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John Howard and the Australian legend: the Prime Minister''s political success has been built on the appropriation of myths of nationhood that were once the property of the ALP. The result has been a profound transformation of our political culture.

Article Excerpt
Soon after he became Prime Minister Howard threw his hat into the ring of historical debate, claiming that there had been an attempt 'to rewrite Australian history in the service of a partisan cause'. Some of this was about the reputation of Robert Menzies, and was straightforward partisan polemic. By the time of the Reconciliation Convention in 1997, however, Howard had extended his historical critique to reject the portrayal of Australia's history since 1788 'as little more than a disgraceful record of imperialism, exploitation and racism'. He acknowledged that there were 'blemishes', but 'the overall story' was 'of great Australian achievement'. 'I am fed up with the defensiveness and self-flagellation' he said, when we have achieved an overall record of achieving 'a tolerant, open, harmonious society'. Prime Minister Howard prefers to praise rather than blame the Australian people, to make them feel good about themselves, 'relaxed and comfortable'. There is much to be said for this, particularly after the hectoring they received from both Malcolm Fraser (life wasn't meant to be easy) and from Paul Keating (telling Australians to get their heads out of the sand), but in relation to the history of Australia's relations with Aborigines it involved a large amount of denial. Historical knowledge is always relative, in part dependent on the values of those who produce it, but even so it has rules of evidence. Howard's refusal to accept the evidence of historical scholarship has been a serious limitation on his government's indigenous policy. As an editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald put it, 'The antidote to political correctness is not historical incorrectness.'

In his first term, Howard's forays into history were shrill and reactive as he struggled to gain control of the political agenda. The consensual space he had opened up with the campaign slogan 'For all of us' had filled up with grievances about various 'Them' who were preventing a self-declared mainstream 'Us' from receiving their fair share of both resources and recognition. The problems which beset him in his first term were partly the result of the success of his negative campaign against Labor, and the debt he owed to grievance. But one cannot govern for long on the basis of grievance and negativity, and Howard soon began to give a positive definition to his consensual centre of Australian life. And in doing this he raided the Australian Legend for the Liberal Party.

The Australian Legend was a term coined by radical historian Russel Ward in the 1950s to describe a set of distinctive Australian character traits forged from the nineteenth century workers' experience of the land: egalitarianism, practical improvisation, scepticism towards authority, larrikinism, loyalty to mates, generosity. Ward claimed that the Australian tradition was inherently radical and that ordinary Australians were naturally left-wing. The itinerant rural labourers who formed the first Labor parties bore its virtues, as did the Australian diggers of World War I, and it captured aspects of Australian working-class culture and its collectivist political traditions. Until Howard, Australian Liberals have left the legend to Labor. Labor was the party of 'mates', committed to egalitarianism, the fair go and an assertive Australian nationalism. Liberals spoke a language of respectability, deferrence to Britain, and support for the institutions of the state. Neither Menzies nor Fraser made any attempt to wield the imagery of the legend, and Gorton's larrikinism made him unfit to hold high office in the eyes of Liberal Party powerbrokers. But, as John Hirst pointed out, the Australian Legend was never as inherently radical as Ward had argued, and had a conservative version, 'the Pioneer Legend' of land-holding rural Australia.

During the 1980s the Australian Legend experienced a revival in Australian popular culture as globalisation and growing international tourism focused Australians' attention on the uniqueness of its natural environment and on the people who lived outside the cities. This revival can be seen in the popularity of films such as The Man From Snowy River, the transformation of rural work clothes like Drizabones, akubras and riding boots...

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