LET me get this right. John Howard promised Peter Costello he would hand over the prime ministership after two terms in a secret meeting 12 years ago.
That's what Canberra commentator Glenn Milne wrote in yesterday's Sunday Telegraph. It was an "explosive" revelation, Milne went on to say.
Now, before we all become victims to the giddy hysteria which infects the Canberra commentariat whenever the words "succession" or "leadership" are mentioned, let's calmly consider a few realities.
Point one, in 1994, when shadow environment minister Ian McLachlan was keeping notes of a discussion between Howard and Costello, Howard was shadow industrial relations minister.
Costello was deputy Leader of the Opposition, and Alexander Downer was the Leader of the Opposition. So, the meeting was between two shadow ministers, neither of whom was the leader of the party.
ReplyDeletePoint two, the Opposition had lost four elections to Bob Hawke over the previous 11 years, in 1983, 1984, 1987 and 1990, and one, the so-called unlosable election of 1993, to Paul Keating.
Thus, with the Opposition leadership spill yet to occur and the next federal election 15 months away (though that was an unknown at the time), a potential candidate for the Opposition leadership is making a "promise" that he would only serve two terms as prime minister if the party broke the drought and won office.
This 'promise', detailed by McLachlan and apparently kept in his wallet, is an absolute nonsense.
In two Costello biographies, authors Shaun Carney (Peter Costello - the New Liberal, Allen and Unwin 2001) and Tracey Aubin (Peter Costello: a biography, HarperCollins 1999) made it clear that there never was a Kirribilli-style agreement between Howard and Costello.
Carney wrote that exchanges between the two had never gone to specifics. The author was heavily briefed by Costello.
Aubin wrote that there was no hard and fast agreement and quoted Costello saying: "We certainly haven't entered into any plan to divide up the future of the Liberal Party. I've never been anointed by anyone."
Costello in fact repeated the no-deal statement to Nine's Sunday program compere Laurie Oakes in October 2001.
Opposition Leader Kim Beazley meanwhile blathers about Howard "cutting and running" from the prime ministership and the need for him to make his intentions clear to the electorate.
The very notion of a leader who has won four elections and who shows no sign yet of deciding whether to go as being seen as "cutting and running" is as ludicrous as Beazley himself.
And as laughable as that proposition may be it is clearly put in the shade by the belief that anyone would take seriously the suggestion that two Opposition politicians made a deal about how long either would serve in any position when they were not in office, and showed no prospect of winning office, let alone one of them becoming the second-longest serving prime minister in Australian history.