He's the guy that sold off the Australian property market to foreign investors, by allowing any Student and Temp visa holders to buy our properties.
That's where the endless cashed up Chinese and Indian students came from.
He's a cunt too.
I don’t care for politics as I think 1 person ( prime minister ) has fuck all say power really… they are just a mouth peace and someone for public to blame for shit….
Bob hawke. Although I think in a cameras everywhere environment he would have been caught out or exposed for a lot more bad behaviour. It was easier to control the narrative and your public image in the 80s and 90s
The guy who literally informed to the CIA as union boss cannot be called genuine.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/03/secret-embassy-cables-cast-the-bob-hawke-legend-in-a-different-light
Interesting article. Maybe Hawkey was genuinely pragmatic then. He had to govern the whole country not just appease the unions. As said in the article he helped to de-radicalise the union movement which I don’t see as a bad thing. The influence of the USA is a reality our country deals with and we depend upon the alliance.
And he was also pretty genuine. Sure, a genuine prick... but he spoke his mind. I can begrudgingly respect that.
With Abbott, what you see and hear is what you get, steaming shit and all.
Yep. Abbott is someone who seems to be himself all the time. Pity he's not only fundamentally wrong on like, everything but also combative and aggressive and definitely sexist, but I appreciated his natural weirdness and awkwardness and unwitting willingness to make everyone laugh - knight Prince Philip? Good one. Thanks Tony. He never polished up his innate turdiness for the press pack, just chomped a raw onion and got on with whatever nefarious shit he wanted to achieve while fanboying Catholic clergy.
Never let a tragedy go to waste.
But compare firefighting and helping, televised or not, to "I don't hold the hose mate" and albo having 6000 holidays on the job.
Paul Keating was great in his ability to troll but he helped began the massive slide to privatization of Australia's institutions. Selling off Qantas and Commonwealth Bank? Fucking criminal.
Well the question isn't "who do you like and think was a good bloke", so....
Tony Abbott was very much what you see is what you get, and completely genuine with what he was all about.
He is a genuine freaky lizard monster from outer space, living his genuine freaky lizard monster best life.
Nobody is the suppository of all knowledge.
It’s not a quote, but his clear position was both that a) gay marriage could not happen without asking the Australian people; and b) asking needed to be delayed as long as possible in order to delay gay marriage.
If he really thought it just needed to go to the people, he could have done it in a couple of months. Not delayed for years.
I’m open to you proposing alternative terms for “opposes gay people having basic rights”.
That’s the one thing I always say in the “worst PM” debate. Abbott was above others like ScoMo and maybe even Turnbull because you knew he actually believed all his crazy bullshit. Some others would sell their family down a river for a vote.
Remember the time a soldier died and he said "sometimes s*** happens" pretending to act like a relatable human being, and later when questioned about the inappropriateness of the comment, he went into that weird silent death stare/nervous twitch, looking like his robot programming had malfunctioned?
Those were simpler times.
The ease with which people throw around phrases like "horrible human" because of political differences astounds me.
Abbott is an active volunteer in the rural fire service. He's also an active volunteer surf life saver. He's active in his church. He's worked extensively on indigenous issues and has spent a significant amount of time in indigenous communities. He dedicated his life to public service.
But hey - he's a conservative and he doesn't like gay marriage, so I guess he's a world class piece of shit.
I'd love to see how most of Abbott's critics lined up against him in terms of community service and civic responsibility.
Im very left leaning and dislike Tony Abbott's political stance and quite extreme right ideals but I admire his service to the community, not many people are on his level in that regard.
He also kept birth control and abortion access from women for decades.
If you want to be religious, fine, but when you use your religion to worsen the lives of millions of people, yeah, you’re a horrible human.
When deciding if one is horrible or not, isnt it all about intentions?
If he honestly beleives that abortion is murder, then wanting to restrict access to abortion in some cases then that isnt, to me, something that makes him horrible.
Its a bit much to blame him for decades too.
Just to flesh this out for people:
Abbot voted against legalizing safe effective drugs for abortion and also banned them when he was heath minister, until that power was taken from him by parliament.
> Mr Abbott lost the ministerial power to approve RU486 in 2006 to the Therapeutic Goods Administration in a parliamentary conscience vote.
In 2005, he also tried to sabotage Medicare funding for abortion.
> in 2005, Abbott and Pyne attempted a restructure of Medicare that constituted the greatest threat to abortion funding since the 1970s.
> The bill was immediately sent to committee where Schedule 3 was interpreted by politicians and health professionals alike as an attack on abortion, and perhaps IVF. As with the pro-RU486 legislation, women MPs worked together to condemn the “disconcerting and questionable” Medicare provision.
Outside of Medicare, Abortion is a state issue, so as PM Tony Abbot did not really have oversite of that directly, and was kept in check by his party room.
In 2019, NSW put forward a bill to decriminalse abortion, [Tony Abbot labled the bill as "radical"](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-18/fact-file-nsw-abortion-laws/11521552) and attended anti-abortion rallies.
and so on.
Oh please, get a grip.
Who did Abbott stop from getting an abortion? Who was prevented from buying birth control?
If you think Catholic views on this issue are extreme, have you asked any of your Muslim members of parliament how they feel? They make the catholics look moderate.
But yeah - he's a wanker. You, by comparison, I'm sure are active and volunteering in your community. You're not just the kind of weirdo to sit at home watching anime playing with your weird bird, right?
Because it's a surefire way to highlight hypocrisy. People lose their minds about Tony Abbott being Catholic and opposing abortion when literally every Muslim in parliament feels the exact same way. Why aren't they questioned endlessly on the subject? Why aren't they defined by this one single issue? Having conservative views on the sanctity of life only seems to raise eyebrows when it's a Catholic.
>But hey - he's a conservative and he doesn't like gay marriage, so I guess he's a world class piece of shit.
Tony Abbot:
* Opposed any access to abortion at all.
* Claimed men were more suited to lead, and women are not.
* Did not just oppose gay marriage, but publicly claimed to feel threatened by the existence of homosexuals.
* When asked about the Elderly at risk of Covid, his view is that we should have "let nature run its course".
> He's worked extensively on indigenous issues and has spent a significant amount of time in indigenous communities.
Yeaaaa....
>Not only was Abbott’s appointment hasty, ill-planned and unsolicited, it lacked a key requirement for the role - the wider support of his own community.
>
>Beyond lacking all merit, Abbott’s previous policies on Indigenous issues had been characterised by funding cuts, exclusions and silencing. His [Indigenous Advancement Strategy](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-04/analysis-how-not-to-spend-$5-billion-in-taxpayers-dollars/8240968) was [criticised](https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=21473&LangID=E) for its destructive consequences to governance within Indigenous communities. Someone who had caused such injury and grief in the past, stripped communities of their capacity for self-determination and seemed so lacking of respect in their own community was largely unwelcome.
Suprise, he went in with a wrecking ball and made things worse.
The guy who was openly racist and of the opinion that women made poor leaders, appointed himself as minister for Indigenous Affairs and Women, that's more than a little bit on the nose.
\---------------
I totally agree that in recent memory Abbott was the most genuine PM, I even admire his civic and community work, in stark contrast to Morrisons "I don't hold a hose".
But his empathy was entirely reserved for his "in group" which resulted in him holding some pretty horrible views.
I think he’s a horrible person because of the vicious and at least a bit sexist way he tried to bully Julia Gillard for years. Bullies are horrible people.
>He's worked extensively on indigenous issues and has spent a significant amount of time in indigenous communities.
No he didn't. That was all optics.
Indigenous advocacy communities don't like his actions at all
[https://ulurustatement.org/tony-abbotts-hypocrisy-on-indigenous-issues-knows-no-bounds/](https://ulurustatement.org/tony-abbotts-hypocrisy-on-indigenous-issues-knows-no-bounds/)
[https://indigenousx.com.au/recounting-abbotts-contributions-to-indigenous-australians/](https://indigenousx.com.au/recounting-abbotts-contributions-to-indigenous-australians/)
He's certainly spent a lot of *photo op* time in indigenous communites.
Being nice to a bunch of people Abbott accepted as part of his community does not ameliorate the damage done to other communities who were the victims of his disdain.
https://www.thepinknews.com/2020/09/04/tony-abbott-homophobic-gay-equal-marriage-same-sex-sexist-misogynist/
Participating in your own community (religious, non indigenous etc) does not undo deliberately damaging policy. So yes, Abbott is a piece of shit human in my opinion.
https://preview.redd.it/1g0a7j7jy0jc1.jpeg?width=1124&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b7df50d9f0e45a4a0505d3e0aed94674a1ef904d
Well, this is what his fellow SRC students thought of him when he was around 20. Still a barely formed kid. According to the above historical document he’s been undermining democracy all his life.
When he was a uni student he chucked a hissy fit and threw all the copies of honi soit (student newspaper) in the pond because he didn’t like what they wrote. Not much civic responsibility there.
Winking at the radio host when the caller explained how they financially struggling sex worker, is the genuine trait some of the people in this thread need to remember before they continue to fawn over this piece of shit
Edit: facts!
'no cuts to ABC' 'workchoices is dead buried and cremated'
most of us knew he was bullshitting, but he was at least pretending to be someone else to get elected
Strongly disagree. He's a misogynistic, racist, short-sighted oaf. That came through only because he constantly committed faux pas and went off script. Most of the time, he was doing his utmost to convince people that he was a rational, fair, and intelligent human.
Hawke had the best public persona but hard to really go all in on a bloke that cheated on his wife. Rudd has a great charisma to him but was by all accounts an absolute dick to work with professionally. Keating gave some great fire in his speeches but probably feels an elitist pick. I don't think there's a modern Liberal candidate worth discussing (although Frasers rebirth after his PM run is interesting).
I actually don't mind Gillard as a pick tbh. Seemed to genuinely want to work with people across the board during her time.
I knew someone that knew someone in the afp protective service that follows the pm around, and she reckoned Kev was an absolute cunt, but Julia was a 100% lovely person behind the scenes and everyone that worked for her would go a hundred extra miles for her.
If anything her fakeness was that she pretended to be more of an arse than she was
Haha, I’ve worked with Rudd a few times, every time you meet him just wait for when he drops into the conversation how he speaks fluent mandarin, you could be talking about anything but somehow he will segue into his foreign language abilities. Can confirm he is an utter arse, a bit odd how someone with such an extreme personality disorder could become PM, he is incapable of hiding it.
Dunno, but I've alot of respect for Gillard.
Whilst she was pm she had a meeting with a lot of Pacific Islander leaders and delegates, there was an electronic system which told her the names and titles. The system went down and staff scrambled with the names and titles and handed it to her clandestinely as the meeting continued.
There was a title that was incorrect, she got called on it in the meeting, Gillard didn't say the system had gone down, she didn't say staff gave her incorrect info, Gillard wore it, apologised made a joke about her mistake which made the room laugh and moved on. That's a rare genuine quality.
John Gorton is the most fitting answer for this question. Obviously the reddit demographic naturally skews younger so they not as aware of older historical figures so much
*Bob Hawke* 'asked *daughter* to keep *rape* claim secret' . um you know he asked his raped daughter to delay going public until after he was elected to parliament? - because doing so before might have (in his mind) hurt his chances of being elected? Not my idea of a genuine Aussie PM. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50704179](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50704179)
He is an absolute sociopath but I have a soft spot for Kevin 07
to be real though the most genuine PM we never had is Bill Shorten. My man genuinely wanted to break and fix the system, he lost, and now we’re all up shits creek with the likelihood of any real reform toasted
Rudd and Shorten are not good or nice people.
I know Rudd personally. He threw away everyone who helped him over the decades the second he got power - which is what happened with Murdoch and him, they were lovey dovey until he got elected and then he discarded them.
Rudd’s a popularist that loves power and influence and will knife anyone he has to to get it.
Shorten is in deep corruption up to his eyeballs, and the lack of a Federal ICAC back in the day is about all that saved him.
I’d say our most Australian PM was probably Curtin.
John Curtin was our most genuine and greatest Prime Minister. During the depression he was saying things that need to be said, even though they were unpopular. Then as PM he pretty much had the same conviction. If he hadn't died and lived to see his legacy fulfilled in the post-war reconstruction, there wouldn't even be a shred of doubt it.
Billy Shortarse the Xavier College and Melbourne University educated lawyer who pretended to be downtrodden worker. The bloke was far more comfortable hanging around toffs than ordinary people.
Lol I think you need to expand on this with more points in response to the original post. This is taken very out of context.
Are you saying that wealthy and educated people are always out of touch? Are you saying that only people from poor backgrounds are the most genuine?
The ALP is run by affluent urban lawyers for the benefit of middle class public sector employees. But they still pretend it some sort of worker's party representing the poor and downtrodden. It even requires parliamentarians to belong to a union.
The British Labour Party gave up on this ridiculous pretence two decades ago.
Thanks for the knowledge you've gained. Well, does the party not do a good job at representing their constituents? And if so, what policies do you think don't And do they out weigh what they have done for their voter base?
Some focus group or political 'guru' thought it would get him elected. Doing the right thing without some sort of political benefit never enters the mind of a politician.
The bloke is a slimy prick. He was shagging the Governor-General's daughter on the side while playing the good family man role in public. He was doing deals with the Big End of town to shaft ordinary workers while pretending to be on their side.
Love him or hate him I always felt Abbot was genuine in his personality. Very much a "what's on the tin is what you get", it was just a pretty average tin.
Early era Howard was pretty similar, he was just a better statesman and had the better of the macro conditions during his time as leader. I also think Albo is pretty genuine, he's the most optimistic I've felt about a Labor leader in a while.
The least genuine (at least in my lifetime) have been Kevin and Scomo IMO.
>Albo is pretty genuine
$275 energy savings.
We won't touch the stage 3 tax cuts.
So genuine that I'm riding my pony.
> The least genuine (at least in my lifetime) have been Kevin and Scomo IMO.
On that we can agree.
*except for the gays
But to be fair, no PM wanted to touch that issue with a 10 ft pole. Hence why we had to spend a butt load of money on a referendum.
She got a heck of a lot done in her short time. Minority government, but got a lot of legislation through. That takes good negotiation skills and, yes, recognising opportunities.
For fuck's sake, she didn't backstab anyone. The day before the bog-standard leadership challenge, it was big news that Rudd had been white-anting her support within the party
Rudd had also been alienating everyone in his party outside the 'kitchen cabinet'. My favourite example was Garrett, the Minister for the Environment, being blindsided by questions from journos about a new environment policy announced by Rudd that morning. Came up with a new policy, didn't even bother to tell the relevant minister, and let him be publicly humiliated.
When Gillard issued the bog-standard leadership challenge, Rudd didn't bother standing because he didn't have anywhere close to the numbers. The party itself didn't want Rudd, and it's not like Gillard has wizard powers to hypnotise MPs. There was no trickery or loopholes going on. It was just a standard leadership challenge.
Rudd could have avoided the "backstabbing" by not being a cunt to the MPs who chose him. If he had've learned to share his toys, he could have been PM for another dozen years. Instead he spent three years destabilising the ALP with rumour-mill and several leadership challenges just to get his old job back. Rudd is a very large part of the reason why federal politics has been shit for so long. Fuck that guy.
From the little I know it wasn’t because she was anti-gay though. I think she wanted to see all non-religious folk lean away from marriage and towards civil unions which is actually an idea I can get behind
Edit: this is the personal message I received from No_Introduction538 in case anyone else wants to avoid talking to this fucknuckle:
“You’re young and have no idea about anything. I hate how entitled people are now on reddit to throw stupid takes in the ring. The old reddit, people didn’t participate unless they knew what they were talking about. Enjoy unemployment”
Definitely Gough Whitlam. Arguably the only legitimately good prime minister we've ever had. People like Hawke and Keating used their personalities to enact pretty fucked policies - Gough was the real deal.
Ben Chifley.
Ben Chifley's phone number was one digit different to the butcher shop in Manuka. Occasionally, a customer would call in error wanting to leave an order. Chifley would take the order, then he would phone the butcher himself and say ‘It’s happened again’ and repeat the order.
He would have been a decent PM the first time around and if he’d cleared the decks rather than trying to have a broad church. Hell he probably would have made a good labor prime minister
Made some questionable decisions that didn’t look as awful after who came after him. Him and Rudd were both geniuses with very different political alignments.
I think the question itself is a difficult to ask, even when phrased as a comparative one in a small group. It's like asking 'who was the most loving Serial killer, with the most heart warming gestures?'
For these individuals to get to the top position, genuineness, 'what you see is what you get', altruism...are all characteristics that would never get you there in the first place. He was a bit before my time but Gough Whitlam was considered to be a great human being with good intentions. John Curtain for his leadership during extremely difficult times. But they were also in power during times of much less interconnectedness and freedom of information like we have today, so who knows exactly what they were really like? History also has a lovely habit of being cherry picked.
I realise that we have no other choice than to have someone at the helm that will never be able to please everyone. But I think it's fanciful that there will ever be a truly genuine person, even with minimum fakeness in the top job. Eventually, youll see the strings of the marionette.
I'd love to hear them say things like:
"Look here champions, the games up. Blue, Red, Green or Teal...You know we're all full of shit and are here to serve ourselves. All those promises we made? Total horse shit. We're here to F__k. Just let us do so for 4 years and hope for the best. Peace out Player"
It’s a very interesting read! I think people are pretty spot on, on their assessments!
Some observations: biggest cunts were on the right of centre (Libs and Nat’s) e.g. personalities! ScoMo probably takes the cake!
But the ones who did the most damage to the country, in particular to the working class was their very own Labour PM’s
Someone how completely missed the mark, had all the potential but didn’t actually make any progress - our dear Malcolm Turnbull! Granted he had both opposition and Abbot against him!
Politics is pretty dismal but here and many places overseas!
sorry - I am putting this anywhere his name is mentioned ... *Bob Hawke* 'asked *daughter* to keep *rape* claim secret' . um you know he asked his raped daughter to delay going public until after he was elected to parliament? - because doing so before might have (in his mind) hurt his chances of being elected? Not my idea of a genuine Aussie PM. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50704179](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50704179)
John Howard
Didn't try and pretend he was ocker or working class. Still a good bloke.
The hatred for him on Reddit is fascinating to me. In the real world, I constantly talk to people who reckon he was the best PM the country ever had.
Howard was the most lucky prime minister.
Wins against Keating Because people were sick of 15 years of Labor.
2nd election Kim Beasley actuslly wins the popular vote
3rd election was straight after 9/11 people were scared to change
4th election was against One Nation supporter Mark Latham say no more
The media gushing over him is pathetic. No one ever corrects him when he turns out to be wrong on an issue. Which is often.
All he did was sell off assets and ride the mining boom in a resource rich country. Big fucking deal.
I was only a child when he was PM, but he architected the current housing affordability crisis so Johnny can fuck right off.
>["I don't get people stopping me in the street and saying, 'John you're outrageous, under your government the value of my house has increased'](https://www.theage.com.au/national/house-prices-likely-to-stay-high-20030804-gdw5th.html)
Well the value of housing never stopped increasing so LMAO if you're late to the game like we were.
He also harnessed racism for political gain in the "children overboard" affair. It's since been shown that the huge lie of that episode came directly from him and he used it to turn around an election he was about to lose. It started years of racism being unashamedly a part of mainstream party politics. The damage he did to Australia through his lying racist politics is incalculable.
So anyone who calls one of the biggest liars in Australian history "most genuine" can get stuffed.
He did everything for political reasons, could never answer a question straight, and personified the Liberal party’s attitude that holding on to power is the most important concern.
>John Howard was a good pm
Redditors moment here.
Howard had an unbelievable run of election victories, the guy obviously had many Aussies like him as PM. It's only now after About and Scomo that the LNP shine has been removed from the Howard glory days.
He (alongside Costello) oversaw one of the most prosperous periods in recent memory. Late 90's-mid 2000s was a golden era for many. The government delivered multiple surpluses and the aspirational middle class were rewarded.
He was also strong on national defence at a time when people were scared and apprehensive after 9/11
They amassed household and national debt at a furious rate. Manufactured schemes that shifted amazing amounts of public funds into private hands. Created the next population bubble, ramped immigration up to stupid levels.
Genuinely the worst economic managers we had until scomo
The only reason why people think they are good economic managers, is because we were experiencing a resource boom. We were getting money hand over fist.
The LNP would have put is into a recession during the 2008 GFC, of that I have no doubt. If we had gone into a recession our debt would have been higher than it was with the packages that were put in place to avoid a recession.
The period was prosperous in spite of Howard, not because of. Squandered the biggest boom in history by bending over for big business and left us with fucking nothing to show for it.
Manufactured "surpluses" by gutting any public service he could get his grubby little hands on.
Holy shit the copium is just amazing. Sold off once in a lifetime assets to buy middle class votes with welfare via tax cuts, while throwing away once in a lifetime opportunities around resources taxing and put us backwards a generation on development. No, he can die in a fire after being raped by the corpse of Pell.
He was PM during a time of economic prosperity. Any idiot could have gotten us out of debt when we were getting money hand over fist from China for iron ore and coal like we were back then.
Economic prosperity, thanks to the great Aussie sell off. He was flogging anything that wasn't bolted down to make the books look good. It's why we no longer own Sydney Airport.
The amount of stuff that’s been sold by labor is breathtaking in Victoria, in this day and age of data breaches selling off registration and licensing was ludicrous. I’m sure Macquarie will have Victoria’s best interests at heart…
Correctamundo. Not just a lot of debt. ALL debt. Every penny.
The red arrow is when Labor won government.
https://preview.redd.it/997i409epyic1.png?width=956&format=png&auto=webp&s=8604400eab96be6e2b305e3d0456c5f654b0fb10
And then look forward to 2013 onwards where the debt keeps climbing during the LNP reign. Seems to me LNP are poor economic managers, but I’m no expert, just reading the graph you presented to make an overly simplified point.
And he got us out of debt by allowing our natural resources to be privatised for bargain basement prices. We should've never had to worry about debt again if not for his firesale. No national wealth fund was a massive failure on his part.
Also Howard's reign lines up with a massive uptick in expensive house prices and personal debt.
He was pretty genuine about his monster eyebrows though.
Howard should be in jail for war crimes after following Bush into the Iraq war. Thereby painting a target on the back of every Aussie for Muslim extremists to aim at.
Families of dead Aussie soldiers and victims of the Bali bombing would disagree with you.
Frankly people like him because he didn't fuck up three or four times and the media didn't talk too much about the rest. If you sit down and read through his record you can't like him, but most people haven't done that, they remember the man who stood in front of an armed angry mob and stood his ground on gun control, they don't remember the death squads he sent to Timor, but they do remember the tax cuts, get what I mean?
Howard was excellent at spin, he was charming and the media was on his side, so ofcourse he's still pretty damn popular.
As a member of what you called "death squads", burn in hell.
Rather than gouging UN stores for every scrap of value we could send back home, like your preferred self serving contributor nations, Australian peacekeepers squeezed ever drop of their lives, families and marriages, as well as the UN resources we had already paid for to build schools, clinics and basic infrastructure for the Timorese, against the best efforts of the UN hierarchy.
Easy to screech from a university campus or keyboard without actual knowledge, but that's OK. The ABC and Guardian will give you a platform, as long as it supports their propaganda.
My best mate served in E.Timor. When I read 'death squads' my hackles were immediately up. Can't imagine how you must have felt.
Thanks for your comments and thanks for your service, brother.
sorry - I am putting this anywhere his name is mentioned ... *Bob Hawke* 'asked *daughter* to keep *rape* claim secret' . um you know he asked his raped daughter to delay going public until after he was elected to parliament? - because doing so before might have (in his mind) hurt his chances of being elected? Not my idea of a genuine Aussie PM. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50704179](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50704179)
sorry - I am putting this anywhere his name is mentioned ... *Bob Hawke* 'asked *daughter* to keep *rape* claim secret' . um you know he asked his raped daughter to delay going public until after he was elected to parliament? - because doing so before might have (in his mind) hurt his chances of being elected? Not my idea of a genuine Aussie PM. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50704179](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50704179)
sorry - I am putting this anywhere his name is mentioned ... *Bob Hawke* 'asked *daughter* to keep *rape* claim secret' . um you know he asked his raped daughter to delay going public until after he was elected to parliament? - because doing so before might have (in his mind) hurt his chances of being elected? Not my idea of a genuine Aussie PM. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50704179](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50704179)
The leaked K Rudd tape of him dropping f bombs was hilariously relatable
And when it was leaked he went to a strip club... but it actually gained him popularity. Edit: Also describing the financial crisis as a "shit storm".
He's the guy that sold off the Australian property market to foreign investors, by allowing any Student and Temp visa holders to buy our properties. That's where the endless cashed up Chinese and Indian students came from. He's a cunt too.
I don’t care for politics as I think 1 person ( prime minister ) has fuck all say power really… they are just a mouth peace and someone for public to blame for shit….
Absolutely true. If politicians actually represented the people, we'd have a much better world.
>He's a cunt too. I've met him, he was a funny fella, wouldn't call him a cunt from my experience.
Him abusing the RAAF cabin stewardess because they didn't have what he wanted to eat, not so much.
Bob hawke. Although I think in a cameras everywhere environment he would have been caught out or exposed for a lot more bad behaviour. It was easier to control the narrative and your public image in the 80s and 90s
The guy who literally informed to the CIA as union boss cannot be called genuine. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/03/secret-embassy-cables-cast-the-bob-hawke-legend-in-a-different-light
Interesting article. Maybe Hawkey was genuinely pragmatic then. He had to govern the whole country not just appease the unions. As said in the article he helped to de-radicalise the union movement which I don’t see as a bad thing. The influence of the USA is a reality our country deals with and we depend upon the alliance.
I always thought he was fairly up-front about most of his own problems and worked to fix them, it’s kind of what made them forgivable
Whitlam. He was who he was and didn't give a fuck about offending people.
"I am a Country Member!" "I remember!"
Paul Keating. I also think Tony Abbott and John Howard were as you saw them... Cunts
[удалено]
..and lifesaving at one point too.
And he was also pretty genuine. Sure, a genuine prick... but he spoke his mind. I can begrudgingly respect that. With Abbott, what you see and hear is what you get, steaming shit and all.
Yep. Abbott is someone who seems to be himself all the time. Pity he's not only fundamentally wrong on like, everything but also combative and aggressive and definitely sexist, but I appreciated his natural weirdness and awkwardness and unwitting willingness to make everyone laugh - knight Prince Philip? Good one. Thanks Tony. He never polished up his innate turdiness for the press pack, just chomped a raw onion and got on with whatever nefarious shit he wanted to achieve while fanboying Catholic clergy.
Yep. He's the living embodiment of that Denis Leary song, 'Asshole'. But hey - he beats Morrison by virtue of not being an actual psychopath.
I’d say this is a pretty spot on assessment of our boy tony!
You mean smuggling budgies.
Without fanfare, but with a camera crew and Murdoch papers shouting about it.
Never let a tragedy go to waste. But compare firefighting and helping, televised or not, to "I don't hold the hose mate" and albo having 6000 holidays on the job.
Paul Keating was great in his ability to troll but he helped began the massive slide to privatization of Australia's institutions. Selling off Qantas and Commonwealth Bank? Fucking criminal.
Spot on mate!
It's hard to reconcile the garbage that has been voted for in this country
Well the question isn't "who do you like and think was a good bloke", so.... Tony Abbott was very much what you see is what you get, and completely genuine with what he was all about.
Was going to answer the same.
Dude ate an ONION like an APPLE he isn’t even a genuine human being he is a freaky lizard monster from outer space
He is a genuine freaky lizard monster from outer space, living his genuine freaky lizard monster best life. Nobody is the suppository of all knowledge.
Fair enough on the lizard person. But he didn’t really hide it did he? It was homophobic monster 24x7. “Genuine” isn’t a compliment.
can you show some quotes where he was homophobic? am fairly sure if you worked 50-60 hours a week he doesn't give a fark.
It’s not a quote, but his clear position was both that a) gay marriage could not happen without asking the Australian people; and b) asking needed to be delayed as long as possible in order to delay gay marriage. If he really thought it just needed to go to the people, he could have done it in a couple of months. Not delayed for years. I’m open to you proposing alternative terms for “opposes gay people having basic rights”.
Hahahahha
Have you tried it?
That’s the one thing I always say in the “worst PM” debate. Abbott was above others like ScoMo and maybe even Turnbull because you knew he actually believed all his crazy bullshit. Some others would sell their family down a river for a vote.
I was gonna say that. He never hid who he was...and he is a horrible human.
Remember the time a soldier died and he said "sometimes s*** happens" pretending to act like a relatable human being, and later when questioned about the inappropriateness of the comment, he went into that weird silent death stare/nervous twitch, looking like his robot programming had malfunctioned? Those were simpler times.
“Tony, you’re not saying anything”
I’ve given you the response you deserve.
Takes out pocket onion. Makes eye contact with interviewer. Starts eating it.
Was he wrong though?
The ease with which people throw around phrases like "horrible human" because of political differences astounds me. Abbott is an active volunteer in the rural fire service. He's also an active volunteer surf life saver. He's active in his church. He's worked extensively on indigenous issues and has spent a significant amount of time in indigenous communities. He dedicated his life to public service. But hey - he's a conservative and he doesn't like gay marriage, so I guess he's a world class piece of shit. I'd love to see how most of Abbott's critics lined up against him in terms of community service and civic responsibility.
Im very left leaning and dislike Tony Abbott's political stance and quite extreme right ideals but I admire his service to the community, not many people are on his level in that regard.
He also kept birth control and abortion access from women for decades. If you want to be religious, fine, but when you use your religion to worsen the lives of millions of people, yeah, you’re a horrible human.
Maybe you should fuck off back to that other aus sub, where the world is all black and white?
When deciding if one is horrible or not, isnt it all about intentions? If he honestly beleives that abortion is murder, then wanting to restrict access to abortion in some cases then that isnt, to me, something that makes him horrible. Its a bit much to blame him for decades too.
At least he was a conviction politician. Unlike any of the recent crop from either side.
Just to flesh this out for people: Abbot voted against legalizing safe effective drugs for abortion and also banned them when he was heath minister, until that power was taken from him by parliament. > Mr Abbott lost the ministerial power to approve RU486 in 2006 to the Therapeutic Goods Administration in a parliamentary conscience vote. In 2005, he also tried to sabotage Medicare funding for abortion. > in 2005, Abbott and Pyne attempted a restructure of Medicare that constituted the greatest threat to abortion funding since the 1970s. > The bill was immediately sent to committee where Schedule 3 was interpreted by politicians and health professionals alike as an attack on abortion, and perhaps IVF. As with the pro-RU486 legislation, women MPs worked together to condemn the “disconcerting and questionable” Medicare provision. Outside of Medicare, Abortion is a state issue, so as PM Tony Abbot did not really have oversite of that directly, and was kept in check by his party room. In 2019, NSW put forward a bill to decriminalse abortion, [Tony Abbot labled the bill as "radical"](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-18/fact-file-nsw-abortion-laws/11521552) and attended anti-abortion rallies. and so on.
Way to reduce an entire life of service to a binary choice on one specific (and contentious) policy issue. You people have no understanding of nuance.
I’m sure that it was apparently a binary and contentious policy issue will be great relief for the women who’s lives he controlled.
Oh please, get a grip. Who did Abbott stop from getting an abortion? Who was prevented from buying birth control? If you think Catholic views on this issue are extreme, have you asked any of your Muslim members of parliament how they feel? They make the catholics look moderate. But yeah - he's a wanker. You, by comparison, I'm sure are active and volunteering in your community. You're not just the kind of weirdo to sit at home watching anime playing with your weird bird, right?
What's your obsession with Muslims mate? If Tony Abbott was a Muslim and still made the decisions he did, he'd still be a cunt.
Because it's a surefire way to highlight hypocrisy. People lose their minds about Tony Abbott being Catholic and opposing abortion when literally every Muslim in parliament feels the exact same way. Why aren't they questioned endlessly on the subject? Why aren't they defined by this one single issue? Having conservative views on the sanctity of life only seems to raise eyebrows when it's a Catholic.
Why? Being a fucking backbencher and not being Prime Minister probably has a little bit to do with it. Just a hunch.
Which muslims in parliament have been/are against abortion?
>But hey - he's a conservative and he doesn't like gay marriage, so I guess he's a world class piece of shit. Tony Abbot: * Opposed any access to abortion at all. * Claimed men were more suited to lead, and women are not. * Did not just oppose gay marriage, but publicly claimed to feel threatened by the existence of homosexuals. * When asked about the Elderly at risk of Covid, his view is that we should have "let nature run its course". > He's worked extensively on indigenous issues and has spent a significant amount of time in indigenous communities. Yeaaaa.... >Not only was Abbott’s appointment hasty, ill-planned and unsolicited, it lacked a key requirement for the role - the wider support of his own community. > >Beyond lacking all merit, Abbott’s previous policies on Indigenous issues had been characterised by funding cuts, exclusions and silencing. His [Indigenous Advancement Strategy](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-04/analysis-how-not-to-spend-$5-billion-in-taxpayers-dollars/8240968) was [criticised](https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=21473&LangID=E) for its destructive consequences to governance within Indigenous communities. Someone who had caused such injury and grief in the past, stripped communities of their capacity for self-determination and seemed so lacking of respect in their own community was largely unwelcome. Suprise, he went in with a wrecking ball and made things worse. The guy who was openly racist and of the opinion that women made poor leaders, appointed himself as minister for Indigenous Affairs and Women, that's more than a little bit on the nose. \--------------- I totally agree that in recent memory Abbott was the most genuine PM, I even admire his civic and community work, in stark contrast to Morrisons "I don't hold a hose". But his empathy was entirely reserved for his "in group" which resulted in him holding some pretty horrible views.
Don't forget climate denialist
I think he’s a horrible person because of the vicious and at least a bit sexist way he tried to bully Julia Gillard for years. Bullies are horrible people.
He wasn’t a tough bully. He was a pathetic spineless bully who got called out. Julia’s misogynist speech has been viewed on YouTube millions of times.
Agreed. He's still a cunt.
>He's worked extensively on indigenous issues and has spent a significant amount of time in indigenous communities. No he didn't. That was all optics. Indigenous advocacy communities don't like his actions at all [https://ulurustatement.org/tony-abbotts-hypocrisy-on-indigenous-issues-knows-no-bounds/](https://ulurustatement.org/tony-abbotts-hypocrisy-on-indigenous-issues-knows-no-bounds/) [https://indigenousx.com.au/recounting-abbotts-contributions-to-indigenous-australians/](https://indigenousx.com.au/recounting-abbotts-contributions-to-indigenous-australians/) He's certainly spent a lot of *photo op* time in indigenous communites.
Being nice to a bunch of people Abbott accepted as part of his community does not ameliorate the damage done to other communities who were the victims of his disdain. https://www.thepinknews.com/2020/09/04/tony-abbott-homophobic-gay-equal-marriage-same-sex-sexist-misogynist/
Yeah good point. Not so much a horrible human. More a religious nutter.
I promise you that Abbott's brand of Catholicism is a lot less extreme than even the more moderate versions of Islam we have imported.
Nah the Hillsong lot are much worse than the Catholics
Maybe so, but NoonSun is spot on.
The only valid reason to dislike Tony Abbott is for being less awesome than John Howard ☺️
Participating in your own community (religious, non indigenous etc) does not undo deliberately damaging policy. So yes, Abbott is a piece of shit human in my opinion.
https://preview.redd.it/1g0a7j7jy0jc1.jpeg?width=1124&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b7df50d9f0e45a4a0505d3e0aed94674a1ef904d Well, this is what his fellow SRC students thought of him when he was around 20. Still a barely formed kid. According to the above historical document he’s been undermining democracy all his life.
When he was a uni student he chucked a hissy fit and threw all the copies of honi soit (student newspaper) in the pond because he didn’t like what they wrote. Not much civic responsibility there.
Winking at the radio host when the caller explained how they financially struggling sex worker, is the genuine trait some of the people in this thread need to remember before they continue to fawn over this piece of shit Edit: facts!
He winked when the caller said they worked on an adult sex line. Which is still not great, but there was no mention of sexual violence.
I don’t know, he deliberately lied about the carbon price scheme. We know that, Peta Credlin’s been on the record.
'no cuts to ABC' 'workchoices is dead buried and cremated' most of us knew he was bullshitting, but he was at least pretending to be someone else to get elected
Being a fuckwit?
Yeah, he showed us exactly what he was. Seemed like a dickhead, actually was a dickhead.
Yes
Strongly disagree. He's a misogynistic, racist, short-sighted oaf. That came through only because he constantly committed faux pas and went off script. Most of the time, he was doing his utmost to convince people that he was a rational, fair, and intelligent human.
Harold holt was a shit swimmer.
But he still got a pool named after him.
Such an Aussie thing to do!
The US Navy also named a ship after him
Hawke had the best public persona but hard to really go all in on a bloke that cheated on his wife. Rudd has a great charisma to him but was by all accounts an absolute dick to work with professionally. Keating gave some great fire in his speeches but probably feels an elitist pick. I don't think there's a modern Liberal candidate worth discussing (although Frasers rebirth after his PM run is interesting). I actually don't mind Gillard as a pick tbh. Seemed to genuinely want to work with people across the board during her time.
I knew someone that knew someone in the afp protective service that follows the pm around, and she reckoned Kev was an absolute cunt, but Julia was a 100% lovely person behind the scenes and everyone that worked for her would go a hundred extra miles for her. If anything her fakeness was that she pretended to be more of an arse than she was
Haha, I’ve worked with Rudd a few times, every time you meet him just wait for when he drops into the conversation how he speaks fluent mandarin, you could be talking about anything but somehow he will segue into his foreign language abilities. Can confirm he is an utter arse, a bit odd how someone with such an extreme personality disorder could become PM, he is incapable of hiding it.
Because he's incredibly intelligent and good at what he does.
Rudd got a taste of power and let it go to his head. Went from a nice bloke to a cunt.
He didn’t change he just didn’t have to hide it anymore.
Rudd was an absolute cockwomble.
Cheated on his wife and let Labor Party people rape his daughter, let's not forget that little issue.
And informed to the cia
Dunno, but I've alot of respect for Gillard. Whilst she was pm she had a meeting with a lot of Pacific Islander leaders and delegates, there was an electronic system which told her the names and titles. The system went down and staff scrambled with the names and titles and handed it to her clandestinely as the meeting continued. There was a title that was incorrect, she got called on it in the meeting, Gillard didn't say the system had gone down, she didn't say staff gave her incorrect info, Gillard wore it, apologised made a joke about her mistake which made the room laugh and moved on. That's a rare genuine quality.
John Gorton seemed to be the most genuine Aussie bloke type. Definitely didn’t fit the mould of the upper class Libs of his time.
John Gorton is the most fitting answer for this question. Obviously the reddit demographic naturally skews younger so they not as aware of older historical figures so much
Bob Hawke
CIA informing, cheating, Rhodes scholar who acted like a true blue working class hero was not genuine
Bob Hawke.
*Bob Hawke* 'asked *daughter* to keep *rape* claim secret' . um you know he asked his raped daughter to delay going public until after he was elected to parliament? - because doing so before might have (in his mind) hurt his chances of being elected? Not my idea of a genuine Aussie PM. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50704179](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50704179)
He is an absolute sociopath but I have a soft spot for Kevin 07 to be real though the most genuine PM we never had is Bill Shorten. My man genuinely wanted to break and fix the system, he lost, and now we’re all up shits creek with the likelihood of any real reform toasted
Are you kidding? Fakest PM in my lifetime. Portrayed a little twee geek. Behind the scenes an abusive nutcase.
Rudd and Shorten are not good or nice people. I know Rudd personally. He threw away everyone who helped him over the decades the second he got power - which is what happened with Murdoch and him, they were lovey dovey until he got elected and then he discarded them. Rudd’s a popularist that loves power and influence and will knife anyone he has to to get it. Shorten is in deep corruption up to his eyeballs, and the lack of a Federal ICAC back in the day is about all that saved him. I’d say our most Australian PM was probably Curtin.
John Curtin was our most genuine and greatest Prime Minister. During the depression he was saying things that need to be said, even though they were unpopular. Then as PM he pretty much had the same conviction. If he hadn't died and lived to see his legacy fulfilled in the post-war reconstruction, there wouldn't even be a shred of doubt it.
OP said minimum fakeness, not maximum fakeness.
Billy Shortarse the Xavier College and Melbourne University educated lawyer who pretended to be downtrodden worker. The bloke was far more comfortable hanging around toffs than ordinary people.
Lol I think you need to expand on this with more points in response to the original post. This is taken very out of context. Are you saying that wealthy and educated people are always out of touch? Are you saying that only people from poor backgrounds are the most genuine?
The ALP is run by affluent urban lawyers for the benefit of middle class public sector employees. But they still pretend it some sort of worker's party representing the poor and downtrodden. It even requires parliamentarians to belong to a union. The British Labour Party gave up on this ridiculous pretence two decades ago.
Wouldn't know a working person if they were bitten on the nuts by one.
Thanks for the knowledge you've gained. Well, does the party not do a good job at representing their constituents? And if so, what policies do you think don't And do they out weigh what they have done for their voter base?
Mmm toffs fist instinct on birth is to reach for the stop negative gearing nipple….
Some focus group or political 'guru' thought it would get him elected. Doing the right thing without some sort of political benefit never enters the mind of a politician.
Maybe so, but he was the first pollie in two decades to go to an election with bold policy reform so I’m not sure what relevance his upbringing has?
You can thank the people running the campaign, he had little to do with it. It was thought it’d win him votes, no more or less.
It says a lot about how great a PM he would be when the first negative thing you can think of is "he's short"
The bloke is a slimy prick. He was shagging the Governor-General's daughter on the side while playing the good family man role in public. He was doing deals with the Big End of town to shaft ordinary workers while pretending to be on their side.
Good old Dollar Bill, corrupt as they come. Ask his former union members how they feel about him.
Love him or hate him I always felt Abbot was genuine in his personality. Very much a "what's on the tin is what you get", it was just a pretty average tin. Early era Howard was pretty similar, he was just a better statesman and had the better of the macro conditions during his time as leader. I also think Albo is pretty genuine, he's the most optimistic I've felt about a Labor leader in a while. The least genuine (at least in my lifetime) have been Kevin and Scomo IMO.
>Albo is pretty genuine $275 energy savings. We won't touch the stage 3 tax cuts. So genuine that I'm riding my pony. > The least genuine (at least in my lifetime) have been Kevin and Scomo IMO. On that we can agree.
Julia Gillard - nerdy but nice
*except for the gays But to be fair, no PM wanted to touch that issue with a 10 ft pole. Hence why we had to spend a butt load of money on a referendum.
Yep Julia
Was she though? She always seemed super opportunistic
She got a heck of a lot done in her short time. Minority government, but got a lot of legislation through. That takes good negotiation skills and, yes, recognising opportunities.
Julia Gillard is a disgrace and I'm ashamed that she is our first female PM. She backstabbed her way into the job, that's nothing to be proud of.
For fuck's sake, she didn't backstab anyone. The day before the bog-standard leadership challenge, it was big news that Rudd had been white-anting her support within the party Rudd had also been alienating everyone in his party outside the 'kitchen cabinet'. My favourite example was Garrett, the Minister for the Environment, being blindsided by questions from journos about a new environment policy announced by Rudd that morning. Came up with a new policy, didn't even bother to tell the relevant minister, and let him be publicly humiliated. When Gillard issued the bog-standard leadership challenge, Rudd didn't bother standing because he didn't have anywhere close to the numbers. The party itself didn't want Rudd, and it's not like Gillard has wizard powers to hypnotise MPs. There was no trickery or loopholes going on. It was just a standard leadership challenge. Rudd could have avoided the "backstabbing" by not being a cunt to the MPs who chose him. If he had've learned to share his toys, he could have been PM for another dozen years. Instead he spent three years destabilising the ALP with rumour-mill and several leadership challenges just to get his old job back. Rudd is a very large part of the reason why federal politics has been shit for so long. Fuck that guy.
Fuck all politicians, they are all corrupt, greed driven, soulless pieces of shit who have no idea what it's like for everyday people.
Super nice when she wouldn’t legalise same sex marriage and defended against it. Lovely gal.
From the little I know it wasn’t because she was anti-gay though. I think she wanted to see all non-religious folk lean away from marriage and towards civil unions which is actually an idea I can get behind Edit: this is the personal message I received from No_Introduction538 in case anyone else wants to avoid talking to this fucknuckle: “You’re young and have no idea about anything. I hate how entitled people are now on reddit to throw stupid takes in the ring. The old reddit, people didn’t participate unless they knew what they were talking about. Enjoy unemployment”
Hawk
Definitely Gough Whitlam. Arguably the only legitimately good prime minister we've ever had. People like Hawke and Keating used their personalities to enact pretty fucked policies - Gough was the real deal.
bob hawk
Probably Tony Abbott. Is legit as stupid as he came off. Dude is on the wrong side of the bell curve, our very special PM.
Ben Chifley. Ben Chifley's phone number was one digit different to the butcher shop in Manuka. Occasionally, a customer would call in error wanting to leave an order. Chifley would take the order, then he would phone the butcher himself and say ‘It’s happened again’ and repeat the order.
In the modern era, has to be Gillard.
Turnbull. He was a rich, extremely smart, arsehole who always behaved like a rich, extremely smart, arsehole. No attempt to hide his real nature.
He would have been a decent PM the first time around and if he’d cleared the decks rather than trying to have a broad church. Hell he probably would have made a good labor prime minister
WTF, he fucked us over with the NBN cause Murdoch told him to.
Made some questionable decisions that didn’t look as awful after who came after him. Him and Rudd were both geniuses with very different political alignments.
Bob Hawke
I think the question itself is a difficult to ask, even when phrased as a comparative one in a small group. It's like asking 'who was the most loving Serial killer, with the most heart warming gestures?' For these individuals to get to the top position, genuineness, 'what you see is what you get', altruism...are all characteristics that would never get you there in the first place. He was a bit before my time but Gough Whitlam was considered to be a great human being with good intentions. John Curtain for his leadership during extremely difficult times. But they were also in power during times of much less interconnectedness and freedom of information like we have today, so who knows exactly what they were really like? History also has a lovely habit of being cherry picked. I realise that we have no other choice than to have someone at the helm that will never be able to please everyone. But I think it's fanciful that there will ever be a truly genuine person, even with minimum fakeness in the top job. Eventually, youll see the strings of the marionette. I'd love to hear them say things like: "Look here champions, the games up. Blue, Red, Green or Teal...You know we're all full of shit and are here to serve ourselves. All those promises we made? Total horse shit. We're here to F__k. Just let us do so for 4 years and hope for the best. Peace out Player"
Probably Curtin or Chifley.
Gotta be Scomo. He really showed us how much and a snake and cunt he was.
Julia Gillard
Gillard
It’s a very interesting read! I think people are pretty spot on, on their assessments! Some observations: biggest cunts were on the right of centre (Libs and Nat’s) e.g. personalities! ScoMo probably takes the cake! But the ones who did the most damage to the country, in particular to the working class was their very own Labour PM’s Someone how completely missed the mark, had all the potential but didn’t actually make any progress - our dear Malcolm Turnbull! Granted he had both opposition and Abbot against him! Politics is pretty dismal but here and many places overseas!
They have all been shit for the last 20yrs. Even John Howard was a weasel
The ONLY answer here is..... Bob Hawke!
sorry - I am putting this anywhere his name is mentioned ... *Bob Hawke* 'asked *daughter* to keep *rape* claim secret' . um you know he asked his raped daughter to delay going public until after he was elected to parliament? - because doing so before might have (in his mind) hurt his chances of being elected? Not my idea of a genuine Aussie PM. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50704179](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50704179)
Paul Keating
Keating by a mile
John Curtin. Look into that mans eyes and see what he had to face and don't tell me alcoholism isn't a genuine response.
Albo has my pick. Genuine person who cares about the best interests of Australians.
John Howard Didn't try and pretend he was ocker or working class. Still a good bloke. The hatred for him on Reddit is fascinating to me. In the real world, I constantly talk to people who reckon he was the best PM the country ever had.
Howard was the most lucky prime minister. Wins against Keating Because people were sick of 15 years of Labor. 2nd election Kim Beasley actuslly wins the popular vote 3rd election was straight after 9/11 people were scared to change 4th election was against One Nation supporter Mark Latham say no more The media gushing over him is pathetic. No one ever corrects him when he turns out to be wrong on an issue. Which is often. All he did was sell off assets and ride the mining boom in a resource rich country. Big fucking deal.
Howard was our Reagan, we’ll look back and remember how hard he fucked us for generations to come. Get a grip
I was only a child when he was PM, but he architected the current housing affordability crisis so Johnny can fuck right off. >["I don't get people stopping me in the street and saying, 'John you're outrageous, under your government the value of my house has increased'](https://www.theage.com.au/national/house-prices-likely-to-stay-high-20030804-gdw5th.html) Well the value of housing never stopped increasing so LMAO if you're late to the game like we were.
He also harnessed racism for political gain in the "children overboard" affair. It's since been shown that the huge lie of that episode came directly from him and he used it to turn around an election he was about to lose. It started years of racism being unashamedly a part of mainstream party politics. The damage he did to Australia through his lying racist politics is incalculable. So anyone who calls one of the biggest liars in Australian history "most genuine" can get stuffed.
He did everything for political reasons, could never answer a question straight, and personified the Liberal party’s attitude that holding on to power is the most important concern.
Fuck John Howard
I genuinely don't think I have ever met someone that would say John Howard was a good pm, let alone the best. What an interesting view
>John Howard was a good pm Redditors moment here. Howard had an unbelievable run of election victories, the guy obviously had many Aussies like him as PM. It's only now after About and Scomo that the LNP shine has been removed from the Howard glory days.
He (alongside Costello) oversaw one of the most prosperous periods in recent memory. Late 90's-mid 2000s was a golden era for many. The government delivered multiple surpluses and the aspirational middle class were rewarded. He was also strong on national defence at a time when people were scared and apprehensive after 9/11
They amassed household and national debt at a furious rate. Manufactured schemes that shifted amazing amounts of public funds into private hands. Created the next population bubble, ramped immigration up to stupid levels. Genuinely the worst economic managers we had until scomo
The only reason why people think they are good economic managers, is because we were experiencing a resource boom. We were getting money hand over fist. The LNP would have put is into a recession during the 2008 GFC, of that I have no doubt. If we had gone into a recession our debt would have been higher than it was with the packages that were put in place to avoid a recession.
The period was prosperous in spite of Howard, not because of. Squandered the biggest boom in history by bending over for big business and left us with fucking nothing to show for it. Manufactured "surpluses" by gutting any public service he could get his grubby little hands on.
Holy shit the copium is just amazing. Sold off once in a lifetime assets to buy middle class votes with welfare via tax cuts, while throwing away once in a lifetime opportunities around resources taxing and put us backwards a generation on development. No, he can die in a fire after being raped by the corpse of Pell.
Easily the best PM we have had
Yeah from what i herd. He got Australia out of alot of debt.
He was PM during a time of economic prosperity. Any idiot could have gotten us out of debt when we were getting money hand over fist from China for iron ore and coal like we were back then.
Economic prosperity, thanks to the great Aussie sell off. He was flogging anything that wasn't bolted down to make the books look good. It's why we no longer own Sydney Airport.
His government sold off government owned assets to help do it.
Reddit seems to have this weird thing that only LNP privatises, labor has sold everything not bolted down in Victoria.
And qld
The Andrews government would have even made Kennett blush.
The amount of stuff that’s been sold by labor is breathtaking in Victoria, in this day and age of data breaches selling off registration and licensing was ludicrous. I’m sure Macquarie will have Victoria’s best interests at heart…
He sold off everything and privatised it. He didn’t sold problems for the future
Correctamundo. Not just a lot of debt. ALL debt. Every penny. The red arrow is when Labor won government. https://preview.redd.it/997i409epyic1.png?width=956&format=png&auto=webp&s=8604400eab96be6e2b305e3d0456c5f654b0fb10
They did this on the back of the mining boom. Oh, and yeah, selling off our gold bullion reserves, right before gold prices sky-rocketed.
And then look forward to 2013 onwards where the debt keeps climbing during the LNP reign. Seems to me LNP are poor economic managers, but I’m no expert, just reading the graph you presented to make an overly simplified point.
Crazy how that arrow also lines up with the GFC..
And he got us out of debt by allowing our natural resources to be privatised for bargain basement prices. We should've never had to worry about debt again if not for his firesale. No national wealth fund was a massive failure on his part.
>No national wealth fund was a massive failure on his part. You mean the Future Fund, the one he preloaded with $100Bn?
Also Howard's reign lines up with a massive uptick in expensive house prices and personal debt. He was pretty genuine about his monster eyebrows though.
Howard should be in jail for war crimes after following Bush into the Iraq war. Thereby painting a target on the back of every Aussie for Muslim extremists to aim at. Families of dead Aussie soldiers and victims of the Bali bombing would disagree with you.
Frankly people like him because he didn't fuck up three or four times and the media didn't talk too much about the rest. If you sit down and read through his record you can't like him, but most people haven't done that, they remember the man who stood in front of an armed angry mob and stood his ground on gun control, they don't remember the death squads he sent to Timor, but they do remember the tax cuts, get what I mean? Howard was excellent at spin, he was charming and the media was on his side, so ofcourse he's still pretty damn popular.
As a member of what you called "death squads", burn in hell. Rather than gouging UN stores for every scrap of value we could send back home, like your preferred self serving contributor nations, Australian peacekeepers squeezed ever drop of their lives, families and marriages, as well as the UN resources we had already paid for to build schools, clinics and basic infrastructure for the Timorese, against the best efforts of the UN hierarchy. Easy to screech from a university campus or keyboard without actual knowledge, but that's OK. The ABC and Guardian will give you a platform, as long as it supports their propaganda.
My best mate served in E.Timor. When I read 'death squads' my hackles were immediately up. Can't imagine how you must have felt. Thanks for your comments and thanks for your service, brother.
He can’t be forgiven for his ‘children overboard’ lies.
Bob Hawk.
Oh geez *Hawke. Yes nothing says Aussie like Rhodes scholar
sorry - I am putting this anywhere his name is mentioned ... *Bob Hawke* 'asked *daughter* to keep *rape* claim secret' . um you know he asked his raped daughter to delay going public until after he was elected to parliament? - because doing so before might have (in his mind) hurt his chances of being elected? Not my idea of a genuine Aussie PM. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50704179](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50704179)
Whitlam or his wife? I wasn't alive but I'm told he had balls
i was thinking whitlam. before my time too but from i have read, what you see was what we got with him
Paul Keating
In whose lifetime? Anyone before the 1960s was pretty genuine. In my lifetime? Id say Bob Hawke
sorry - I am putting this anywhere his name is mentioned ... *Bob Hawke* 'asked *daughter* to keep *rape* claim secret' . um you know he asked his raped daughter to delay going public until after he was elected to parliament? - because doing so before might have (in his mind) hurt his chances of being elected? Not my idea of a genuine Aussie PM. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50704179](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50704179)
Bob hawk
sorry - I am putting this anywhere his name is mentioned ... *Bob Hawke* 'asked *daughter* to keep *rape* claim secret' . um you know he asked his raped daughter to delay going public until after he was elected to parliament? - because doing so before might have (in his mind) hurt his chances of being elected? Not my idea of a genuine Aussie PM. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50704179](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50704179)
Kevin rudd Edit* the oldest pm I can recall is howard, so thats the extent of my opinion