Why it's great to see him go....

I grew up in rural Australia, in conservative country. A few months before I met the waiter, aged 18, I voted for Malcolm Fraser and I still, looking at the mettle of the man now, do not particularly regret that. It was John Howard's first rise to prominence, when I shared a house with students of politics in Melbourne in 1987 that forever opened my eyes to the shortsightedness that became the calling card of the recent Liberal party in Australia. Perhaps I am just a socialist to the core, I make no apologies, I believe that one is simply born that way, but I am not interested in what John Howard's government did for the individual (or claimed to have done), I am interested in what it means to be an Australian in a country run under his regime. While living in the UK in 1998-1999 and discussing the direction in which Australia headed I found myself deeply ashamed. That was the time of Pauline Hanson and it was clear that Howard was taking advantage of and encouraging her racism to advance his own political mandate.