Is John Howard Australia's best Prime Minister?

John Howard was Australia's second longest serving Prime Minister of nearly 12 years after Sir Robert Menzies 16 years, serving slightly longer than Bob Hawke's 9 years. If longevity as Prime Minister is a measure, Howard sits behind only Menzies as the greatest PM to serve the country.

Menzies predecessor, John Curtin rated highly in my opinion, despite his short term in the top job, so longevity isn't the only measure. Menzies, Howard and Hawke is a pretty good line-up by any determination.

Howard was never a popular figure in the way that Hawke was; Howard was short, bald, a four eyes and deaf in one ear. Yet, despite his lack of charisma and Hawke like popularity, he led a government that made necessary decisions that aren't always popular. Howard never chased opinion polls like Hawke, instead deciding to ride out unpopular decisions, the polling generally looked after itself.

Unlike Hawke, Costello never challenged Howard for the top job as Keating challenged Hawke, failing once and ssucceedingon the second occasion. Just look at the Gillard/Rudd and Rudd/Gillard infighting of the lost six years - the years of instability. 

Neither Keating or Costello were friendly outside of professional duties with their respective Prime Minister; however, Costello never let his personal ambitions cloud his judgement. It could also be argued Costello never had the numbers to challenge Howard for the leadership.

Howard was a conviction leader, he didn't always make the popular decision but in my opinion, he got it right more often than not. The economic credibility of his government was their strongest virtue, paying off the 96 billion debt left by the previous government only for it to be increased to well over 300 billion under 6 years of Labor incompetence.

We, as a nation pretty much had nothing to show for this spending spurge. We survived the global financial crisis due to three main factors, trade with China rating highly, while the resources sector contracted, mining based income ensured capital inflows into the economy.

The low government debt coupled with strong reserves ensured investment capital when required, that was unfortunately pissed up against the wall in a manner not seen since Whitlam. Lastly, the strong financial position of Australian banks ensured the capital flows remained intact sparing enterprises from liquidity issues so they remained open for business.

The immediate move to grant the Reserve Bank of Australia independence from political influence greatly underscored monetary policy allowing the RBA to set interest rates as required and support the currency. The tough budgets to rein on spending (especially in the early years); repayment of government debt during the boom times allowed Australia to prosper even during the rebuilding years.

Going to an election with a goods and services tax as the centre piece of reform appeared to be political suicide, it was successful and the tax base has been expanded whilst personal income tax declined. That took political courage, Keating wanted to introduce a GST in the late 80s, Hawke scuttled the idea as politically unpopular killing the proposal.

Howard had his faults of course. He hung on to the prime minister's position too long, he should have retired after hosting the APEC conference in Sydney leaving Peter Costello a year in the top job. He should have not allowed Australian special forces to switch from Afghanistan to Iraq.

Removing the troops at a critical stage was a bad decision, instead we should have been increasing our commitment to wrestling the Taliban control of the nation to free Afghanistan forces. If he wanted to commit the air force and navy, that would not scramble the strategic mission leaving the SAS and commando regiment free to consolidate their gains in Afghanistan.

Howard should have acted earlier to stem the rise of Pauline Hanson and her flagrantly skewed views, she did much damage internationally to Australia's reputation creating an impression of intolerance. There will always be people holding such views, that is ok as we live in a democratic and free society. As long as such ideals do not become mainstream, people are allowed to hold personal views out of alignment with society.

After eleven and a half years, Australia was left in a stronger position financially, safer, bolder, proud and confident. The Howard government met the challenges of the day running a competent government. I believe Australian's became complacent feeling any fool could govern the country, when the fools did gain control, we saw six years of dysfunction and infighting ruin the gains of the previous period.