John Hewson
Encyclopedia
- For the English soldier and regicide, see John Hewson (regicide)John Hewson (regicide)Colonel John Hewson was a soldier in the New Model Army and signed the death warrant of King Charles I, making him a regicide.-Life:...
.
John Robert Hewson AM
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
(born 28 October 1946) is an Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n economist
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
, company director and a former politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
. He was federal leader of the Liberal Party of Australia
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...
from 1990 to 1994 and led the party to defeat at the 1993 federal election.
Early life
Hewson was born in SydneySydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, the son of a working-class, politically conservative engineer. He was educated at Kogarah High School
Kogarah High School
Kogarah High School is a comprehensive co-educational school located in Kogarah NSW- Sport houses :Kogarah High School has a long history of student achievement both academically and on the sporting field...
and then at the University of Sydney
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
where he graduated in economics. He then gained a master's degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
from the Regina campus of the University of Saskatchewan
University of Saskatchewan
The University of Saskatchewan is a Canadian public research university, founded in 1907, and located on the east side of the South Saskatchewan River in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. An "Act to establish and incorporate a University for the Province of Saskatchewan" was passed by the...
(which since 1974 has been the University of Regina
University of Regina
The University of Regina is a public research university located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Founded in 1911 as a private denominational high school of the Methodist Church of Canada, it began an association with the University of Saskatchewan as a junior college in 1925, and was disaffiliated...
) and a second master's and a doctorate
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...
in economics from Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
in Baltimore. In 1967 he married Margaret Deaves.
Returning to Australia, Hewson worked as an economist for the Reserve Bank of Australia
Reserve Bank of Australia
The Reserve Bank of Australia came into being on 14 January 1960 as Australia's central bank and banknote issuing authority, when the Reserve Bank Act 1959 removed the central banking functions from the Commonwealth Bank to it....
. From 1976 to 1983 he was employed as an economic advisor to two successive Liberal
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...
treasurers; Phillip Lynch
Phillip Lynch
Sir Phillip Reginald Lynch KCMG was an Australian Liberal politician.Lynch held the House of Representatives seat of Flinders from 1966 to 1982. Between 1968 and 1972, he served variously as Minister for the Army, Minister for Immigration, and Minister for Labour and National Service, under Prime...
and John Howard
John Howard
John Winston Howard AC, SSI, was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He was the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies....
. During this period he developed a keen interest in politics and was determined to enter politics himself. While a strong Liberal, he was critical of what he saw as the weakness and inconsistency of economic policy under Malcolm Fraser
Malcolm Fraser
John Malcolm Fraser AC, CH, GCL, PC is a former Australian Liberal Party politician who was the 22nd Prime Minister of Australia. He came to power in the 1975 election following the dismissal of the Whitlam Labor government, in which he played a key role...
's government. He was a supporter of some of the economic policies of Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
.
After the defeat of the Fraser government at the 1983 election
Australian federal election, 1983
Federal elections were held in Australia on 5 March 1983. All 125 seats in the House of Representatives, and all 64 seats in the Senate, were up for election, following a double dissolution...
, Hewson went into business journalism and became a director of a private bank, the Macquarie Bank. This allowed the Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
to tag him as "a wealthy banker" when he entered politics. Having divorced Margaret Deaves in 1985, in 1988 he remarried to Carolyn Somerville.
Federal political career
Hewson was elected at the 1987 election to the House of RepresentativesAustralian House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....
for the affluent Sydney electorate of Wentworth
Division of Wentworth
The Division of Wentworth is an Australian Electoral Division in the state of New South Wales. It was proclaimed in 1900 and was one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election. The Division is named after William Charles Wentworth , a noted Australian explorer and statesman...
. He entered Parliament at a time when there was a leadership vacuum on the conservative side of politics. John Howard had just lost the 1987 elections and the Liberals had no obvious alternative leader. In September 1988, Howard appointed him shadow finance minister. In May 1989, when Andrew Peacock
Andrew Peacock
Andrew Sharp Peacock AC, GCL , is a former Australian Liberal politician. He was a minister in the Gorton, McMahon and Fraser governments, and was federal leader of the Liberal Party of Australia 1983–1985 and 1989–1990...
replaced Howard as Leader, Hewson became shadow treasurer
Treasurer
A treasurer is the person responsible for running the treasury of an organization. The adjective for a treasurer is normally "tresorial". The adjective "treasurial" normally means pertaining to a treasury, rather than the treasurer.-Government:...
. In the lead up to the 1990 election, Hewson performed well against the then-Treasurer Paul Keating
Paul Keating
Paul John Keating was the 24th Prime Minister of Australia, serving from 1991 to 1996. Keating was elected as the federal Labor member for Blaxland in 1969 and came to prominence as the reformist treasurer of the Hawke Labor government, which came to power at the 1983 election...
.
Election to leadership of the opposition
When Peacock was defeated at the 1990 elections, Hewson was elected to the Liberal leadership, despite having been in Parliament only three years. He defeated Peter ReithPeter Reith
Peter Keaston Reith, , former Australian politician, was a Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party and then a senior Cabinet minister in the first two terms of the Howard Government.-Early life:...
62 votes to 13. (Reith was then elected deputy leader and Hewson made him Shadow Treasurer.) His positive qualities were his strength in economic policy, and his attractive media personality. But he had no experience in other areas of policy, his views on most issues were unknown, and he had little experience of political tactics, particularly against such hardened veterans as Hawke and Keating. He was vulnerable to the accusation that he was a narrow economic technocrat, and his Thatcherite
Thatcherism
Thatcherism describes the conviction politics, economic and social policy, and political style of the British Conservative politician Margaret Thatcher, who was leader of her party from 1975 to 1990...
views laid him open to criticism.
Fightback! economic policy
Shortly after the leadership change, Hewson made up ground on the Hawke government in the opinion pollOpinion poll
An opinion poll, sometimes simply referred to as a poll is a survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence...
s, as the Australian economy struggled with the early 1990s recession. Hewson was determined to make a break with what he saw as the weak pragmatism of past Liberal leaders. In November 1991 he launched "Fightback!
Fightback!
Fightback! was a radical economic policy package, 650 pages long, proposed by then Liberal Party leader John Hewson.-Key elements:The key elements of Fightback! were:...
", a radical economic policy package. The key elements of the package were introduction of a consumption tax
Consumption tax
A consumption tax is a tax on spending on goods and services. The tax base of such a tax is the money spent on consumption. Consumption taxes are usually indirect, such as a sales tax or a value added tax...
called the goods and services tax
Goods and Services Tax (Australia)
The GST is a broad sales tax of 10% on most goods and services transactions in Australia. It is a value added tax, not a sales tax, in that it is refunded to all parties in the chain of production other than the final consumer....
(GST), the compensatory abolition of a range of other taxes such as sales tax
Sales tax
A sales tax is a tax, usually paid by the consumer at the point of purchase, itemized separately from the base price, for certain goods and services. The tax amount is usually calculated by applying a percentage rate to the taxable price of a sale....
, deep cuts in income tax
Income tax
An income tax is a tax levied on the income of individuals or businesses . Various income tax systems exist, with varying degrees of tax incidence. Income taxation can be progressive, proportional, or regressive. When the tax is levied on the income of companies, it is often called a corporate...
for the middle and upper-middle classes, and increases in pension
Pension
In general, a pension is an arrangement to provide people with an income when they are no longer earning a regular income from employment. Pensions should not be confused with severance pay; the former is paid in regular installments, while the latter is paid in one lump sum.The terms retirement...
s and benefits to compensate the poor for the rise in prices flowing from the GST.
In December, Keating successfully challenged Hawke and became Prime Minister. Through 1992 Keating mounted a campaign against the Fightback package, and particularly against the GST, which he described as an attack on the working class in that it shifted the tax burden from direct taxation of the wealthy to indirect taxation of the mass of consumers. Keating memorably described the impact of Hewson's GST as "15% on this, 15% on that." Keating famously described Hewson as a "feral abacus
Abacus
The abacus, also called a counting frame, is a calculating tool used primarily in parts of Asia for performing arithmetic processes. Today, abaci are often constructed as a bamboo frame with beads sliding on wires, but originally they were beans or stones moved in grooves in sand or on tablets of...
."
This assault forced Hewson into a partial backdown, agreeing not to levy the GST on food. But this concession opened Hewson to charges of weakness and inconsistency, and also complicated the arithmetic of the whole package, since the weakening of the GST reduced the scope for tax cuts, the most attractive element of the package for middle-class voters. The complications of the new package were famously demonstrated in the "birthday cake interview
Birthday Cake Interview
The "birthday cake interview" was a famous political interview in Australia that was carried out between interviewer Mike Willesee and Liberal Party Opposition Leader Dr. John Hewson shortly before the 1993 federal election...
", in which Hewson was unable to answer a question posed by journalist Mike Willesee
Mike Willesee
Michael Willesee is an Australian television presenter.Mike Willesee came to prominence in 1967 as a reporter for the ABC's new nightly current affairs program This Day Tonight , where his aggressive style quickly earned him a reputation as a fearless political interviewer.-Career:Willesee figured...
about whether or not a birthday cake would cost more or less under a Coalition government. Hewson was instead forced into a series of circumlocutions about whether the cake would be decorated, have ice cream in it and so on. In reference to the Birthday Cake Inverview in an August 2006 interview, Hewson said: "Well I answered the question honestly. The answer's actually right. That doesn't count...I should have told him (Mike Willesee) to get stuffed!". According to Channel 9's 20 to 1
20 to 1
20 to 1 is an Australian television series, currently hosted by Bert Newton that counts down an undefined "top 20" of elements or events of popular culture, such as films, songs, sporting scandals. Previously the show was hosted by Charles "Bud" Tingwell and narrated by David Reyne...
episode Unscripted and Unplanned, the Birthday Cake Interview incident was the moment Hewson lost the election with the interview held 10 days before polling day. However, polls right up to election day supported a Coalition victory.
1993 federal election
Hewson was defeated by Keating at the 1993 election, losing what many had described as "the unloseable election" for the Liberals. The issue of the GST was dropped from the Liberal Party's agenda until the 1998 election campaign.Despite previously having pledged to resign the leadership in the event that he was defeated at the 1993 Federal Election, Hewson decided to continue in his position. He defeated a post-election party leadership challenge from John Howard
John Howard
John Winston Howard AC, SSI, was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He was the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies....
and Bruce Reid
Bruce Reid
Bruce Anthony Reid is an Australian cricketer and bowling coach of the Indian national cricket team on their 2003-04 tour to Australia....
but his position was never secure from that point onward and political colleagues such as Peter Costello
Peter Costello
Peter Howard Costello AC is an Australian politician and lawyer who served as the Treasurer in the Australian government from 1996 to 2007. He is the longest-serving Treasurer in Australian history. Costello was a Member of the Australian House of Representatives from 1990 to 2009, representing...
, Alexander Downer
Alexander Downer
Alexander John Gosse Downer is a former Australian Liberal Party politician who was Foreign Minister of Australia from March 1996 to December 2007, the longest-serving in Australian history...
and Bronwyn Bishop
Bronwyn Bishop
Bronwyn Kathleen Bishop , an Australian politician, is a Member of the Australian House of Representatives for the Liberal Party representing the Division of Mackellar, New South Wales since 1994...
consistently undermined his leadership over the subsequent year. In 1994 he attempted to quell leadership speculation by calling a leadership ballot, but he lost the vote and the leadership to Alexander Downer
Alexander Downer
Alexander John Gosse Downer is a former Australian Liberal Party politician who was Foreign Minister of Australia from March 1996 to December 2007, the longest-serving in Australian history...
. In January 1995, Downer resigned, John Howard
John Howard
John Winston Howard AC, SSI, was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He was the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies....
was elected Liberal leader for the second time, and Hewson resigned from Parliament shortly after. Hewson thus had one of the shortest parliamentary careers of any leader of a major political party.
Career after politics
Since his departure from politics, he has written extensively for the business and general press, and spent time on the lecture circuit. In his writings he demonstrated an increasing focus on corporate social and environmental responsibility. In 2003-4 he chaired a community advisory committee to RepuTex, a new company that conducts assessments of companies on these criteria, as well as issuing an annual public listing of Australia's top 100 companies on these criteria.Business and academic activity
In 1995, Hewson was invited to join IT&T Services as a non executive director in one of his few private enterprise successes. IT&T was a specialist IT and telecommunications design and project management group who delivered major technology projects for both corporate and government clients such as CitigroupCitigroup
Citigroup Inc. or Citi is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States. Citigroup was formed from one of the world's largest mergers in history by combining the banking giant Citicorp and financial conglomerate...
, Department of Defence
Department of Defence (Australia)
The Australian Department of Defence is a Federal Government Department. It forms part of the Australian Defence Organisation along with the Australian Defence Force . The Defence mission is to defend Australia and its national interests...
, News Limited
News Limited
News Limited is one of Australia's largest diversified media companies. The publicly listed company's interests span newspaper and magazine publishing, Internet, Pay TV, National Rugby League, market research, DVD and film distribution, and film and television production trading assets.News Limited...
and Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young is one of the largest professional services networks in the world and one of the "Big Four" accountancy firms, along with Deloitte, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers ....
across the Asia Pacific region. IT&T Services was acquired by public company Powerlan Ltd in 2000. He became Professor of Management at Macquarie University
Macquarie University
Macquarie University is an Australian public teaching and research university located in Sydney, with its main campus situated in Macquarie Park. Founded in 1964 by the New South Wales Government, it was the third university to be established in the metropolitan area of Sydney...
, Sydney, and Dean of the Macquarie Graduate School of Management
Macquarie Graduate School of Management
Macquarie Graduate School of Management is a graduate business school based on the campus of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia and associated with the University's Faculty of Business and Economics...
in 2002 but resigned within two years. While at Macquarie University, he also served as a consultant to ABN AMRO
ABN AMRO
ABN AMRO Bank N.V. is a Dutch state-owned bank with headquarters in Amsterdam. It was re-established, in its current form, in 2009 following the acquisition and break up of ABN AMRO Group by a banking consortium consisting of Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Santander and Fortis...
.
In 2005, Hewson was elected onto the Touring Car Entrants Group of Australia (TEGA) board as an independent member. He left in June 2006 after a dispute with V8 Supercars Australia Chairman Tony Cochrane. John Hewson held the position of chairman of the board of directors for the Elderslie Group, a company whose primary interests lie in the areas of corporate finance and property investments. Unsatisfied with the direction the Group was heading in, he later resigned. On 2 July 2008, global accounting firm, PWC
PricewaterhouseCoopers
PricewaterhouseCoopers is a global professional services firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest professional services firm measured by revenues and one of the "Big Four" accountancy firms....
was appointed as receiver and administrator of the failed Elderslie Group. Since circa 2005, Hewson has been a member of the Trilateral Commission
Trilateral Commission
The Trilateral Commission is a non-governmental, non-partisan discussion group founded by David Rockefeller in July 1973 to foster closer cooperation among the United States, Europe and Japan.-History:...
, an alliance of top political and economic leaders from North America, Asia-Pacific, and Europe. He is Chairman of General Security Australia Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd.
Political commentary
After 1996 he became increasingly critical of Prime Minister John HowardJohn Howard
John Winston Howard AC, SSI, was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He was the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies....
. In 2003 he opposed Howard's decision to take part in the Iraq War
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
although in 2004 argued it would be electoral "suicide" for the Liberal Party to replace Howard with an alternate leader at the time. In July 2006, Hewson gave an interview to ABC
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
's Four Corners program in which he voiced concern at the growing influence of what he characterised as a "hardline right religious element" in the NSW branch of the Liberal Party. This was in breach of a Liberal Party rule about speaking to the media and reports at the time claimed he could face expulsion from the party.
Six weeks later, Hewson was interviewed by Andrew Denton
Andrew Denton
Andrew Christopher Denton is an Australian television producer, comedian, Gold Logie-nominated television presenter and former radio host, and was the host of the ABC's weekly television interview program Enough Rope. He is known for his comedy and interviewing technique...
, on the ABC TV program Enough Rope
Enough Rope
Enough Rope with Andrew Denton is a television interview show originally broadcast on ABC Television in Australia...
, discussing both politics and aspects of his personal life.
In 2010, he was a panellist on the ABC
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
's Gruen Nation
The Gruen Transfer
The Gruen Transfer is an Australian television program focusing on advertising, which debuted on ABC1 on 28 May 2008 and has run for four seasons...
and has written a regular column for the Australian Financial Review since 2004.
Personal life
Hewson married Margaret Deaves in 1967. Having divorced Deaves in 1985, in 1988 he married Carolyn Somerville, described by news media as "a formidable figure in investment banking".In 2007, John Hewson married publicist Jessica Wilson. they reside in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales.
Since leaving politics, Hewson has been involved in a range of non-profit organisations, including the Arthritis Foundation of Australia and kids charity, KidsXpress.