spiny norman
Member
Let's see, John Curtin and Ben Chifley are not worth mentioning? Gough Whitlam, though still spurs great debates, was hardly predictable. You get your head out of your arse. One should always acknowledge and understand what has come before.F2001 said:Let's see, match these to an era. The only man worth mentioning from that party is Keating. After that, YES they have been rubbish and predictable. Predictable, ie to deliver politics.
You see get your head of your ass, look ahead not dwell on great things labour did in the FAR past.
I think Rudd's been quite a disappointment. I think he's trying too hard to do nothing contentious, to pander so much to the centre, that he's making no progress and is representing little. Rudd needs to recognise that remaining 70+% approval ratings will not remain by doing nothing to piss off people.
History will remember Howard poorly, I can not see how it can do otherwise. He did win four elections - 1996 which anyone could have won, 1998 wherein he lost the popular vote (and it's dating back to the Depression era's James Scullin when a Prime Minister was elected into office before being voted out one term later), 2001 which he won off the back of September 11 and Tampa and 2004 which he won off Latham and the splintering of the Labor party.At the end of the day it proved to be his downfall. However, I still think that the judgement of the elector and of the commentator has been clouded over the past 2 years. It seems any positive of the Howard Government has been swept away, forgotten and history has been re-written. Four election victories do not just happen. They result from the combination of inept Opposition, effective Government and an ability to read the electorate.
Constantly winning does not make a great Prime Minister (and given he lost a third of the elections he contested he doesn't really have that), nor does being Prime Minister forever.
To say history has been re-written about a man who was so divisive a Prime Minister is foolhardy. To say that it seems that history seems to be agreeing with those who hated him appears, at least in the short term, to be the way it's being remembered. You're the one with the rose-tinted view of history if you're saying any major animosity to Howard began in 2005.