Howard rates as our (Australia's) best PM of the past four decades

JOHN Howard has been named Australia’s best prime minister of the past 40 years, followed by Bob Hawke, with Gough Whitlam and Kevin Rudd tying for third place.

The poll, conducted last week by Essential Research and provided exclusively to The Australian, shows that 39 per cent of voters ranked Mr Howard, the Liberal prime minister from 1996 to 2007, as the best.

Labor’s Mr Hawke was rated as the best prime minister by 14 per cent of voters. A further 8 per cent of voters chose Mr Whitlam while another 8 per cent selected Mr Rudd.

Paul Keating was named best prime minister by 7 per cent, placing him fifth overall. In sixth and seventh place, respectively, were Julia Gillard (4 per cent) and Malcolm Fraser (3 per cent). Tony Abbott’s score tied with Mr Fraser.

Bear in mind, that in Australia, the Liberal Party is the major conservative party.

So - here's the breakdown.

1. John Howard (Liberal) 39%
2. Bob Hawke (Labor) 14%
3. Gough Whitlam (Labor) 8%
4. Paul Keating (Labor) 7%
5. Julia Gillard (Labor) 3%
6. Malcolm Fraser (Liberal) 3%
7. Tony Abbott (Liberal) 3%

I think this illustrates Mr Howard's dominance - first in a poll where the only others from his party came last.

Personal comments - at the moment I would agree with Howard and Hawke in first and second place. Hawke was a socialist, but significantly, he was also a staunch patriot. Whitlam in third place is, in my view, a joke - but reflects the massive hero worship he gets from the far left who treat him almost as a messiah. He was thrown out of office - sacked - along with his entire government by the Governor General when the only way he could propose to deal with economic and political gridlock were measures that were thoroughly illegal. It is hard to imagine anybody doing a worse job. Keating was competent, but out of touch - he only won the one election he did, because the opposition leader was less competent and more out of touch. Gillard is hard to assess fairly - I agree with her low ranking, but think she also had the hardest job any Prime Minister has had in decades - having to deal with minority government. She might have done better if she'd actually been free to govern, but now we will never know. Fraser was the great disappointment for conservatives and deserves a low ranking - though he should rank above Whitlam because the only good thing that can be said for Fraser is he replaced Whitlam. I think that was his problem - because of the way he replaced Whitlam, who was sacked, Fraser never felt he had full legitimacy and so became very timid.

Abbot has only been in office six months, so at the moment, he hasn't really achieved much. I hope that by the end of his time in office, he'll rank second behind Howard at the very least - if he stays true to himself and he is able to take all his party and his coalition with him, he could do even better. John Howard wasn't perfect - but he was the best we've had in a long time by a long way.

John Howard was far and away the best Prime Minister in my 50 plus years and I would give Hawke second place but only just to Keating. Keating had done most of his work as treasurer and that seemed and he continued without doing too much new while Prime Minister except try and get us more involved in Asia. Frazer did more for Aboriginal Australians that all the preachy self righteous lefties have ever done. I can’t believe Rudd ties with Whitlam and the less said about each of them is best policy. You are correct about Gillard.

I don’t hold much hope for Abbott and I will be happy to be proven wrong. I am afraid Gillard pegged him - he has a group of blue tied men surrounding him and you cannot get to speak to him except via these people (this from people who know him)! His plan/agenda remains largely unexplained and he seems to be bouncing from one financial disaster to another - none of his own making but he is failing to fix them or offer much hope to employees of failing companies. Unless his direction becomes more clear and he is able to show success in it I fear he will be a one term Prime Minister and we will be doomed to at least a couple of terms of a Labor government.

Mel

I can't claim to know a lot about any of those leaders but I've seen various youtube videos,and read at least a few articles,about one or more of them.My impressions are:

Howard:decent,responsible,respectable
Gilliard: the classic leftist victim (kinda like our Hillary Clinton)
Keating: a particularly vicious,snarling reptile.

My opinion of Keating is based largely on several videos I've seen of him on the floor of Parliament derisively referring to Howard who,IIRC,was the Leader of the Opposition at the time,as "baldy" and "old darling".

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