John Winston Howard summary

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John Winston Howard, (born July 26, 1939, Sydney, N.S.W., Austl.), Prime minister of Australia (1996–2007) and leader of the Liberal Party (1985–89, 1995–2007). Howard became a solicitor to the New South Wales Supreme Court in 1962. In 1974 he was elected to Parliament as a member of the Liberal Party and served under Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser as minister for business and consumer affairs (1975–77) and as federal treasurer (1977–83). Howard became leader of the Liberal Party in 1985, but, after failing to unseat the Labor Party in 1987, he was defeated in his bid to retain leadership in 1989. He regained power in 1995 and engineered the defeat of Labor in the elections of March 1996. He was reelected in 1998, 2001, and 2004. In the 2007 general election, the Liberal Party was defeated by Labor, and Howard lost his seat in Parliament. Shortly thereafter, he stepped down as party leader.

prime minister Summary

Prime minister, the head of government in a country with a parliamentary or semipresidential political system. In such systems, the prime minister—literally the “first,” or most important, minister—must be able to command a continuous majority in the legislature (usually the lower house in a

cabinet Summary

Cabinet, in political systems, a body of advisers to a head of state who also serve as the heads of government departments. The cabinet has become an important element of government wherever legislative powers have been vested in a parliament, but its form differs markedly in various countries, the

government Summary

Government, the political system by which a country or community is administered and regulated. Most of the key words commonly used to describe governments—words such as monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy—are of Greek or Roman origin. They have been current for more than 2,000 years and have not

Australia Summary

Australia, the smallest continent and one of the largest countries on Earth, lying between the Pacific and Indian oceans in the Southern Hemisphere. Australia’s capital is Canberra, located in the southeast between the larger and more important economic and cultural centres of Sydney and Melbourne.