Howard, John Winston, Australian political leader

Howard, John Winston, 1939–, Australian political leader and prime minister (1996–), b. Sydney. A graduate of Sydney Univ., a conservative lawyer, and a member of the Liberal party, he was elected to parliament in 1974 and served as minister for business and consumer affairs (1975–77) and treasurer (1977–83) in the government of Malcolm Fraser Fraser, Malcolm (John Malcolm Fraser), 1930–, Australian political leader and prime minister (1975–83). A graduate of Oxford (1952), he entered the Australian parliament as a Liberal member in 1955.
..... Click the link for more information. . As head of the party (1985–89; 1995–), he has been an advocate of economic deregulation, smaller government, and other free-market reforms. He became prime minister in 1996, leading a Liberal-National party coalition and promising sweeping economic and labor reforms. He retained power after the 1998, 2001, and 2004, elections, becoming the third Australian prime minister to win four terms. He strongly supported retention of the British monarch as head of state in the 1999 referendum, has opposed a formal national apology for Australia's mistreatment of the aborigines, and has increased Australia's involvement in the Asia-Pacific region.

Howard, John Winston

(born July 26, 1939, Sydney, N.S.W., Austl.) Prime minister of Australia (1996–2007) and leader of the Liberal Party (1985–89, 1995– ). Howard became a solicitor to the New South Wales Supreme Court in 1962. In 1974 he was elected to Parliament as a member of the Liberal Party and served under Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser as minister for business and consumer affairs (1975–77) and as federal treasurer (1977–83). Howard became leader of the Liberal Party in 1985, but, after failing to unseat the Labor Party in 1987, he was defeated in his bid to retain leadership in 1989. He regained power in 1995 and engineered the defeat of Labor in the elections of March 1996. He was reelected in 1998, 2001, and 2004. In the 2007 general election, the Liberal Party was defeated by Labor, and Howard lost his seat in Parliament.