The extraordinarily ordinary Mr Howard

In 2006 the Howard government celebrated 10 years in office. Much was made of Howard’s extraordinary ordinariness. His dullness, flat speech, suburban background and modest tastes: all were considered to be evidence of his ordinariness and the essence of his electoral appeal. Yet, little critical attention was directed to his personification of ordinariness or the ordinary Australians to whom he supposedly appealed. This article argues that Howard’s ordinary should be understood as a complex process of ‘making ordinary’. With deep roots in Australian political culture, this process has transformed the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in contemporary Australia and fostered neurotic citizenship.