HOWARD, JOHN WINSTON

born July 26, 1939, Sydney, N.S.W., Australia prime minister of Australia from March 1996 and leader of the Liberal Party. Howard earned a bachelor of laws degree from the University of Sydney in 1961 and the following year became a solicitor to New South Wales' Supreme Court. His interests soon turned to politics, and in 1974 he was elected to Parliament as a member of the Liberal Party. Under Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser he served as minister for business and consumer affairs (197577) and as federal treasurer (197783). Howard became deputy leader of the Liberal Party in 1982 and advanced to its leadership in 1985, heading an opposition coalition of the Liberals with the National Party. But the coalition failed to unseat the Labor Party from power in elections held in 1987, and Howard was defeated in his bid to retain his leadership of the Liberals in 1989. In January 1995 he regained the leadership, and he subsequently led a Liberal-National coalition to a decisive victory over Labor in elections held in March 1996. During his first term in office, Howard faced a number of challenges, including the creation of a new political party, the One Nation Party, which tested his authority, and national debates on immigration quotas and race relations. Howard was reelected in 1998 by a narrow margin. In 1999 Howard's government sent troops to East Timor as part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission to end fighting between pro-Indonesian forces and island nationalists. In November 1999 a referendum was held to determine whether Australia would cut its historic ties to the United Kingdom and become a republic with a president appointed by a two-thirds majority of Parliament. The referendum failed to carry, vindicating Howard, who had opposed it.