John Howard and the race question

John Howard's eleven-year prime ministership may indicate his success and longevity as a conservative politician. The question of race was always problematic for John Howard's vision of Australia. When in Opposition, he was silent on the question of apartheid in South Africa and in the late 1980s he was insistent that Chinese immigration to Australia was unsettling and should be significantly reduced. His parliamentary record indicates a continuous silence on the question of indigenous Australians. During his period in office, the deployment of a manipulative political strategy on the question of race was discernible. This paper will examine Howard's racialised agenda on two controversial issues: the plight of the refugees on the Tampa and the military-style intervention into remote indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. The Howard Coalition government summoned the powers of the state to defend the nation against these apparent threats to the social order.