Introduction

John Howard’s Coalition government ended 24 November 2007 in Australia. A triumphant Kevin Rudd had brought the Australian Labor Party back from electoral oblivion. Howard’s Liberals lost government, and control of the Senate, and he became only the second Australian Prime Minister to lose his own seat. The Howard government’s National Emergency Response Act 2007 would also contain provisions to directly suspend elements of the landmark Racial Discrimination Act 1975, introduced under Gough Whitlam’s government with bipartisan support. This chapter seeks to analyse the history, and the key ideas, that underlie this new form of conservatism. It describes it as ‘postmodern conservatism’ because it turns its back on the progressive principles of modern Australia. The chapter argues that the Howard government was neither liberal nor conservative in the senses it inherited from the earlier Liberal Party of Australia.