Finally, the truth about the untouchable Prime Minister: how the ‘great economic manager’ sold away our future.

John Howard is often revered as one of the great Australian Prime Ministers (1996–2007): economically prudent, politically astute – the modern Menzies. Australia felt ‘relaxed and comfortable’ with identity and prospered. Ever since, his name and record have been venerated by the Liberal Party and grudgingly admired by the Left. 

Why, then – just twenty years later – are we in such a mess?

Amy Remeikis is one of our most astute and convincing political commentators, and for the first time she holds Howard to account against the future he created, arguing for a complete revision of how we see his tenure. Of our modern crises, most are due to his decisions. Housing crisis? Guilty. Work insecurity? Guilty. Giving away gas? Guilty. Climate denial? Guilty. Rise of the far right? Guilty. American lapdog in foreign relations? Guilty. Jingoistic tracksuits and flag-wrapping? Guilty and convicted. 

Far from being ‘great economic managers’, the Howard government sacrificed the generations now coming into inheritance of the nation – Gen X and Millennials, let alone the poor Zs and Alphas – to buy office from Boomers for franking credits and negative gearing. They sold out their children and grandchildren for mining billionaires, investment properties and annual cruises. 

Remeikis is the passionate, highly informed voice of Millennials: her pen is her avenging sword and her shield the long-disguised truth. And in re-evaluating our past, she hopes to improve our future. 

Mad as hell? Wondering who to blame? Sick of nostalgia? Thinking about how things could be different? This is the book for you, just in time for the 30th anniversary of Howard’s election in March 1996.