John Howard

John Winston Howard
25th Prime Minister of Australia
In office 11 March 1996 – 3 December 2007
Preceded by	Paul Keating
Succeeded by	Kevin Rudd
Born	26 July 1939 Sydney, New South Wales
Political party	Liberal

John Winston Howard (born 26 July 1939) was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia. John Howard is a member of the Liberal Party. John Howard was the leader of Australia from 1996, when he won the election against Paul Keating of the Labor Party, until 2007 when he lost the election to Kevin Rudd of the Labor Party. John Howard is the second longest serving leader of Australia. He served for 11 years, and Robert Menzies is the longest serving leader of Australia who served for 18 years. Janette Parker, a school teacher, married John Howard in 1971.

John Howard was a lawyer before he became a politician. He was in parliament from 1974 until 2007. From 1977 to 1983 he was the Treasurer in Malcolm Fraser's government. Malcolm Fraser lost the 1983 election to Bob Hawke.

In 1995, the Prime Minister, Paul Keating, was not popular after 13 years of Labor government and in 1996 John Howard became Prime Minister of Australia.

One of the first things he did was get together all the governments in Australia to ban many kinds of dangerous guns in 1997. A man went on a shooting spree in Tasmania in 1996 and killed many people for no reason, so the Howard Government said nobody except farmers really needs certain guns in modern Australia. In 1998, Howard and his Treasurer, Peter Costello took a big tax reform (the GST) to the election and won. In 1999 John Howard's government held a referendum on whether Australia should become a republic and have a President instead of a Queen. However, John Howard did not support the referendum and urged people to vote no.

In 1999, Howard led a United Nations force into East Timor (INTERFET), to help them set up an independent democracy.

After the September 11 attacks, John Howard was involved in world issues. He was close with George W. Bush who was the leader of the United States. George Bush called John Howard a "key ally". John Howard sent SAS troops to Afghanistan and Iraq to support the United States, and signed a free trade agreement with the United States. Despite this alliance, Australia remained fairly neutral on Israel and Palestine.

Like before Howard, Australian trade with Asia got bigger while John Howard was leader. He invited the Chinese leader to speak to the Australian Parliament for the first time. After the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami, John Howard called the President of Indonesia and offered a billion dollars to help. John Howard increased immigration a lot and people came to Australia from all over the world, but he tried to stop boats of people coming without asking for visas first.

Australia was successful while John Howard was leader. However, some people say he did not help poor people, and ignored global warming. In 2005, he made it easier for bosses to get rid of workers, and the Labor Party became more popular. On 24 November 2007, Kevin Rudd won an election and John Howard stopped being Prime Minister. John Howard also lost his seat in the Parliament.