Twenty years on, the recent release of previously secret federal Cabinet papers by Australian Archives has revealed that John Howard’s government was even dodgier than it appeared at the time.
Although the documents are incomplete (much of the record relating to East Timor is redacted), the gist is clear. This was a government that put its own interest ahead of the national interest, and which didn’t bother too much with facts to inform its decisions, if they didn’t suit the agenda of the prime minister.
It has now been confirmed that John Howard deployed Australian military forces to the Middle East months before Australia’s involvement with the Iraq war became official. The government fought hard to keep this secret, especially after the justification for going to war (Saddam’s supposed weapons of mass destruction), turned out to be entirely fictitious.
As early as January 2003, Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer gave an internal briefing on the UN search for these weapons in which he admitted ‘there was no confidence that the inspection process would uncover clear evidence of continuing Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs’.
The latest release confirms that in spite of this knowledge, the Howard government decided to emphasise concerns about these imaginary weapons in its public messaging, softening the Australian public up for involvement in yet another foreign war, which ended up killing hundreds of thousands and further destabilising the world.
John Howard’s status as an unindicted war criminal remains.
Money, wheat and East Timor
Federal money was shuffled around to cover the growing cost of the war, including retrospective costs, in spite of concerns from high ranking public servants in the finance department.
After Saddam was gone, more dodginess ensued with regard to the wheat trade between Australia and Iraq, leading to international controversy in 2005. We will have to wait until January next year to discover more about what those in Cabinet knew about that.
As for East Timor, in August of 2004 the Cabinet was briefed on negotiations with Timor-Leste over maritime boundaries. The detail of what was discussed is mostly redacted from the current release, but presumably it included intelligence gathered from ASIS’s illegal bugging of the Timor Leste Prime Minister’s office in Dili that year, in order for Australian companies to get control of the fledgling country’s oil and gas reserves.
The official history of this shameful era remains unpublished, presumably mired in the censor’s office at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Several 2004 records relating to terrorism also remain sealed.
The more things change…
The Cabinet papers show that Howard’s hardline policy against asylum seekers and migration in general was not just PR, with Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone’s request to modestly increase the number of skilled migrants and refugees into Australia being rebuffed by the prime minister’s department on grounds of cost and the risks of ‘unsuccessful integration into the broader community’.
Beyond foreign policy issues, the papers reveal a government and nation deeply concerned with all the same issues troubling PM Albanese and his colleagues now, including housing affordability, supermarket checkout costs, and problems with the aged care sector.
Instead of dealing with any of this in a deep, structural way, the latest Cabinet papers reveal that almost $4 billion of sweeteners were signed off by Howard and his ministers in the final hours of their government before parliament was dissolved for the 2004 federal election, giving the lie to their claims of being responsible managers of money.
As it turned out, John Howard was rewarded for all this with another term, before finally being ousted by the momentum of Kevin 07 three years later, losing his government and his seat in the process, but still somehow becoming a hero of the Liberal Party.
You can read the latest Cabinet papers release from Australian Archives here. What will we discover about 2024 in 2044?

Originally from Canberra, David Lowe is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and photographer with particular interests in the environment and politics. He’s known for his campaigning work with Cloudcatcher Media.
Yes David, despite:
Perfecting the art of never answering a question
Eroding the idea that factuality matters
Instigating unsustainable fiscal policy – making reform near impossible
Appealing to division and base instincts
Convincing the punters that gutting government services to balance the books was sound economics
Starting the inexorable rout of moderates in the Liberal Party
he has been the second longest serving PM in our history despite not introducing one memorable contribution to making a better society. (OK, there was the guns thing) The mining boom (largely squandered) helped but these strategies worked and have thus become entrenched in Australian politics. Sad but true.
Liz three terms for what reason ?
Sad but true ?
Why is this man so venerated? Why hasn’t he been prosecuted?
Probably for the same reason that the those that promoted RoboDebt haven’t been prosecuted – they all Untouchable, no matter what the wrong doing, the grubs that hold high office get off scot free.
Howard sent the country off into an illegal war, based on a lie, killing thousands of innocent people. And thrown in for good measure, the Wheat for Weapons Scandal. It really doesn’t get much worse then all that but the dude has No shame and is totally unaccountable.
He dished up another lie with the Children Overboard Scandal, dragging in our navy personnel in a grubby attempt to run cover for the lie.
He was nicknamed ‘Honest John’ for good reason.
The bugging of Timor Leste, one of the world’s poorer nations, to wrangle financial benefit for Woodside. The Woodside mob, we know them well, the puppet master of LabLibNat.
This is a very selective read of the Cabinet papers of 2004, selected to affirm the writer’s dislike of the LNP. As someone who is not a great fan of LNP governments, working under that government in the early 2000s was akin to working for the government’s of either the two parties and as alwaysmich of thedecisionmakingwas bilateraland unexpected.. To suggest the seven billion election spend was an indication the LNP government weren’t good economic managers is an example of the writer’s bias.. Australia retired massive debt under Costello, generated strong economic , employment and wage growth. Indeed one of the reasons Australian house prices rose from the late nineties was the high levels of employment participation coupled with lower interest rates, which , with increased use of child care , allowed much higher mortgage borrowing. Labor inherited a very strong economy which enabled Australia to spend its way through the GFC and later the pandemic.
The comment “John Howard’s status as an unindicted war criminal remains” is nothing but journalist double speak. Either Howard was indicted and found guilty of war crimes or he was not. Howard’s judgement- like Blair’s- on Iraq was deeply flawed but he is not a war criminal.
The release of the Cabinet papers is a time for mature reflection on our governments, amd the pros and cons of their decisions. This undergraduate polemic shows how its wasted on some closed minds.
They had the advantage of a mining boom and should have done a lot more with it than offer lots of carrots to the middle class to keep getting elected. We should have a much more effective sovereign wealth fund. Then there was the gas deal:
“ At a media conference 20 years ago, former prime minister John Howard announced what he said was the biggest single export deal in Australia’s history, a 25-year contract to supply China with up to $25 billion worth of liquefied natural gas from the North West Shelf.
“Howard was excited. It was, he declared, ‘a gold-medal performance’
“Trouble was, the contract locked in Australian gas sales to China at a historically low price. As the world price of LNG began to climb, it quickly became apparent just how rotten the deal was (at least from Australia’s perspective).
“As one industry figure who was part of the original negotiations told the Australian Financial Review in 2015: ‘It is regarded as the worst deal ever done.’”
Great economic management!
At the same time as they discounted the CGT, made superannuation a tax avoidance paradise and turned housing into a get rich quick scheme, making it unaffordable for many, they totally abandoned social housing.
“Closed minds”, indeed, to the slaughter of thousands of innocent people in our name in Iraq and the resulting chaos in the Middle East against a country that didn’t threaten us. It’s what you get when Australia as The Deputy Sheriff asks ‘how high’, when the good ole USA says’ jump’.
Agree with you there Peter!
Didn’t his ‘free trade agreement’ send all of our industry to China as well.
“John Howard’s government was even dodgier than it appeared at the time.” NAH !
Nothing has ever been dodgier than that sculking slime-ball, who gleefully succeeded in destroying any decent impulse previously present in Australian politics.
His own party had spurned his dubious advances to lead the Lib/Nat rabble after the rout of Malcolm Fraser, who lost his pants and credibility in pursuit of his ambitions in the US, after finding he was the last Lib. still standing , Howard won the unlosable election after Hawk and Keating had squandered their massive goodwill and rendered Labor Toxic.
With the aid of his trade-mark propaganda and lies, he did win a second term and Australia will pay the price of his many traitorous acts of betrayal and the total trashing of Australia’s good name, in perpetuity.
Cheers, G”)
Come on David how many terms was Howard
The leader of the coalition and country ?
Howard and Hawke were by far the stand
Out prime ministers this past 50 years
And to suggest anything different is suggesting
The population had no idea…seriously mate
Get your impartial hate back on ..because
I do feel you can write articles from the centre
But are reluctant due to why ? Never forget
All elections are won from the centre …David
With all due respect..your own leader is hardly
A leader absolutely divisive..the greens have turned
Federally for the worst ..no longer a party for the
Environment Federally..certainly no friends Of
Israel…along with Labor is most concerning …
So why not do the right thing and call out your own
Party David and Labor..? Mate the the world has had it
With this far left garbage…the tide has turned and for good reason..do respect our local greens because they stand for the Environment..not radical obstructionist
Activists …with regards..Barrow !
And they all count themselves as good Christians.
Catholic of course, where the doctrines of hate begins.
Labor has completed 1. term under KRudd (2007) and this current Albanese term, in their own right, since 1996 . Not even 2 full terms of Labour majority Government during the last 28 years!
These numbers don’t explain everything, but they certainly explain a lot!!
Such a minority Labor…one wonders why that is !
Murdoch and the power of right wing media on the increasingly ill educated, narrow minded, shortsighted voters.
Also thanks to Howard’s despicable influence on dumbing down and sanitization of Australian education and deregulating media regulations.
He’s been the sly puppetmaster of most of those following, especially the truly appalling Morrison.
Power of the right-wing media ?
Like what the world witnessed
During the last Presidential election ?
please …
All Howard ever had like all Lieberal leaders is the LNP/Media protection racket! Even with that Howard suffered the most humiliating defeat in Australian political history! Losing his end seat and the election! Unquestionably the worst, most wasteful and damaging PM since federation! The nation has and is still suffering from his catastrophic economic policy failures!
Any wonder that very few people trust politicians, from any but the independents and minor parties. They attack supermarket duopolies, a situation that mirrors politics. And I am leaving the obvious corruption out.