Win or lose, Howard has made his mark on Aus

SYDNEY: Win or lose in elections set for next month, Prime Minister John Howard has already made his mark on Australia as the second longest serving leader in its history.   

Over the course of nearly a dozen years he has won four elections, raised Australia's international profile and presided over a booming economy, and is seeking a fifth term in office on November 24.   

But while friend and foe agree the conservative leader has reshaped their country, they remain bitterly divided over his legacy.   

"John Howard must go down as one of Australia's most successful prime ministers," Gerard Henderson, political commentator and head of the Sydney Institute think-tank, told.   

"He's made an important contribution to (developing) one of the strongest and most competitive economies in the world.   

"And on the social agenda Howard has been able to establish greater patriotic feeling in Australia, a feeling that we are a successful nation and we should focus more on our successes than our failures."   

But Howard's critics say he has won elections by playing on base prejudices, has made the country a lackey of the United States and that China's hunger for Australian resources rather than his skill has driven the economy.   

"Howard has been the master of so-called 'dog-whistle' politics -- giving people permission to indulge their prejudices without ever quite saying so," said social commentator and author Hugh Mackay.   

"Under Howard, we have become less compassionate, less tolerant and more uninhibited in the expression of ethnic and religious prejudice." 

Howard's third election victory in 2001 has been attributed to his refusal to allow more than 400 mostly Afghan refugees to enter the country after they were rescued from a sinking ship by the Norwegian vessel the Tampa.   

While the move on the eve of the election proved popular with voters who had appeared ready to ditch him, it drew severe criticisim internationally and hurt perceptions of Australia in the rest of the world, analysts say.   

"On things like refugees the opinion makers around the world think Australia has taken steps back under Howard," said Wayne Errington, co-author of a biography on the prime minister published this year.   

"Internationally this government is seen to be not just conservative but possibly reactionary and somewhat racist, and Australia's international standing has been damaged," Deakin University's Damien Kingsbury told.   

Australia's international profile during Howard's term in office has also been raised by his strong support for US President George W. Bush's "war on terror", including the deployment of troops to both Iraq and Afghanistan.   

But while he is hailed for this by some Australians who say he has won greater respect for this country, he is branded by others as a "deputy sheriff" of the US who sent troops to an unjust war in Iraq.   

Howard himself has said he believes the greatest achievement of his government has been to develop "the strength, in a broad way of the Australian nation.   

"It is of course economic strength but our sense of our confidence, our self respect, our sense of our place in the world, all of those things are much stronger now," he said.   

Howard rejects charges he has neglected relations with Asia in favour of old allies in Britain and the United States, saying building ties with China has been one of his priorities.   

"I never sought to downgrade our emphasis on Asia," he said in an interview marking his tenth anniversary in office.   

"What I did set out to do was to reinvigorate our relationships with what I would call our traditional friends and allies: the US, the UK, etc," he said.   

Domestically, Howard has presided over Australia's longest postwar boom, with unemployment reaching record lows while property and stock markets soared.   

In 2005 he became the most powerful Australian leader in a generation when his Liberal-National coalition took control of the senate, giving it a majority in both houses of parliament.   

This allowed Howard to push through long-cherished but controversial labour law reforms cutting the power of the unions, which had previously been blocked by the upper house.   

Errington said that Howard views the reforms as a major achievement of his premiership, but the opposition Labor has made winding them back a central plank of its campaign -- and it holds a commanding lead in the opinion polls.