John Howard Quotes (18 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

John Howard: 18 quotes 2 likes

Famous John Howard Quotes

“Australians have made a lot of mistakes, we have treated Aboriginal people very badly, and we have our share of racists and bigots. But a lot of the agenda of the cultural Left in this country is basically that the past has been a disgrace, that we’ve achieved very little, we’ve become the most materialistic country in the world and that we’re mean-spirited. We’re pretty awful people and we should be ashamed of ourselves and start all over again. Well, I don’t hold that view, and the overwhelming majority of Australians don’t hold that view, and they reject it.”

John Howard

2006 interview with Time

“But we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.”

John Howard

2001 Federal Election Campaign Launch Speech, 28th October 2001
Context: We are as you all know in a new and dangerous part of the world’s history. The tragic events of the 11th of September have changed our lives, they have caused us to take pause and think about the values we hold in common with the American people and free people around the world. That was an attack on Australia as much as it was an attack on the United States. It not only claimed the lives of Australians but it assaulted the very values that we hold dear and that we take for granted. So therefore a military response and wise diplomacy and a steady hand on the helm are needed to guide Australia through those very difficult circumstances. National Security is therefore about a proper response to terrorism. It's also about having a far sighted, strong, well thought out defence policy. It is also about having an uncompromising view about the fundamental right of this country to protect its borders. It's about this nation saying to the world we are a generous open hearted people, taking more refugees on a per capita basis than any nation except Canada, we have a proud record of welcoming people from 140 different nations. But we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.

“I don't think it is wrong, racist, immoral or anything, for a country to say 'we will decide what the cultural identity and the cultural destiny of this country will be and nobody else.”

John Howard

Quoted in "Howard reasserts right to decide cultural identity," The Age, 20 September 1988.

“I accept that climate change is a challenge, I accept the broad theory about global warming. I am sceptical about a lot of the more gloomy predictions.”

John Howard

Interview with Four Corners, ABC TV, 28 August 2006.

“Truth is absolute, truth is supreme, truth is never disposable in national political life.”

John Howard

ABC Radio "AM" (25 August 1995)

“There is much in American society which I admire, but I have long held the view that the absence of an effective safety net in that country means that too many needy citizens fall by the wayside. That is not the path that Australia will tread. Nor do we want the burdens of nanny state paternalism that now weigh down many economies in Europe.”

John Howard

Australia Day Address, 25 January 2006

John Howard Quotes about thinking

“I think history will judge him very harshly for not having seized the opportunity in the year 2000 to embrace the offer that was very courageously made by the then Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barack, which involved the Israelis agreeing to 90 per cent of what the Palestinians had wanted.”

John Howard

On Yasser Arafat
Source: History will judge Arafat harshly: Howard, ABC News Online, 11 November 2004, 9 April 2019 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2004-11-11/history-will-judge-arafat-harshly-howard/583666,

“I think when people talk about civil liberties, they sometimes forget that action taken to protect the citizen against physical violence and physical attack is a blow in favour and not a blow against civil liberties.”

John Howard

Terrorism Summit (Friday, 5 August 2005)

“We spent too much time in the first half of the nineties pondering whether we had to become less European so we could become more Asian, whether we had to become less British so we could become more multicultural. We had this perpetual seminar on our national identity, contributed to overwhelmingly by the cultural dietitians. I never thought Australians had any doubt as to what their identity was. And I think we’ve moved on from all of that.”

John Howard

2006 interview with Time

“A conservative is someone who does not think he is morally superior to his grandfather.”

John Howard

Quote from The Howard Era.