The Determined Future

This is our Prime Minister John Howard, launching a $1.5 billion plan for upgrading the army, boosting troops to 28,000. It was about three hours after he had got off a plane from Malaysia, where he had been to an East Asian Smmit - ASEAN. He was clearly relaxed, asking lots of questions of polite young soldiers, posing comfortably in state of the art tanks and all terrain vehicles. He has been in power for a decade now; a remarkable feat. It is a long time since I have seen him quite so jocular. It's been a busy year, and in many ways he is in the prime of his political career.

It was hot; and once again we were whited out in the historic Victoria Barracks building. Peripatetic. I myself felt physically worn out, over-tired, written out, emotionally scattered, just getting through to the end of the year. I thought I wasn't coping all that well and then looked around. No one else was either. Enough of 2005.

But Howard was beaming, relaxed, jovial, giving the media everything they wanted, dealing politely with everyone from the high to the low. The Liberal Party would be lost without him. His successor holids little hope of ever having the same level of rapport within a ceremonial event. Never happier than embraced with the forces; the fresh faced. ultra-fit, young soldiers who explained in great detail the new equipment. They all treated him with great respect. It's amazing to think that someone who began voting when they were 18 and is now 28 has never known another Prime Minister. It was fashionable to hate Howard, particularly in inner-city Sydney. I just went mute when they began their tirades. He was not that easy to dismiss.

We were part of the baby boomers, couldn't get around that. We came into political consciousness in the 1970s, which now seems like a distant, almost folksy time. Then, it was Vietnam. I just didn't believe in it, and with the ferment on Australia's university campuses at the time these were the issues of our day. Anything to the right was spawn of the devil stuff, while I had to fight off the Trotskyists in the vote for editor of the student union paper. Then after years of almost odd-ball Liberal Prime Ministers, Holt, who most mysteriously went swimming one afternoon off the coast of Victoria and vanished. McMahon, a furry, funny little man with a glamorous wife. In swept Gough Whitlam the grand Gough Whitlam who for years I thought was a great man.

Having survived the Family Court, which Whitlam created as a supposedly progressive institution and is now a Stalinesque nightmare; and having seen much of what he did turn to dust, he is no longer the great man to me. There could be no better example of institutionalised injustice. It disfigure the lives of those who come before it to this very day. But thanks to Gough I didn't go to Vietnam. No offense to the vets who are almost invariably a great bunch; though badly damaged some of them. I postponed it till I finished uni, by which time Whitlam was in and conscription was out.

And the most famous day in Australia's political history; 11 November 1975, when Whitlam was dismissed by the Governor General, Sir John Kerr. The nation was divided. We went to a concert at the Adelaide Arts Festival and the Governor General's party arrived late; and he was clearly tipsy as he always was, and along with a significant number of others I booed and I booed, even though I was there on free tickets, courtesy of someone who was clearly embarrassed by my behaviour.

The government entwined arts fraternity was always pissed. The pools and the late night parties, after the performance, whatever it was, in the Adelaide heat, were our own magic moment on the edge of a vast continent. Then you were cute and you only had to look mournful or lost to get anything you wanted. Which was usually to get pissed and have a good time. Now I'm 53. I never had any contingency plans to live this long.

The Whitlam years, regarded by some as the beginning of everything that was to go wrong in Australia, were like the breakup of an iceberg, dramatic if nothing else. Where were you when Whitlam was sacked? is a question you could only Ask Australians of my age group. I remember it exactly, partying with a group of intensely intertwined friends and a couple from university our gang had got thick with. The bloke was a big strapping handsome Aussie lad, but the woman was petite and blonde, American with a regular income in American dollars. We were all awestruck by the amount of food in her fridge. Going shopping with someone with an income was mind boggling. We never had any money.

Howard, arriving back from the apparently successful ASEAN meeting, and there on the well maintained lawns of the city's central barricks, making a major announcement which would keep him centre face on the domestic scene and competely within his comfort zone, seemed almost triumphant. There was always talk that Howard would retire. Why on earth would be? Industrial relations, terror, welfare to work and Telstra legislation, all major and difficult pieces of legislation, had all whistled through both the House of Representatives and the Senate, which after the last election the government now controlled.

As the ultimate political survivor he had been caught in the spotlights more than once. But here, he was announcing exactly what he wanted to announce: "I have to say on behalf of the Government that we will need to commit ever-increasing amounts to defence in the years ahead. Defence does not come cheaply, it should not come cheaply. We cannot send men and women into danger without giving them the best available equipment and giving them the best possible opportunities to defend themselves when danger confronts them. And that remains a very strong commitment and belief of the Government."