Howardistas keep the flame alive

Hard-core Howardistas keep the flame alive by Mike Carlton | March 15, 2008 IN THE icy wastes of their remote alpine redoubt, the hard-core Howardistas keep the flame alive. The latest conceit of the ragged band around the camp fire is that the last election was actually a great victory. We are all conservatives now, they cry. Their fancy is that Howard's prime ministership so changed Australia's political, economic and social landscape that conservatism will be the natural order of things forever, whatever tricks the vile Labor socialists might get up to during their temporary grip on power. This is pretty much as delusional as the Fuhrer marshalling his phantom divisions for the defence of Berlin in 1945, but I put it down to the madness of grief. Paradise lost. The Hermit of Wollstonecraft (or The Toad, as Alan Ramsey calls him; I am not sure which I like better) was waffling along much the same lines to students at Harvard on Tuesday. His government had ended the "pointless debate about our identity" and fostered "a rather positive view about Australian history and Australian achievement," he boasted, as self-basting as ever. "I think our sense of national pride is stronger now than it was in the 1990s, less ambiguous, and that's tremendously important." Despite all that hob-nobbing with the Blaineys and Windschuttles, the Hermit's view of Australian history never got much beyond year 6 basics. Simpson's donkey, Sir Donald Bradman good. Trade unions, foreigners bad. There was no "pointless debate about our identity". There was a rational debate about monarchy and republicanism which Howard contrived to derail with his rigged referendum question back in 1999, much to the fury of Malcolm Turnbull, if you remember. With Howard now in history's dustbin, progress towards the inevitable Australian republic can resume in an orderly fashion, over the stiffened corpse of Professor David Flint if need be. It is true, though, that there is a stronger sense of national pride. I, for one, am proud that fairness and decency have returned to our national affairs after an absence of 11 years - Mike Carlton has been one of Australia's most successful and decorated journalists, and is now a media commentator and broadcaster. (SMH)