't think that we should always equate its decisions to automatically being the 'right' course of action.


The GST has been widely accepted as a good tax reform by pretty much everyone except the Greens. The system as a whole is still excessively complex, but that's sort of a wider issue.

In addition to what you've mentioned, the industrial reforms involved in the waterfront dispute took balls, as did the East Timor Intervention. Same goes for the Northern Territory intervention, although the jury is still out on that particular escapade.

The 'negative' items - suffice to say they are mostly at least arguable depending on your point of view. For example I opposed the sale of Telstra in the form it occurred, but there are nonetheless good arguments that it was the right thing to do in order to maximise the investment before obsolescence took over, pay down government debt and create a sovereign wealth fund to deal with future cash flow issues.

But I digress. At any rate my point was not really to argue that Howard was a great leader, just to point out why many people see his strength of conviction as a positive rather than a negative point - despite his perceived errors of judgement in some areas. All else being equal I prefer leaders who will govern based on the convictions they were elected with than those who are quick to follow the polls.

The UN definitely has its faults, but I remain bemused how invading Iraq could possibly have been an act of 'self defence'.

Iraq posed no threat whatsoever whilst UN weapon inspectors were in the country.

The invasion was completely unjustified and our involvement increased the risk of terrorist attack in this country.

There will be negative repercussions for years as a consequence.

Getting back to the 'strength of conviction'. Lets not confuse strength with an insatiable thirst for power that was at the cost of both the country and his own party.

Whilst there is a link to Costello above, here are some further articles.
['The Coalition had an obligation in 2007 to do all it could to renew itself and stay in office.
''The failure to do so was not in the interest of the nation … I cannot take credit for that. The principal credit for that failure must go to the person who was responsible. It belongs squarely to John Howard.''']

http://www.theage.com.au/national/howard-failed-country-and-party-costello-20101026-172d4.html#poll

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/failure-in-2007-was-all-howards-doing-20101026-172aw.html

92% of Age Readers agree.

 

[Daytripper]

The invasion was completely unjustified and our involvement increased the risk of terrorist attack in this country.

There will be negative repercussions for years as a consequence.

Has it ?
How many terrorist attacks have there been in Australia or specifically aimed at Australians post Iraq/Afghanistan ?

The Bali bombing occurred a year after but since then nothing. And it could be argued that it was not aimed specifically at Australians but at Westerners in general and nor was it based on the 'war on terror' but rather the East Timor issue.

It has been almost ten years now - surely if your foreboding was correct there would be something.Whats the statute of limitations on your prediction. Next 30 years ? 40 years ?

If you want to look at it from that POV then the war in Iraq has been spectacularly successful.

 

[Caesar]

Getting back to the 'strength of conviction'. Lets not confuse strength with an insatiable thirst for power that was at the cost of both the country and his own party.

Whilst there is a link to Costello above, here are some further articles.
['The Coalition had an obligation in 2007 to do all it could to renew itself and stay in office.
''The failure to do so was not in the interest of the nation … I cannot take credit for that. The principal credit for that failure must go to the person who was responsible. It belongs squarely to John Howard.''']

http://www.theage.com.au/national/howard-failed-country-and-party-costello-20101026-172d4.html#poll

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/failure-in-2007-was-all-howards-doing-20101026-172aw.html

92% of Age Readers agree.

How is that a personal flaw of Howard's? The last Prime Minister to give up the office voluntarily was Menzies, and he had a lot more years under his belt than he did.

Very few politicians with power resign at all, and if they do it's almost invariably for personal reasons - not for something unselfish like 'renewal'. It's the party room's job to push people who need to be pushed.

 

[asanque]

How is that a personal flaw of Howard's? The last Prime Minister to give up the office voluntarily was Menzies, and he had a lot more years under his belt than he did.

Very few politicians with power resign at all, and if they do it's almost invariably for personal reasons - not for something unselfish like 'renewal'. It's the party room's job to push people who need to be pushed.

Isn't it a personal flaw?
Staying in power at the cost of his own party?

They knew that if pushed, Howard would fight back which would also damage their re-election chances.

Instead, they stuck with the devil they knew and suffered the consequences.

Edit: And the Libs did push. Howard just said no.

 

[asanque]

Has it ?
How many terrorist attacks have there been in Australia or specifically aimed at Australians post Iraq/Afghanistan ?

The Bali bombing occurred a year after but since then nothing. And it could be argued that it was not aimed specifically at Australians but at Westerners in general and nor was it based on the 'war on terror' but rather the East Timor issue.

It has been almost ten years now - surely if your foreboding was correct there would be something.Whats the statute of limitations on your prediction. Next 30 years ? 40 years ?

If you want to look at it from that POV then the war in Iraq has been spectacularly successful.

Its not a prediction.
Just because there have not been any serious attacks that have succeeded in Australia, it does not mean that the threat has not increased.

Here are a few articles.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/21/2959572.htm

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...on-terror-upheld/story-e6frg6nf-1225895300565

['FORMER Australian Federal Police chief Mick Keelty's judgment that the Iraq war had increased the terrorist threat has been vindicated.
It has taken six long years, but he has been vindicated in thunderous fashion during the British inquiry into the US-led conflict.']

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/world/middleeast/24terror.html

Here is a specific case in Australia directly linked to Iraq (luckily not successful)
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/inept-fanatic-benbrika-jailed/story-e6frf7kx-1111118740860

And as for your last sentence. Iraq posed zero terrorist threat to Australia before the invasion, so using that as a success factor is critically flawed.

Edit:
Even more links!
Aussies, Brits, Italians say Iraq war increased terrorism
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1576/5027215.html

UK Government; Iraq war 'increased terror threat'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3451239.stm

US State Department Corrects Report to Show Rise in Terrorism
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5264512 /

Global terror attacks triple
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0428/dailyUpdate.html

Worldwide terrorism-related deaths on the rise
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5889435 /

US Losing the War on Terror in Iraq; The invasion of Iraq has increased, not decreased, the threat of terrorist attack
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article2629.htm...

Occupation Made World Less Safe, Pro-War Institute Says
http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/terrorwar/analysis/2...

Iraq Invasion Hurt War on Terror
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0719-10.htm

Musharraf: World more dangerous because of Iraq War
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/25/03544/7945

Terrorism threat worse in wake of Iraq war
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200601/s1543486.ht...

Iraq War Blamed for Increased Terrorist Threat
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/vi...

Iraq War Increased Terror Threat: Global Poll
Most people in 33 out of 35 countries worldwide believe that the US-led invasion of Iraq has increased the threat of terrorism,
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1805227.php

US: Three Years On, War on Terrorism Looks Like a Loser
http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=25437

 

[Caesar]

Isn't it a personal flaw?
Staying in power at the cost of his own party?

Like I said, there hasn't been a single PM since Menzies who has gone without being forced out. Selfish? Sure. But it's also reality and certainly not something you can say is particularly attributable to Howard.

They knew that if pushed, Howard would fight back which would also damage their re-election chances.

Instead, they stuck with the devil they knew and suffered the consequences.

Quite frankly, that's the Liberal party room's problem, not Howard's. If you expect a politician to gracefully give up power without a fight when they still clearly have the numbers, then you're being more than a little unrealistic.