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CRICKET TRAGIC'S MAGIC

At this time of a new year, with the flannelled fools at their peak, it is irresistible to use a cricketing analogy in a column even when you want to talk about politics.

But that’s not too hard when the man you are writing about is John Winston Howard -- a self-confessed “ cricket tragic”.

It is timely to link cricket with Howard because the Aussie victors have crushed England as surely as Howard has demonised and demolished Labor.

And, according to the latest polls, Simon Crean could not even get elected to carry the drinks carrier’s drinks.

The cricketing analogy is even more important because we are now in countdown mode to John Howard’s Big Decision. Seven months from now Howard turns 64 – the time he said he would consider his political future.

He didn’t say he would hit his own wicket and hand bat and captain’s hat to Peter Costello. He merely said he would consider it.

But it took on added meaning because eighteen months ago it was a pretty grubby looking cap. The re-election of a Howard Government for a third term looked about as likely as the Poms forcing an Australian follow on.

Kim (remember him) Beazley was counting down the months until he would be in The Lodge and senior Libs like Peter Reith and Michael Wooldridge were scrambling with indecent haste for lucrative jobs in the private sector.

Of course Howard would quit! Even if he squeaked through the 2001 election. As we know now he rode the Tampa wave to a third successive victory and made a total mockery of his own derision that it be take a Lazarus with a triple by-pass for him to even lead his party again.

So fast forward to January 2003 and stick with the cricketing terms for a moment for the sake of the argument.

Over Christmas I read an interesting article in the midst of the passionate arguments over whether or not Steve Waugh should fall on his stumps or fight on.

The article was about the retirement of former captain Mark Taylor in 1999. He had just been named Australian of the Year (no doubt with Howard’s blessing). He had been the second highest run scorer in the world in that calendar year and, months earlier, had equalled Don Bradman’s highest test score by an Australian. Sentimentally, Taylor had declared against Pakistan when he was on 334 and sportingly declined to beat The Don’s record.

Taylor was having a beer with Howard in the Prime Minister’s suite in a Brisbane hotel and told his cricketing fan about his decision to retire.

Howard, reportedly, leaned back in his chair and said:

“ Mark, your timing is perfect. I’ve just got to make sure I get it right when I go”.

I believe he will and despite all the “ when I’m 64” argie-bargie I don’t believe Howard will hand over the keys to The Lodge this year.

Why should or would he? And I’m not even factoring in what Hyacinth Bucket (Mrs Howard) wants.

In all our history we have only seen three cases of an elected Prime Minister voluntarily handing over his crown. Edward Barton in 1903, Andrew Fisher in 1915 and Robert Menzies in 1966.

Usually, they do not or cannot know when they have spent too long at the fair. Even Labor’s most successful leader at the polls, Bob Hawke, couldn’t determine that his colleagues’ love affair with him ended before his self-styled love affair with the Australian people.

Howard has gone on record saying that the Hawke-Keating brawl was unedifying but I still do not believe we will have an unelected Prime Minister Costello this year.

My belief is hardly spawned out of love. I was one of the people who several decades ago always called him “Littler Johnny Howard” even though he is taller than Hawke and have often thought that he looks like a man with halitosis. More than seven years (can that be!) into his occupancy of The Lodge I find his voice and delivery carping and adenoidal. There appears no fire in his belly and he neither invokes nor inspires any in mine.

And yet this man has turned out to be a political giant. He hasn’t exactly made giant strides across our stage but look at the people he has seen off: Keating, Peacock, Beazley, Hewson and soon Crean.

I believe he could stay and fight and probably win the next federal election.

One Christmas poll showed that 70% of people wanted him to stay for the full term and 30% wanted him to stand again. Another poll showed that nearly 60% of people didn’t want a “smirking” Costello as PM.

I believe there is what I call a huge “ Harry Truman factor” in all this. The mid-western haberdasher inherited the White House when Franklin Roosevelt died. He also inherited World War Two and nobody thought Truman could win in his own right in 1948.

He did. He grew into the job in adversity and in the midst of national fear. “ Little Johnny “ Howard has grown in similar fashion in tough and scary times.

He was physically in Washington during the September 11 horrors when planes hit the World Trade Centre towers and the Pentagon. He came home and reassured a nation.,

He went to Bali after the October 12 atrocity and Australia saw a caring, reassuring man of stature.

A politician, whom many saw as awkward, and stilted and small, grew in adversity and won a lot of respect. Even usually damaging things like the “children overboard” lies during the last election slid off his Teflon hide.

John Howard retire? Why? In a few months he will overtake Malcolm Fraser as the Liberals second longest-serving Prime Minister ever.

Mark Taylor, this guy is itching for another session at bat.

January 5, 2003

hinch@hinch.net

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2002