There is plenty of time for Peter Costello.
He is now 48 – about the same age as John Howard was when he lost the “Joh for Canberra” 1987 election and the subsequent loss of the leadership in an ambush by the resurgent Andrew Peacock. Howard said then that any chance of him coming back to lead the party – let alone to lead it to victory and the prime ministership “would be like Lazarus with a triple by-pass”.
By comparison, the past week’s events over the dud appointment of Robert Gerard to the board of the Reserve Bank are a minor setback.
When Howard won the prime ministership he was 57. Costello will be 57 in 2014.
Gough Whitlam was 56 when he won the prime ministership. Billy McMahon was 63. Menzies retired at age 71.
Bear in mind, Howard will turn 75 in 2014 and would only be a couple of years older than Menzies’ retiring age if he stayed in office to 2012 when he would overtake Menzies’ record of 16 years, one month and eight days continuously in office.
Don’t laugh. Howard is not going to retire before then — if the ordinary patterns of politics take their course.
Leaders are either thrown out by their party or by the people, or lose their health or die in office. They do not hand over to somebody else.
Besides we have an ageing population. People are living longer and so are expected to have longer working lives. Moreover, medical advances mean a person can overcome a illness more quickly — get and new knee or hip and be back on the job in no time. In times past that level of medical trouble would put them out of office.
Costello has got a lot of waiting to do, but he should not despair or give in to impatience or impetuousity. The prime ministership is almost invariably a 20-year project. Costello has been a Member of Parliament for 15 years, another five or more before getting the prime ministership would make his apprenticeship and average one, not a long one. Even in five years’ time he would be younger than most Prime Ministers.
He could even withstand a period in Opposition.
Australians are lucky that it is a 20-year project. (Let’s count Bob Hawke’s ACTU time as part of his prime ministerial project.) The experience makes us a better-run country.
Rather than hurting Costello on his own, the Robert Gerard incident is as likely to be damaging to the Government as a whole. It shows a Government rewarding with a plum position a rich donor who has a tax problem. That does not go down well with the struggling PAYE wage slaves.
But the incident showed the subtle and complex relationship between Howard and Costello. Howard needs Costello, but is also wary of him.
Howard needs Costello’s competence as Treasurer. Howard says, with some justification, that Costello is the best Treasurer Australia has had – and that comes from a man who was himself Treasurer. Remember, Howard was not a very good Treasurer. He understands how crucial the running of the economy is to the fortunes of a government. He and his Government owe Costello an enormous amount. And Howard knows it. You cannot assume that another member of the Government would keep the economy so well as Costello.
But Howard is wary of Costello. Remember, Howard has already been victim of a leadership challenge and watched (with no doubt some glee) as Keating twice challenged Hawke.
This need and wariness explains the subtlety of the way Howard dobbed Costello in over the Gerard affair. He said, “When Peter proposed [Gerard] . . . “. He volunteered it; he was not directly asked who proposed Gerard. Howard was quick to say the whole Cabinet endorsed it, nonetheless it was a clever message to any party members thinking they might support a Costello challenge, that Costello has weaknesses.
Howard is lucky, however, that even with the Government’s slump in the polls, his party members are unlikely to turn to Costello as saviour because the public don’t like him.
Unfortunately, for Costello that comes with the job. Worse, no other portfolio carries that stature of Treasury, so any move to any other portfolio would seem like a demotion.
Costello is already Australia’s longest-serving Treasurer.
So he has no choice but to wait. And he can wait because there is no-one else with gravitas, intelligence and experience to match him. Tony Abbott’s chances have been dashed by the ex-nuptial child saga. Alexander Downer has had a crack at leadership and made a hash of it. Malcolm Turnbull has never had a ministry and Brendan Nelson has not had a serious economic portfolio.
But it might be a long wait. The way things are it might well be that a stint in Opposition could be a shorter route to the Lodge than to wait for Howard to retire as Prime Minister in, say, 2012.