John Howard Argumentative

The 25th Prime Minister of Australia John Howard was elected on the 11th of March 1996 to 3rd of December 2007. He had great influences on the Australian people and Australian policies. He influenced the constitution- federal and state law. Contributed to social influences and to regional agreements like the United Nations. John Howard has been a controversial figure during Australia’s post world war 2 period. His policies included gun control, the workplace relations act and the waterfront reform. John Howard’s Gun control policy was one of the most major policies he made. Gun related deaths, Homicides, Suicides and unintentional shootings were on the decline. Every year the amount of gun related deaths were becoming smaller and smaller. After the Port Arthur Massacre of 1996 (30 deaths and 21 injuries) the gun death rate accelerated.

Due to this, John Howard Brought in a law to ban private ownership of certain guns. Many farmers and sports shooters were against the gun ban but after the Port Arthur Massacre the general public supported the gun control law. The gun control law was passed and gun owners gave up 643 726 prohibited firearms that costed the government over $320 million. Around 50 000 additional guns were handed in. The law stated that a person was only allowed a gun with a legitimate reason. Self defence was not a legitimate reason. A gun licence was usually given to farmers, hunters and gun sportsmen. His theory was that if a whole town or city had guns it would become less safe than if the town or city had no guns. The waterfront reform was one of John Howard’s most controversial policies. All Union workers were laid off their jobs around the waterside import areas. John Howard didn’t want blue-collar workers working the Australian exports anymore, so he laid them off. They were given a choice of leaving with nothing, or accepting a redundancy package.

The redundancies package offered a reasonable amount of money to support the workers until new jobs were found. The waterfront productivity took up 70% Of Australia’s imports and 78% of Australia’s exports. Totalled $60 billion. A survey done in 1997 showed that the original blue collar workers at the waterfronts made costs higher, made productivity lower, made unreliable services and poor handling. These statistics made John Howard want to confirm the waterfront reform even more and take it into action. The workplace relations act (also known as work choices) was a policy were the employer would be in more power than the employee. The employer could change wages, and fire an employee for the most minute of reasons. Of course almost all employees were against this policy. It was one of John Howard’s most unfair and unjust policies.

In the 2007 election the workplace relations policy was constantly talked about. John Howard and the Liberal party were still for it, but Kevin Rudd and the Labour party were against it. The Australian people ended up voting in Kevin Rudd for many reasons including the disproval of work choices. John Howard was a major figure in Australian Politics for over 11 years during the post world war 2 period. His influences on policies and laws have changed the way Australia is today. The controversy he has caused and decisions he has made will always be remembered as significant in Australian society. Bibliography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorkChoices
http://goaustralia.about.com/od/knowthepeople/a/johnhoward.htm Australian History yr 10 text book
http://www.skwirk.com.au/p-c_s-14_u-117_t-321_c-1096/john-howard/nsw/history/power-people-and-politics-in-the-post-war-period/prime-minister-and-policies-1972-today- http://www.c-l-a-s-s.net/prohibition.htm