Johnny has done far better in Legislative Process I than we thought possible, but has not fulfilled the high hopes we had for him in Executive Action I. If Johnny is to move to Second Term he will have to make sure other students in his gang do not let him down. And he should have dealt with the Class Nerd quickly and decisively instead of allowing her to get a far greater share of the classroom attention than she deserved.
“”Johnny seems far too interested in students’ pocket money than whether they join in games and feel part of a unified school playground. And he has not paid enough attention to school governance, seeming satisfied with retaining the existing Monday-morning anthem and flag-raising ceremony.
In all, though, he made a tentatively good start to First Term and shows promise as a diligent, but not a star, performer. It is obvious he will remain as class captain but he is fortunately more aware that any of his classmates that he cannot take the position for granted.””
Thus might run Prime Minister John Howard’s report card for his first nine months of government. Mr Howard, of course, has given his own report of his progress, largely as a response to mutterings in the business community that the Government has not moved far or fast enough to bring reforms that would improve the Australian economy. Mr Howard’s own report has the tint of rose-coloured glasses and has been dismissed by Opposition Leader Kim Beazley as “”an exercise in fatuous triumphalism”. The trouble with Mr Beazley’s assessment is that to the extent that Mr Howard is triumphant it is because of Labor’s failure to keep Senator Mal Colston in the fold. That failure led directly to the passing of the Bill to sell a third of Telstra. The other “”triumph” for Mr Howard was the passing of the industrial-relations Bill. This exercise, more than any, highlighted the conundrum of the Howard Government. Faced with a hostile Senate Mr Howard could either compromise, cajole and deal with whichever non-Coalition senators would be persuaded, or he could push an uncompromising agenda and force a double dissolution. The trouble with the former method is that it leads to compromised legislation that might not achieve the Government’s aims. In the case of the industrial-relations Bill, it was criticised by the business community as being too watered-down. But the Government still wears the opprobrium if the new law does not generate the benefits touted by it. On the other hand, the latter course has many dangers. A double dissolution uses up electoral goodwill and does not resolve the longer-term problem of a hostile Senate.
It is easy for business to criticise from the side-lines, but in the circumstances Mr Howard has made a fair fist of getting his key legislation through.
The main short-coming of his first nine months has been in the field of executive action, where ministers have power to act decisively without any checks. Examples are his code of ministerial conduct, the launch into ATSIC, the rushed approvals of projects with environmental sensitivity.
The contrast between his government’s legislative and executive action should be a lesson for Mr Howard. Patience, negotiation and deliberation are far more effective than rushing in, even if you have the power to do so.