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In late 2007, Australia's relatively liberal citizenship eligibility requirements were modified, ostensibly to improve the value of citizenship by restricting access to it. A key change involved the introduction of a citizenship test. This article tracks its development and implementation. We challenge claims of overwhelming support for the test, explore the discourses around the “Australian values” being tested, and outline the process by which the legislation was enacted (during which a number of principles of parliamentary democracy were compromised). Using evidence from politicians' speeches, we argue the citizenship test served to re-direct the Australian imagination away from a nascent “multicultural” identity, back to one redolent of the times of the “White Australia Policy”, confidently celebrating connections with an Anglo-Saxon heritage, the European Enlightenment, and Judeo-Christian roots. As such it was a key aspect of the 1996–2007 Howard Government's retreat from multiculturalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article identifies the specific concept of “nation” that informed John Howard's politics from his time as Liberal Party leader in the second half of the 1980s to the final years of his 1996–2007 prime ministership. It compares and contrasts the constitutive, procedural and multicultural models of nation to show Howard's continuing commitment to a constitutive understanding of the Australian nation. He endeavoured to give this understanding expression at the policy level by explicitly moving against the multicultural concept of nation that had informed Australian policy from the late 1970s. The Citizenship Test, introduced in his final year of office, is presented as the final move in this departure from multiculturalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Upon winning the 1996 election, John Howard became the first Australian prime minister to codify his understanding of individual ministerial responsibility by publishing A Guide on Key Elements of Ministerial Responsibility. This article examines how this ministerial code of conduct was applied to significant allegations of ministerial impropriety that occurred during the 1996–2007 Howard era, and highlights the relationship between the media, the Prime Minister's response and the ultimate outcome. It finds that Howard's early rigorous application of the Guide to allegations of conflicts of interest involved political pain and instigated its decline. Howard retreated, redefined ministerial responsibility as requiring deliberate wrongdoing and raised the threshold required for a minister's dismissal. His inability to firmly apply the Guide to instances of ministerial misconduct betrays the traditional view that ministers are responsible for their own actions. The contemporary practice is that ministers do not resign for departmental failures for which they are not personally responsible, irrespective of the gravity of that wrongdoing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on Australia's foreign policy from July to December 2007, which coincided with and impacted the results of political campaigns in the country. Prime Minister John Howard and Kevin Rudd's Australian Labor Party (ALP) were the main forces of the campaign. The most prominent foreign policy issues of the campaign were the Iraq war, Afghanistan, the South Pacific, climate change, and the place of the U.S. in Asian-Pacific politics. The case of Mohammed Haneef, who was arrested for his alleged involvement in terrorist attacks in Great Britain, is discussed. Issues such as Australia's position on the Iraq war and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan were also important campaign issues.

The article presents information on domestic politics and government in Australia from July to December 2007 for the whole country and individual regions like New South Wales, Queensland, and Western Australia. During that time a general election took place in which Prime Minister John Howard campaigned to keep his position from opponent Kevin Rudd. The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting was held on September 2-9, 2008 in Sydney, Australia and foreign leaders from the region came, including U.S. President George W. Bush. The outcome of the elections was that Rudd became Prime Minister of Australia. The election results of the Australian Senate are also discussed.

The Howard era saw a further accumulation of power in Canberra and continued the marginalisation of the States. This essay locates John Howard within Liberal Party tradition and examines the way in which his own values shaped his approach to federalism. Howard identified himself as an economic liberal and as a social conservative (although he might be better thought of as a social liberal.) His commitment to small government and a single market unimpeded by state borders together with his lack of sympathy with regional identity had important consequences for the evolution of the Australian federation after 1996. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an era of continuous campaigning, elections are seldom won in the final weeks of the formal campaign period. The 2007 Australian federal election saw voters dispatch a Liberal Party and Nationals Coalition government that had presided over a buoyant economy, and return the Australian Labor Party from the electoral wilderness it had occupied since 1996. The explanation of this revival in Labor's stocks can be traced to the Wheat Board scandal, the unpopularity of the labour market deregulation, and to a series of other political tribulations that the fourth Howard Government faced during 2005 and 2006. Initially their impact was masked by the failure of Labor's parliamentary leadership. But when caucus elected Kevin Rudd and freed him to position Labor as offering fresh ideas and a safe pair of hands, Labor seized a lead in the opinion polls and retained it throughout 2007. Rudd's tactical leadership of his party proved critical. This article describes how the 2007 campaign unfolded and the pattern of events which saw a refashioned ALP win an eighteen-seat lower house majority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]