John Howard's ‘Values’ and Australian Identity

Abstract

This article analyses John Howard's arguments on the relationship between ‘values’ and ‘national identity’. Some key arguments were prefigured before he became Prime Minister, when he promised not to politicise national identity. More recent arguments influenced debates over foreign policy, counter terrorism measures, industrial relations policy and the banning of same-sex marriage. In particular, the article explores the relationship between Howard's ‘values’ and Anglo-Celtic identity, social conservatism, the Christian Right and a neo-liberal ‘entrepreneurial culture’. It suggests that Howard is using his emphasis on the relationship between values and national identity to endorse and encourage particular forms of citizen identity (which also have policy and electoral implications). This is despite Howard's earlier critique of Keating for using debates over national identity to engage in social engineering.

She thanks John Warhurst and Nick Dyrenfurth for their comments on this article.

Notes

¹Elsewhere I have analysed Hanson, and her relationship with Howard's views, in more depth than is possible in this article. For example, see Johnson (1998; 2004).

²I discuss recent debates on multiculturalism in more depth in the forthcoming second edition of my book, Governing Change: From Keating to Howard.

⁴For an alternative view on enterprise workers, see Peetz (2006).

³See Research Evidence About the Effects of the ‘Work Choices Bill’, A Submission to the Inquiry into the Workplace Relations Amendment (Work Choices) Bill 2005, by a group of 151 Australian industrial relations, labour market and legal academics, November 2005. Submission 175, available at www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/eet_ctte/. See also the December 2005 issue of the Journal of Australian Political Economy.

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Notes on contributors

Carol Johnson

Carol Johnson is a professor in the Politics Discipline at the University of Adelaide. She has published numerous journal articles and chapters in edited collections that analyse aspects of the Howard government. She specialises in analyses of ideology and discourse and has also published widely on the Australian Labor Party and in the fields of gender and sexuality.