Howards is fantastic. Except he is a gun-grabber.
And Bush throws border agents in jail and hero bounty hunters to the (Mexican) wolves. On balance John Howard is a much better man. He GETS it about Islam. Bush never has. I think it is because his boyhood friends were the Saudi equivalent of the Corleones.
But that could possibly be reversed if they suffered another attack. If Australia had multiple direct attacks on their soil the populace may DEMAND the return of gun ownership.