Howard was the highest taxing govt in Australia's history, Labor then reduced the income tax rate three times since, all he did in terms of economic reform was a GST. He preferred to play the social conservative while pretending that everything we have around us, markets, the general direction of IR, taxation, etc etc, is a product of Labor which the conservative have always tried to claim the later credit for. Oh, and in modern times, slash and burn health/education/social/etc services to bring the budget back in to the black. Even though Menzies never had a budget surplus. I'd rather our money spent on us to support Australians, not held in a surplus gathering dust for no good reason - it's our money.