Get the bucket. John Howard is back again for another round of historical revisionism:
“PRIME Minister John Howard was prepared for a “nuclear option” to ensure his historic gun reforms went through, as he faced strong push-back from Queensland, it can be revealed today.
The Howard Government endured a baptism of fire dealing with the deadly Port Arthur massacre, which changed the nation just eight weeks after its landslide election on March 2, 1996. Mr Howard has revealed that if the resistance had not abated, he would have conducted a referendum to transfer power from the states to the Commonwealth in order to progress the reforms.
Mr Howard came to power after 13 years of Labor and had inherited the $7.6 billion dollar “Beazley blackhole”, named after former finance minister and then Opposition leader Kim Beazley.
Radical plans to fix the budget were considered and discarded, including a 12- month time limit for people accessing the dole and cuts to the ABC and SBS so severe they would have required Triple J and Classic FM to be shut down.
But even 1996-97 Cabinet documents released today, after more than 20 years of secrecy, do not reveal the extent of the battle the fledgling Prime Minister faced to reform the nation’s gun laws and ban fully and semiautomatic weapons.
Mr Howard, speaking at the release of the documents, said he began thinking about national gun laws while he sat in Kirribilli House from the moment he received the “chilling” phone call from the Premier of Tasmania that gunman Martin Bryant had murdered 35 people.
Queensland provided the strongest push-back against the national gun laws put in place in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre on April 28, according to the former PM. While agreement was reached from the state police ministers at a meeting on May 10, 1996, Mr Howard said it was not a simple matter.
“There was genuine push- back from parts of the government in Queensland and from sections of the Cabinet in Western Australia,” he said.
“I felt if you weren’t prepared to chance your arm on something like this, well what’s the point of being in Government? We had to get the co-operation of the states absent the nuclear option and that was to have a referendum to transfer to power from the states to the Commonwealth. I think it would have been carried … (but) the states in the end were helpful.”
Despite Queensland resistance, Mr Howard praised then Premier Rob Borbidge for backing the gun reforms, despite it being partially credited with his 1998 election loss. “Rob Borbidge was very courageous … he paid the greatest price in my view of all in political terms,” he said.
In the 1998 election, One Nation won 11 seats in the Queensland parliament.
So in other words, we have a confession from a megalomaniac that wasn’t getting his own way and wanted states and individual rights’ overturned to get it. That pretty much sums him up.
The rest is nonsense from start to finish. Rob Borbridge had no option in the end and his capitulation resulted in the wipe out of the Nationals in Queensland, and John Howard hung on by the skin of his teeth in the 1998 election.
This release gives the entire game away. The National Firearms Agreement is a non-legally binding piece of loose policy and always has been. The states have always been free to ignore it and so they should. It has no constitutional binding or weight – it’s useless.
Fairfax also chimed in with this rubbish from Stephanie Peatling, where Howard continues the lie about how he “just thought about the law on the spot.” Cabinet documents released several years ago show that Labor tried to grab Australia’s guns first in 1991 (and even earlier at the state level in NSW and Victoria in 1987) He even freely admitted at the 20th anniversary of Port Arthur that he had the laws ready to go, he was just waiting for an opportunity to introduce them.
Howard knew he could not enforce his dictatorial will on the states, that’s why he subverted the constitution and held Queensland and Western Australia over a barrel until they complied, threatening them with the federal funding stick until they gave in.
At the time of publication the newly released Cabinet documents were not available, probably because the hard working Canberra public servants aren’t back from their 5 week Christmas holiday. When they do become available we will pour over them, however it’s not surprising they gave them to journalists in advance to run interference and turn it into the usual reverent wankfest we’ve heard for the past 22 years.
And it’s not a stretch to say a lot of the real juicy stuff has been memory holed.
What kind of sick society venerates someone who is prepared to trample on states and individual rights? This is a man who put a 30-year seal on Martin Bryant’s trial evidence and interfered in state politics to prevent the Port Arthur Inquiry from continuing.
Howard’s a weak man and always has been. Yet, there still is a cross section of the Australian populace who thinks he is the second coming – mainly the boomer generation who his policies greatly favoured. David Leyonhjelm penned a great piece a couple of years ago on the fake that Howard was, firearms aside. One could argue had he been PM in the age of social media and the internet, he likely would not have lasted more than one term.
Release the Port Arthur files like David Leyonhjelm requested or forever hold your peace John, but we all know you don’t have the courage to do that.
little Johnny Brown Jackboot is the nick i came up with for him. I was driving taxis when he brought it in and had a lot of complaints that were potentially violent about the GST so i called it Little Johnny Brown Jackboot and his Good Sex Tax. When asked why i called it that i said to customers “well he is a wanna be little dictator with his head so far up george bushes ass you can barely see his feet hence the brown jackboots, and he has a tax on everything else why not good sex as well. That regularly defused the situation especially early on before all the taximeters were changed over to be gst compliant.
as for the gun laws and in fact many other things as well he is a Traitor as are (sadly) ALL politicians since the time of gough whitlam. Even the ones that get in trying to do some good are by virtue of the documents they must sign to take their seat to try to do some good are in fact committing an act of treason against the people and the Constitution and do not become members of The Government of The Commonwealth of Australia but rather the corporate fiction THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT. What is missing from the latter…… we the people, the Common Wealth of the nation
I always called the GST: Grab, Snatch and Take!
the plan for the nfa was written in 1988. it sat idle till such time as there was a treasonous piece of shit in gubmint willing to enact it, and an event to scare the herd into allowing it.
Firearms and Violence in Australia
Compiled and written by Duncan Chappell,
Peter Grabosky, Paul Wilson and Satyanshu
Mukherjee….February 1988
ISSN 0817-8542. you’ll note on the last page, the recomendations are word for word what the lying rodent took to the police ministers conference and what was adopted as the nfa, and is the basis for the punitive, divisive and discriminatory bullshit we know as firearms legislation today. The principle being that “firearms ownership is a privelege, not a right”.
The vermin in gubmint obviously dont understand or accept that they dont have the power or authority to issue or retract rights. They can affect our ability to exercise our rights by punishing us and stealing our shit though, and history tells us unambiguously that weak, stupid and ineffectual politicians usually resort to that sort of shit. A pox on all of those who supported the lying rodent and its bastrdry.
1.2 million Americans killed every year by all these guns that are supposed to keep them safe. WAKE UP!
1.2 Million? where did you get that number?
You do realise that your number is 3 x the total US military deaths in World War 2 don’t you? that didn’t set off your BS meter when you read the number?
Even the renowned exaggerator Alpers puts the total gun deaths at less than 40,000 a year (keeping in mind that includes suicides, accidents, defensive shootings and justified police shootings).
The US also has a population 26 x the size of ours and major Gang, Drug and illegal Immigrant problems contributing to the numbers.
1.2million every year? WTF you getting those figures from. There are anywhere between 500,000 and 2,500,000 Defensive Gun Uses every year in most of which cases there are no shots fired. These stats were drawn up over 10 years ago by the CDC and buried because it did not show what they wanted it to show namely that typical law abiding shooters are criminal in waiting. Instead it showed the opposite. total deaths by firearms in the US each year are around 35,000. Of these 60% are suicides which if they had no access to firearms they would simply choose another method. Most of the rest are either accidents or homicides and over 90 percent of the homicides are in the cities with the greatest levels of gun control. where there is less gun control by govt also tend to be lower taxed and have far far fewer deaths per capita than those with lots of gun control. it matters not what way you look at it you are wrong in every aspect.
‘Anonymous’ made the figures up. He (or she) doesn’t want to have facts wreck his (or her) bullshit.
Fairfax and News Corp will be quoting ‘Anonymous’ as a credible source tomorrow.
I have heard that the ’96 gun laws were unconstitutional, but never why. I despise John Howard and his gun laws, and I’d like nothing better than to be able to say he violated the constitution in some way, but as yet I haven’t seen any legal arguments to support that claim.
All I know so far is that he did a sneaky end run around the constitution by threatening to withhold funding to states that didn’t pass the new laws.
It might have been despicable but it wasn’t unconstitutional, or if it was, I’ve never heard precisely why.
Please, can someone give me some reasons that directly reference our constitution as to why, precisely, Howard’s gun laws violated the constitution?
I’m sure I speak for others, too, when I say I’d be most grateful for some specifics on this.
I hate to say his name and that decrepit face but that man you mentioned (I mean that in a relative way for the sake of the English language,) didn’t seem to do anything constitutional: David Hicks, war in Iraq, taking away workers rights, work 4 dole… as well as what we talk about here…. I just hate that face… He really is an ugly old bastard! (I always hated his voice too. Yuck sounding.) We got to avoid posting his picture here I reckon! Yikes!!!
Des there are several reasons why the first is that the right to keep and bear was in our constitution via inherited Common Law. In the original constitution as enacted in 1901 there was a paragraph that expressly brought all the english common law built up since magna carta with it. Habeus Corpus and Bill of Rights 1689 were amongst all that . Bill of Rights 1689 was the key document for the right to keep and bear arms however that right was in a couple of the versions of magna carta as well though it only gave the right to catholics. Bill of Rights 1689 expanded it to everyone else. These paragraph that brought all of english common law with it has been quietly ommitted though i am not entirely sure when it was done but it was done without referendum as should have been the case.
Then in the 70’s when Gough was prime minister he turned the govt into a corporation called THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT. This is vastly different to what we had previously being The Government of The Commonwealth of Australia. Contrary to popular belief the Commonwealth had nothing to do with being in any way part of the British Empire but rather the “Commonwealth” referred to the Australian people. This means that previously the government had to listen to us when we spoke as they were our Re-Presentatives and could be held personally liable if they did not follow the will of the electorate in their voting in govt. Compare that to now where they are basically a “Board of Directors” with limited liability personally or collectively and elections are basically a farce and a parody of “We The Commonwealth” still having a say in govt. Before Gough at most in any given year there were 20 pieces of legislation brought before parliament, since there has been a minimum of about 500 in any given year. Remember every new law above the most basic laws removes in part at the very least part of our natural human rights and does nothing to protect us. All this means that our govt (even including the members that do get into politics to try to make things better for all australians) is sitting in treason against the people of australia just by the documents that they have to sign to take their seat in parliament, let alone any bad laws they may vote for that remove natural rights. We are also denied our right to veto these bad laws through the courts through jury nullification as well. Under our Common Law even a fine cannot be issued except by judge and jury. Do you ever really get to challenge a fine issued by the police when it is simply a magistrate that it goes before. A Magistrate is little more than a glorified JP in common law and a judge only has authority to hand down a fine or jail time AFTER a jury has delivered a guilty as charged verdict. Ajury can rule several ways, guilty and the law is just and justly applied, guilty but the law is unjust therefore not guilty (in which case the law is stricken from the books), guilty but while the law is just it has been unjustly applied in that case therefore not guilty though the law stays, or not guilty. none of those options are ever spoken about in todays courts and this was the way that Unjust and Traitorous laws were kept from our door.
sorry this has been so long
We are all being played, they don’t want us go have guns so we can’t fight back globalism.
John Howard one word “Dictatorship” thank god hes gone but why do the media still give this bloke air time why dosn’t he fade away please !
Utter Rubbish from Howard! Not only did he have prior knowledge of the Port Arthur massacre, he bloody well orchestrated it! So much evidence has come forward, implicating the Prime Traitor to the nation with his involvement, let alone his scheming up a way to set it up, his method of changing the laws against the Constitution, and his political lies to back himself up, and then his actions following it. Gun control and stripping the populace of their rights to armed self defence and indeed, removing property ownership was all part of the grub’s big plan, and that isn’t even covering the tip of his corrupt “iceberg”
“the boomer generation who his policies greatly favoured”? you must be joking we hate him with a passion plus 10%
110 % wanker…..
110 % SNOTBUCKET
110 % piece of Pelican SHIT
110 % brain dead
TOO MANY DISCREPANCIES WITHIN THIS IDIOTS CLAIMS GUN CONTROL AND ABOLITION………
MANY OF THE SUPPOSEDLY CLAIMS OF THE PORT ARTHUR MASSICAR BY THIS SHIT FOR BRAINS …..
PISS WEAK GUTTED SO CALLED PRIME MINISTER…….
WERE , OBVIOUSLY AND UNDOUBTEDLY FABRICATED…….
MOST DEFINITELY WORTH A READ…
THRUTH IS MIGHTY …..
AND MUST PREVAIL…..
LEST WE FORGET……