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Commonwealth apologising for State misdeeds

Here's a reference to a current news story. It's from the Las Vegas Sun, but the same story, according to Google, is found in newspapers worldwide. The key point is that the Commonwealth is not admitting any responsibility, instead pointing the finger at State governments and church organisations. --Pete 06:38, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Well of course the Commonwealth is not admitting responsibility, because it's a Howard government minister reflecting Howard's view of the world. But the calls were for the federal government to apologise for past Federal misdeeds, not the misdeeds of other governments. The Stolen generations report, said: "Recommendation 5a: That all Australian Parliaments 1.officially acknowledge the responsibility of their predecessors for the laws, policies and practices of forcible removal,.... Peter Ballard 06:52, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

So have I made my case? Does someone else want to revert the text? Peter Ballard 08:04, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

You haven't made a case, because the calls were not for a federal apology, but a national apology. There is a difference, though I am not sure that those demanding an apology were aware of it or the significance of the 1967 referendum. I'm not happy with the "previous generations" wording because it doesn't give the full story. --Pete 08:51, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Are you serious? Didn't you read the bit which called for "all Australian Parliaments" to apologise? And if you read the Stolen Generations report, you will see that federal involvement is documented. Not even Howard tried to deflect it by saying it was a State but not a Federal responsibility. (The cite you offer above doesn't do that, merely claiming that "most" - not all - were caused by State governments). Saying that the debate was only over the action of "colonial and state governments" is false. Peter Ballard 12:57, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I've changed "generations" to "governments", which seems to cover the BTH recommendation. --Pete 22:42, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Bob Hawke motion on race, opposed by Howard

Section: Opposition years (1983-1996) Link to text:

On 3 August, 2007, I added the following historic information:

The Hawke government immediately seized the opportunity to embarrass Howard over his Asian remarks by introducing a motion to the parliament opposing the use of race to select immigrants. Howard fought desperately against the motion, despite some other Liberal MPs crossing the floor to support it.

However, it was quickly deleted by Blnguyen. This time, the deletion occurred 7 minutes after it was added (usually cited Howard information is deleted in only 6 minutes!!!). The issue of deletion needs to be discussed. Lester2 03:24, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

What you need to do is work as part of a team. At the moment you are being an irritant to more experienced editors and your contributions are being seen as vandalism. I suggest that you discuss your edits here rather than edit-warring over them. --Pete 04:03, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

My dear Mr Pete (Skyring). This is an area for civil discussion only. I invite those who wish to engage in civilised discussion. Lester2 04:08, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm fairly new to WP and to this page in particular. But for what it's worth... My sense is that one issue with this and some other contribs has been the choice of language - i think it would be a rare situation where it would be appropriate to use the words "fought desperately" in an encyclopedia article, unless they were directly quoting an authoritative source of the day. Ditto "immediately seized the opportunity". It isn't that these things are not arguably true in a broad sense. Rather, every decision to adopt this language - which would be appropriate in a newspaper opinion column or article in something like Quadrant or The Monthly - undermines the fragile balance of NPOV. NPOV is all the more difficult to maintain in any article on a contemporary political figure, so they require even more careful writing than articles about less contentious subjects (or even contentious, but historical, subjects). Despite some flaws, the language on the page as it stands at this moment seems somewhat preferable to Lester2's. However, I also think the entry will ultimately benefit from one or two referenced examples of how Howard's stance was used against him later, as well as for balance perhaps reporting his more recent reflections on the issue. Ultimately this entry aims to inform complete outsiders about the nature and significance of Howard's role in public life, which is why it does seem appropriate to report the long term impact and analysis of this well-known incident. I don't know if my contribution helps at all. If I get some time, I might try and do some work on the entry to follow my points through... cheers hamiltonstone 06:29, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Something might be true and well-sourced, but notability and appropriateness for a biographical article also needs to be considered. The race quote is reasonably well-known and bears inclusion, if for no other reason than its aptness in terms of later problems with integration. But parliamemtary motions across the despatch boxes, although well sourced in Hansard, complete to extreme and inflammatory language, are rarely worthy of inclusion in a biographical article. --Pete 02:37, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

To 'hamiltonstone': the line "immediately seized the opportunity" was how it was described in newspaper reports. Someone deleted that line in later revisions so I guess it doesn't matter. // To 'Pete/Skyring' the notability of the event can be proven by the wealth of newspaper articles on it. There are no Googleable stories from the mid -1980s. All the stories are recent ones, which shows it's of current interest and notable. I can cite more news items if requested. 3rd opinion sought Lester2 14:56, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

You are the only editor who wants this stuff included, you've edit-warred over it, you keep on reinserting it without consensus, and if you do it again I'll report you on 3RR. --Pete 22:24, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Looking at your 3rd opinion request, it seems that you haven't grasped the point that this is intended for a fresh pair of eyes on disputes involving only two editors. Looking at the history page, it is clear that multiple editors are opposed to the material you alone keep on reinserting. --Pete 22:32, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it's notable but not because the motion started with Hawke, trying to embarrass Howard (I wasn't aware that it had gone like that). It's notable only because a number of his own members crossed the floor against him (and because one of those was Philip Ruddock - I'll be elaborating this point on Ruddock's page, which only mentions it briefly). I think it is an integral point, to show that not all the Liberals were with Howard at that time. Couldn't we have a compromise, take out the dramatic language "immediately seized the opportunity", but leave in the notable fact that Ruddock and others did cross the floor on this issue? Nick 22:45, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi User:Nick, glad you found the information notable. I'm happy with the ideas of User:Nick and User:hamiltonstone, that the event is notable for inclusion, and that that colorful language like "seized the opportunity" and "Howard fought desperately" be toned down. The final version at 15:03, 5 August 2007 is fairly minimalist, and may come close to what you want. Maybe you guys can improve on that. I'm also happy if anyone wants to expand it. Lester2 01:31, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

While I believe that Howard's comments at the time are very notable (probably the biggest stuffup of his 1st term as opposition leader, apart from his inability to control the Peacock and Joh camps), I'm not convinced that the parliamentary vote is the best way to expand on it. I'd like to see the section expanded, but instead with detail on how and why he was criticised for it. The parliamentary vote itself isn't notable without some explanation of the controversy surrounding it. p.s. It definitely belongs on the Ruddock page though, because though just another day in parliament for Howard, it was a very big deal for Ruddock. Peter Ballard 01:54, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Well it shouldn't be expanded unless the rest of the opposition years is proportionally expanded. Since the motion itself does not appear to be a piece of legislation or program, but only appears to be a statement of ideology, I don't think that the motion is notable. In parliament they have these types of things all the time, condemning some terrorist act, expressing condolences for victims of natural disasters and condemning Mugabe and so forth. I think explaing the impact of the controversy is more important. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:31, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is true that there are motions passed all the time (in the parliamentary sense!). Like those examples condemning Mugabe, or condemning a terrorist act. Those examples are non-notable, because all the parliamentarians voted as expected. But imagine if an MP voted to show his support for Robert Mugabe, or support for a terrorist act. Then they would become notable. Unlike Ruddock, Howard voted to oppose the motion that would outlaw race as a criteria for selecting immigrants. That makes it very significant and noteworthy.Lester2 03:58, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Can we get a count of how many ppl crossed the floor from teh Liberals. Was it a massive number? The link that Lester provided doesn't show who voted which way. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:01, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

From memory it was 3. http://www.abc.net.au/austory/transcripts/s672095.htm Peter Ballard 04:22, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Lester2's comparison to Mugabe above is just ridiculous. Hawke was just grandstanding and of course his motion did not reflect the reality. Of far more interest is that there were divisons within the Liberals. However, Howard has always had his party opponents and many, such as Peacock and Costello, have been fairly vocal. It is in the nature of the Liberals, that members can and do cross the floor albeit rarely. Alby Schultz, as a local example. Going back to the 1975 crisis, Whitlam fully expected a few Libs to crack. It is not the same as the ALP, where the appearance of solidarity is demanded on every level. Look at the odium heaped upon Mal Colston, speaking of 1975. --Pete 05:05, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the only way for this issue to be resolved is with formal mediation. Blnguyen & Skyring (Pete) (and anyone else who would like to comment, are you accepting of mediation? Lester2 01:03, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Why is this article mostly unreferenced?

As it stands, most of the John Howard article is unreferenced. Why?

There have been countless books, articles, news stories written about every aspect of everything John Howard has ever done. I can't see any excuse why this article, especially one of such great importance (a national leader) is mostly unreferenced opinion written by anonymous sources.

Why do we have separate "Notes" and "References" headings? Under the references heading is a list of books, but not attributed to any particular information in the article. Why can't these be combined into a single Notes or References section? Every paragraph and statement in the article should be clearly attributed.

I find the John Howard article is currently of a very poor standard, because of its lack of sourced material. I think that people should move quickly to reference everything in this article, and if it then cannot be referenced, it should be deleted. Lester2 01:44, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages content doesn't NEED to be cited or else removed. Citation should be strived for, but no, we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Content can be removed if a majority of ppl agree, not on your own beliefs. Timeshift 02:18, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Adding sources is work that an idle pair of hands could easily do. One doesn't need to ask permission to do so. This would add to the quality of the article. Generally information here that is unsourced is also non-controversial. --Pete 02:30, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I would disagree that unsourced = uncontroversial in this article. The article is loaded with assertions that many people may assume to be so, but could easily be challenged. One example (of many) is John Howard was responsible for the housing boom. Many prominent economists would disagree.

The list of books at the end should also be deleted. What kind of reference is that? Just a list of books about John Howard. Maybe it should have been called "Further Reading". There's no way for anyone to be able to verify anything with that, unless they read every one of the books. That list should just be deleted. I want to see every fact and assertion attributed to a source, and if that source is a book, I want to see the page number so I can verify it. Simply creating a list of John Howard books is useless, and should go. Lester2 03:59, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Timeshift, I must contradict you there, wikipedia content does need to be cited or else removed. This is non-negotiable policy. To quote Misplaced Pages founder Jimbo Wales, "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons."--Yeti Hunter 05:15, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

That "remove it, not tag it" applies to articles about living persons, in which this case, John Howard is a living person. See biographies of living persons policy for more information. Information in other types of articles does not need to be removed straight away. –sebi 05:19, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I took out the unsourced bits that an editor objected to via fact tags, and Peter Ballard undid my edit, asking for a little "common sense." Peter, please explain what you have in mind. Please be sure to review WP:BLP first. Dicklyon 06:22, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Dick, those tags were put in a few minutes ago, without regard for the printed references at the bottom of the article. Since you are editing a section on 1980s Australian politics, doubtless you are aware that those facts are common knowledge. But since they happened in the 1980s a cite may take a few days to track down. So the common sense approach is to examine the tags and ask yourself whether a "fact" tag is really required; or to allow a few days for an inline citation to be put in. Peter Ballard 06:28, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Having now read the relevant policies (WP:BLP#Sources, WP:BLP#Presumption_in_favor_of_privacy & WP:SELFPUB) I tend to agree with Spebi, Dicklyon, Yeti Hunter and Lester2. It is questionable to include anything which is unsourced/unverified in an article about such a high profile living person. Additionally I'm now a little concerned about all the quotes scattered throughout wikipedia from the Latham Diaries which seems to breach the rule against self-published work (and primary source), I think this should be brought up at the Wikiproject talk page, what do you think? Alec ✉_{﹌ } 09:34, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the recent campaign by one editor is disruptive, possibly through ignorance. As noted above, all the material is sourced, albeit not with direct footnotes for every single sentence. Perhaps any material seen as controversial could be more directly sourced, possibly by someone thumbing through the books listed as references and publishing a page number? --Pete 23:29, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello Skyring Pete. You said this is disruptive, but you've gone on to suggest exactly the same thing, that all controversial material be sourced. We had unreferenced assertions, for example, that Howard's electoral success was the result of a strong economy. I personally would have given Border Security the credit, and I remember Howard himself saying something similar.

There should be a single section for References, not 2 as we have now (References & Notes). I don't mind the book references, but in an article this size, the book references should be moved to inline text in the article. It's just a minimum standard, otherwise anyone can say whatever they want in this article, and claim the source is somewhere within the 8 books listed at the bottom of page. I think the John Howard article will be a better article when all the controversial statements are properly cited. Regards, Lester2 02:17, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

It is your behaviour that is disruptive. This article is watched constantly by many editors, and if there is any material that is unsourced or controversial, it becomes the subject of debate, if not an edit war. If you think something is unsourced, then why don't you source it? This is a co-operative endeavour and you aren't earning much in the way of good will by calling for others to perform work that you could easily do.

I take your point about the print references being overly general, but the point is that they do, in fact, back up a lot of the material that you claim is unsourced. If there was material that was both controversial and genuinely unsourced, it would be swiftly removed. As I say, there are always eyes on this article. --Pete 02:32, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Seems to me that Lester2 has been the indirect cause of the disruption. Because, by putting "fact" tags on things, it has attracted wikilawyers (presumably who run bots looking for WP:BLP articles containing "fact" tags) who've applied the rulebook to the letter and deleted the tagged items, even things that could not remotely be considered libelous like the state of the Australian economy in 1985-86. So we need a way to mark things as needing references, without attracting the wikilawyers. Peter Ballard 03:15, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry the call for controversial statements to be cited is considered disruptive. I put some "fact" tags in. For example, on statements asserting that the Housing Boom arrived because of Howard, or the economy caused his electoral success, and another had a quotation that I thought was slightly inaccurate (I wanted the author to go find the exact quotation). But there were already existing "fact tags" in the article that others had placed months ago, which had been left unattended for some time. The lawyer or bot or whatever deleted them all in one go. The controversial statements were not libelous, but their accuracy was disputed. The aim was to encourage people to cite those controversial statements, not to cause disruption for the sake of disruption. Lester2 01:09, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

This article has very serious problems. It is still packed with very contentious uncited statements that shouldn't be there. Many of the statements that I added "FACT" tags to were initially deleted, and then re-added to the article, still uncited. Nobody seems to be putting any effort into adding citations. What's the answer? What are the rules? Lester2 23:51, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Suggest rework of '2001 election campaign' section

I've reinstated the famous campaign slogan "we will decide who comes into this country..." This time, the quote is in full, and cited.

I've deleted Lesters rampant | synthesizing] of material yet again. His claim that the quote was a party slogan is another attempt to deliberately mislead. The first reference he uses does not even include the word slogan in its entire article. The second reference is an opinion piece by the discredited extreme leftist Margo Kingston which doesn't even come close to satisfying WP:RS. Prester John 13:41, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the section of the 2001 campaign needs a re-jiggle. Possibly with sub-headings for Tampa and Children Overboard, if indeed Tampa & Children should be in the '2001 election campaign' section, or an earlier section. I call on people to take a look at this section with the possibility of rearranging it a bit. Lester2 03:52, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

It might help to keep our eye on the ball here. While it is difficult to keep politics out of a politician's life, this is, above all, a biography of a single person. It is not a political history of modern Australia, and there are separate articles that deal with various topics in much greater detail. We need to keep this article on topic. There are many episodes that are important to understanding the life of John Howard, but all we really need for most of the wider issues of recent years is a summary sentence and a wikilink to the relevant article. Our readers may then click through to a more thorough treatment. --Pete 18:13, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

How could there be an article on John Howard's Prime Ministership without referred to the "we will decide..." statement? It is one of his most defining statements, it's not pushing a POV to include it, it is reporting exact words of the subject person, the Party even used this line in political advertising and Howard has proudly repeated the statement numerous times, this is something the subject person has pushed themselves so the article should recognise this. Also if questions about Prester John are correct then doesn't he have a conflict of interest editing political articles? Cheers, Alec ✉_{﹌ } 14:04, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I restored the famous slogan "We will decide who comes..." again. The edit war over this one, Howard's most famous ever quote, is a good example of how difficult it is to add information to this article. I'm surprised some people consider it a contentious quote, as (like Alec said above) it is a phrase that Howard promoted heavily himself. The Liberal Party took out full page election advertisements in Perth, and that slogan featured in huge text. I wish I had an image of those Perth newspaper ads, as it would compliment this article. Lester2 21:14, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Start Class

Article is start class. I disagree with most of the opinions in it. Should not be B class 58.165.254.80 07:45, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I guess all the other opinions than yours are wrong. We'll change it immediately! /sarcasm Michael 07:48, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

No way a cruft-free, 83-reference, 9.5-screen article is not B class in my opinion. Even the assessment criteria for B allow for some omissions and necessary fixes, after which it can go for GA - although may fail the stability requirement in the immediate time period. Orderinchaos 08:40, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Lies

Looking at Lester2's most recent attempt to get help from the wiki-powers-that-be, I find he wrote, "The latest example is a simple 2 sentence paragraph that I added, about how John Howard in the 1980s voted in the Parliament for immigration to be selected on race."

This is deliberately untrue. Not only has Lester2 failed to characterise his inclusion of Bob Hawke's motion in such terms previously, this description is false,

While I can appreciate that we need editors with a diversity of opinion, and that review of conflicts by uninvolved authorities is a Good Thing, this is going way too far. --Pete 22:41, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

To Skyring (Pete): First, if you disagree with the Bob Hawke Motion paragraph (that you deleted), you could have written this under the existing discussion under that topic, rather than start a new topic titled ""Lies". Second, you could have stated why you think it's untrue, or worked with other editors to reword it, rather than just delete it.Lester2 00:09, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not talking about content here, but your behaviour. We can always come to some agreement on content, but the way you operate within the community is something that only you can change. You've already had a couple of minor blocks for edit-warring, and it would be a positive move if you could take them as a gentle warning. --Pete 00:39, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

If you are not talking about content, then this discussion page is the inappropriate forum for the discussion. Lester2 02:48, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

If you edited other articles beside this one, then you might be correct. Looking at your edit history I see very little besides your edits to this article and complaining about how your edits to this article keep on being reverted and how unfair it all is. --Pete 10:51, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

BLP reminder

I would like to remind everyone editing this article that the biographies of living persons policy does not only require that material be sourced, but also that any material, especially negative or controversial material, be of significant relevance to the person specifically, not just tangentially related, and must be presented in a strictly neutral manner. Please keep this in mind while editing this article, it is not a forum to express dislike of him or dig up dirt. Seraphimblade 23:24, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

This has been there since it happened without issue - I will not tolerate a "white washing" of Howard's article before the election. This goes especially to Prestor John. From governments 1901 to now, the only article to put government events in to is the Prime Minister of the time's page - see previous Prime Ministers. Timeshift 23:28, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Timeshift, that the current article is a "whitewash". Important aspects about Howard just get deleted. If we apply the BLP rules properly, a large portion of the entire article would be deleted, as it is uncited and contentious. Seraphimblade's comment about not "digging up dirt" is unclear. I guess it depends on what side of politics you are on, whether you regard it as "dirt". Better questions are: Is the information true? Is it cited? Is it written in a neutral way? Removing "dirt" information seems to be a subjective view. Lester2 00:20, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I won't tolerate a white washing either. We are here to present as good a biography as we can for the benefit of those who seek information. I deleted the AWB para because it just wasn't relevant to a biography of John Howard. This is not to say that the AWB affair isn't notable in itself. Just not here in this biographical article. --Pete 00:48, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be a better process to have a discussion on this page, before deleting cited information? There didn't seem to be any attempt at a discussion, from what I can see, unless I somehow missed it. I disagree with the action of deleting properly cited info before a discussion has taken place. Otherwise this article can never improve Lester2 02:46, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair compromise? Btw, I think this needs updating. Timeshift 03:04, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

It is an unbelievable absurdity that BLP could be used to censor information about AWB from the article. BLP, in case any of you have forgotten, is a policy designed to ensure that false or misleading statements are not made about living people, in order to protect Misplaced Pages from defamation actions. For example: "Howard assassinated John F Kennedy". It is absolutely beyond contention that BLP cannot be a basis for excluding material about AWB. I will RfC if necessary to prove this point.

Secondly, and more reasonably, should AWB material be deleted because it is not relevant to Howard? I would accept the argument on any one of the following grounds: (1) Howard was never asked a question in Parliament about AWB; (2) Howard was never asked a question in the media about AWB; (3) No mainstream press article, major party politician, or other prominent commentator connected John Howard to the AWB, be it be inference or open questions. (4) Howard had no role managing the federal government's response to the AWB scandal. None of these things are true; mentioning it is clearly relevant. Slac speak up! 04:20, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

a) Prime Minister pages discuss what happened regarding their government during their time in power. b) Howard established the enquiry and refused calls for a royal commission. I accept that it may not deserve it's own section which is why I added it to the Iraq section of Howard's article, however this was reverted too. It seems the enquiries and $300m kickback gets no mention in Howard's article, there for ages, but removed a few months before the election. What a whitewash. Timeshift 05:48, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

BLP doesn't come into it for the AWB thing. As for your list of negatives above, you could say exactly the same of thousands of public events and we'd have an enormous article full of crap. The facts show that John Howard had no role in the AWB thing beyond commissioning an inquiry and giving evidence before it - which presumably equated to just that. What makes the AWB special? From what I have seen so far, it looks like the only reason some people want to include it here is to imply the precise opposite of the factual reality. As for the scandal itself, it deserves its own article, and it has that. --Pete 05:52, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

And for someone reading about Australian politics, what link do they click on to read that page? Timeshift 05:54, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

There's about fifty links, choose any one you prefer or type something into the search box. --Pete 06:10, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

The precise opposite of the factual reality? Which part of the scandal - that the AWB was using government money to pay bribes to Saddam at the same time Australian troops were fighting him and the federal government knew about it - wasn't part of factual reality? Slac speak up! 20:31, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

That John Howard had anything to do with it. This is an article about John Howard, remember? --Pete 21:19, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Should we mention the 1973 oil shock in Whitlam's PM article? After all, he had nothing to do with it... god I hate stupid rationales. Timeshift 22:06, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

So why did you post it? Or are you saying that the AWB thing is like the oil crisis, and Howard was every bit as much the hapless victim as Whitlam? --Pete 22:19, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Well the Australian Howard Liberal government was inadvertently paying kickbacks to the country we invaded to the tune of $300m. The origins of the oil crisis had nothing to do with Whitlam. Or the recession that effected Hawke/Keating. The fact is, really noteable events, such as the AWB crisis, get noted in the Prime Minister of the time's article. If it's noteable enough and affects the government of the time enough, it should be in the PM article, and usually is, bar a few things like this. Timeshift 22:25, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Call me picky, but I still think you've got to show an actual, direct link to John Howard, not a six degrees of separation thing. External events like WW2 or S11 have an effect on governments, but realistically, the AWB was a tree falling in a distant forest for most Australians. --Pete 22:34, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Well we obviously agree to disagree. It holds no more or no less direct relevance to Howard, than say, The Government response to the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was widely acclaimed in Australia and abroad, including by then Opposition shadow foreign affairs spokesperson and current Opposition leader, Kevin Rudd. But I spose we can all just ignore the convention that's gone on on here forever and a day and only add things that have a direct relationship to the PM himself and not his government of the day. Timeshift 22:43, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

If the problem is having Government information in a biographical article than maybe it would be an easy solution just to create new article specifically on the Howard Premiership 1996-present, we could of course do the same thing for the Keating Premiership and the Hawke Premiership and so forth. A good example would be the UK (eg. Thatcher, Blair and Brown). Cheers, Alec ✉_{﹌ } 00:04, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

That sounds like one heck of a pandora's box to me... PMs 1901 to now arent all as expanded as Howard's is, and I don't know of anyone who's prepared to go through all the PMs piecing out non-PM sentences from PM sentences like pulling egg shell pieces out of the yolk of 100 eggs. Timeshift 00:08, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Call me old-fashioned, but I believe ministerial responsibility means that, just as Peter Beattie is currently held to account for the problems in Queensland Health, so should Howard's article mention the problems that his government has. It's not really a "six degrees of separation" thing if he himself starts up an inquiry and he himself, as I recall, gives a deposition to that inquiry. I also believe that the points I listed above fairly clearly indicate that the issue involved Howard. He wasn't on SIEV-X either, but nobody's pressing to remove children overboard from the article. Besides, the issue of whether he was involved or not was itself under contention - thus it is not NPOV to assert that he had no involvement. Slac speak up! 00:30, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Well put. Timeshift 00:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Well Misplaced Pages is constantly work in progress, to use the UK examples they don't have a significant number of the Premierships expanded upon into their own article yet but the recent administrations are quite detailed and are not biographical but a proper encyclopaedic summery of the Government of the day under each leader so it resolves all potential problems of BLP. Also when Australians and political analysts talk about Australian Government in historical terms they talk about the Keating administration or Keating Government, and the Whitlam years, that is not referring to the person or as a term of years; it refers to the national/governmental events that happened under each of their terms as PM, to use the most recent as an example people refer to the Hawke and Keating years as being distinct from each other for obvious reasons, even though it was the same Party in power, very similar policies and a lot of the same Ministers.

There would only be a need to create these articles once one of two things happens, the content about a Premiership becomes inappropriate for a biographical article such as is being argued in this case or secondly the article’s content about the Premiership becomes so dominant in the biographical article that it is disproportionate. Thoughts? Alec ✉_{﹌ } 00:57, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

But unconvincing. AWB wasn't a big deal. Howard's role extended to commissioning an enquiry which showed that there was no government wrongdoing. AWB is a private company, listed on the stock exchange, not a government department. Beattie is rightly responsible for his own ministries, but trying to draw a parallel to AWB is yet another long bow. --Pete 00:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The election slogan: "We will decide who comes to this country........."

The slogan used in the 2001 campaign is Howard's most famous ever quote. It was used in full-page election advertisements in Perth newspapers. It was repeated again and again throughout the campaign.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to list it as his election slogan in Misplaced Pages. Some want it to say "He was heard to say" or "he was quoted as saying". Someone else wanted it paraphrased into "Australia says who comes...".

I'm very surprised that this famous election slogan is disputed. It now has 3 references attached to it, for the disbelievers who either don't think the quote ever existed, or for those who think it was never used as an election slogan. Lester2 03:39, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

None of the sources say it was an election slogan, I think you are having difficulty because it is a just a quote, a once off, it never was any official "slogan". Prester John 03:53, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

The 2nd & 3rd newspaper articles refer to it has Howard's election slogan. Please stop deleting or reverting everything. Lester2 04:04, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it may be acceptable to say that Howard used the quote repeatedly as a theme. Some people may think that "slogan" is too official...because in some campaigns, they use the same tagline all the time, whereas in 2001, I am sure he probably used other stuff like "keeping interest rates low." Blnguyen (bananabucket) 08:50, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I think that was 2004 :) according the 2001 article the Gov was on the run on economic issues! Just goes to show how much things can change. Alec ✉_{﹌ }

The article says it was 2001. And no, it wasn't an election slogan. These sort of taglines are carefully crafted; a quote out of a speech or interview doesn't automatically become a campaign slogan, no matter how significant it might be. --Pete 10:48, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

It was definitely their main slogan, and there are references which prove it. Perhaps not an official slogan, but the most widely used. It was in their last minute posted out election material, and was the largest (and perhaps only) slogan on their posters outside polling booths. To reduce it to "just a quote, a once off" (as Prester John says) is bordering on dishonest. Peter Ballard 00:56, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

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