Lazarus Rising. John Howard

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       14 PEACOCK VS HOWARD

      In March 1983, the Liberal and National parties commenced 13 years of opposition. We would lose five elections in a row, and pass through some of the most despairing years since the Liberal Party’s foundation in 1944. The most traumatic episode would be the split in the federal coalition in 1987, forced by the overwhelming influence, within the National Party, of the Queensland Nationals, led by Joh Bjelke-Petersen, who was, for 19 years, premier of that state.

      During this period we would have four leaders: Andrew Peacock (twice), John Hewson, Alexander Downer and me (twice). At the end of this long period of political exile, the party would, in coalition with the Nationals, regain office under my leadership and stay in power for almost 12 years.

      Through those opposition years, I experienced just about all that could come the way of a long-serving participant in Australian politics. Yet I always retained a total commitment and sustained enthusiasm for political life. Irrespective of the position I held, I kept an unflagging interest in what I was doing. The experience of those years told me that, beyond argument, politics was my life and vocation. Some of the most productive policy work that I did in the whole time that I was a member of parliament occurred between 1990 and 1993, when I was spokesman on industrial relations for the Coalition, and my only expectation was to hold that portfolio in a Hewson Government.

      Being bundled from office is a humbling experience — not that I was unprepared. The campaign had delivered a mounting realisation that there would be a change of government. The adversarial nature of politics requires one to change, almost overnight, from a reasoned decision-maker to a vigorous and informed critic of those now making the decisions. That was virtually impossible. I felt tired, both mentally and physically. What I wanted in March 1983 was a six-month sabbatical. But there was no hope of that; politics was my life.

      I decided on the night of the election to stand for the leadership of the Liberal Party, made vacant by Fraser’s resignation. I knew that my only opponent would be Andrew Peacock, and that he would almost certainly win. He did, comfortably, by 36 votes to 20. As Treasurer, I was far more closely linked to the policies of the just-defeated government than Peacock. That made him a more appealing choice. I was re-elected deputy leader, and wanted a shadow portfolio away from Treasury. Doug Anthony persuaded me to stick with my old area because of my by-then-vast experience with economic issues. Fraser quietly lobbied for Andrew Peacock in the leadership contest. He did not attend the meeting at which the ballot took place, and later explained this to me on the grounds that it would not have been in my interests if I had won only narrowly, implying, unconvincingly, that he would have supported me if he had been there. I had not sought his support and, strangely perhaps, did not feel particularly offended by his attitude. Many of my friends, however, saw his behaviour as poor repayment of the loyalty I had shown to him over a long period of time.

      The early weeks in opposition were very hard for me because I had to beat off claims that I had misled the public about the true state of the deficit. It was right on the eve of the election that I was given a figure of $9.6 billion as the likely deficit for the following year, which was much higher than the stab-in-the-dark figure I had casually mentioned to some journalists. Moreover, the $9.6 billion was only a starting point, and would be reduced in the normal budget process. This did not stop Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, his new Treasurer, making a huge issue of it. This was their honeymoon; the press swallowed their lines and I took quite a shellacking.

      Andrew Peacock and I were rivals for the leadership of the Liberal Party for some years, but this did not, as many have argued, completely paralyse the Liberal Party in opposition. Rivalry between key figures in political parties is commonplace. From 1986 onwards, the rivalry between Keating and Hawke within the governing Labor Party was barely disguised, periodically spilling into the public arena. Nonetheless, Andrew’s and my rivalry was real, both as personalities and on policy issues.

      In the culture of the Liberal Party, Andrew and I were almost born to be rivals. We were only a few months apart in age. When it seemed, to many people, to matter a lot more, he came from Melbourne and I came from Sydney. He had taken over the seat of Kooyong СКАЧАТЬ