Crikey on The Howard Years.

Crikey (Online) 18/11/08 Page: online

The Howard Years: History told by the players. Peter Brent The Howard Years: history told by the players Peter Brent from Mumble Politics, writes:

The Howard Years is an illustration of the problems of history-telling. It covers many of the events of the day, and much is interesting, but it is let down by a lousy theme. That theme is: John Howard the "conviction politician", elected in 1996 with, in the words of narrator Fran Kelly, a "mission to recast Australia".

Leaving aside the validity of the "conviction politician" label, the fact is that this perception of Howard only came about at the 2001 "Tampa" election. Before then his leadership could be characterised as about anything but "conviction" Kelly and crew apply it retrospectively.


Squeezing that first term, 1996-8, into a "man of steel" package made for odd television. We heard a lot from staffer Graham Morris: his boss always did what was right and bugger the political consequences.

Making a series like this would be extremely difficult, and in squeezing several years into one hour it is not possible to do justice to everything. Yes, divided Liberal opinion was shown.
But overall, we saw a bunch of politicians and staffers, very on message, attempting to write history, and the film-makers generally obliging.

For the full article go to; http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics.html.

The Howard Years continues next Monday on ABC1