1 - Introduction

Summary

Two days before Australians went to the polls in the 2007 federal election, long serving Liberal Party prime minister John Howard took to the stage at the National Press Club in Canberra. He had been on the campaign trail for almost six weeks by the time he faced this room full of journalists in the nation's capital in late November. The Press Club address is one of the staples of modern Australian federal elections, bookending the earlier policy launch speech in which prime ministerial candidates open their party's campaign with an outline of policies, priorities and promises. This was Howard's final major address, at the tail end of a campaign infused with the feeling that a change was in the air. His opponent, Australian Labor Party (ALP) leader Kevin Rudd, had spoken in the same place only the day before, making a case for ‘new leadership’ after Labor's 11 and a half years in the political wilderness. It was Howard's last chance to explain why Australians should return his government for a fifth term.

Australia, the prime minister boasted, was a ‘stronger, prouder and more prosperous nation’ than it had been when he was elected in March 1996. He listed his government's achievements in prosperity and productivity; defence and border security; foreign policy; social security; employment; taxes; and welfare. In all of these, Howard repeatedly emphasized that Australia was ‘a nation transformed’. He then laid claim to a fundamental transformation in Australian culture:

And finally in the area of national self- confidence this is also a nation transformed. We no longer have perpetual seminars about our national identity, we no longer agonise as to whether we're Asian or European or part- Asian or part- European or too British or not British enough, or too close to the Americans or whatever. We actually rejoice in what has always been the reality, and that is that we are gloriously and distinctively Australian. (Howard 2007f)

Howard's words are incredibly revealing, significant as much for what they say about the nature of Australian identity as for the transformation they describe.