born July 26, 1939, Sydney, N.S.W., Austl.
Prime minister of Australia (from 1996) and leader of the Liberal Party.
Howard became a solicitor to the New South Wales Supreme Court. 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 (197577) and as federal treasurer (197783). 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.