John Howard was a lawyer before he became a politician. He was in parliament from 1974 until 2007. From 1977 to 1983 he was the Treasurer in Malcolm Fraser's government. Malcolm Fraser lost the 1987 election to Bob Hawke. On 24 November 2007, John Howard lost to Kevin Rudd and his parliamentary seat to Maxine McKew. He became the second prime minister to lose a parliamentary seat after Stanley Bruce in 1929.
John Howard is the fourth son of Mona ("nee" Kell) and Lyall Howard. His parents were married in 1925. His eldest brother Stanley was born in 1926, followed by Walter in 1929, and Robert (Bob) in 1936. Lyall Howard was an admirer of Winston Churchill, and a sympathiser with the New Guard. Howard's ancestors were English, Scottish and Irish.
Howard was born and raised in the Sydney suburb of Earlwood, in a Methodist family. His mother had been an office worker until her marriage. His father and his paternal grandfather, Walter Howard, were both veterans of the First AIF in World War I. They also ran two Dulwich Hill petrol stations. Howard worked there as a boy.
Howard suffered from a hearing impairment in his youth. It ruled out the chances of him becoming a barrister as a likely career from his mind. To this day, John wears a hearing aid.
One of Howard's first initiatives was to unite the state governments of Australia to place a ban on gun ownership in Australia. This move came after the Port Arthur Massacre in Tasmania in 1996, where 35 people were killed and a further 37 injured at the hands of a gunman. In 1998, Howard and his Treasurer, Peter Costello took a big tax reform (the GST) to the election and won.
In 1999 John Howard's government held a referendum on whether Australia should become a republic and have a President instead of a Queen. However, John Howard did not support the referendum and urged people to vote no. The Australian Labor Party opposition led by Kim Beazley criticised John Howard's handling of the 1998 Australian Waterfront Dispute.
In 1999, Howard led a United Nations force into East Timor (INTERFET), to help them set up an independent democracy.
After the September 11 attacks, John Howard was involved in world issues. He was close with George W. Bush who was the leader of the United States. George Bush called John Howard a "key ally". John Howard sent SAS troops to Afghanistan and Iraq to support the United States, and signed a free trade agreement with the United States. Despite this alliance, Australia remained fairly neutral on Israel and Palestine.
Like before Howard, Australian trade with Asia got bigger while John Howard was leader. He invited the Chinese leader Hu Jintao to speak to the Australian Parliament for the first time. After the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami, John Howard called the President of Indonesia and offered a billion dollars to help. John Howard increased immigration a lot and people came to Australia from all over the world, but he tried to stop boats of people coming without asking for visas first.
In 2005, he made it easier for bosses to get rid of workers by introducing the controversial WorkChoices industrial legislation introduced by his Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews. This upset people and the Labor Party became more popular. On 24 November 2007, Kevin Rudd won an election and John Howard stopped being Prime Minister. John Howard also lost his seat in the Parliament to the Labor Party candidate Maxine McKew, a former ABC TV journalist.
Swedish language
Swedish () is a language mostly spoken in Sweden and in parts of Finland, typically along the southern and western coasts and on the Åland islands. More than nine million people speak Swedish. It is similar to two of the other Scandinavian languages, Norwegian and Danish, and a person who understands one of these languages can understand the others. Other Scandinavian languages, such as Icelandic and Faroese, are less closely related and cannot be understood by Swedish speakers. Standard Swedish is spoken and written throughout Sweden, but there are some local dialects with differences in grammar and vocabulary in small towns and rural areas.
Swedish began as a dialect of Old Norse, which was a language that everyone in Scandinavia understood during the Viking Age. Around the 12th century Swedish began to slowly become different from the other dialects. These dialects later became what we today call Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese and Danish. Swedish is a Germanic language with some similarities to English because of the Vikings that invaded England in the 10th Century. It is even more similar to German and Dutch, partly because of the Hanseatic League of the Middle Ages, when Sweden traded very openly with Germany.
There are three characters in the Swedish language that are not used in English. These are å, ä and ö. The letter å is a vowel sound between [a] and [o], similar to the English word "awe". The letter ä is a vowel sound similar to [ɛ], like in the English word "bed". The letter ö is a vowel sound between [o] and [ɛ], pronounced [øː] like the "u" in the English word "burn". These characters are also used in the Finnish language, while Norwegian and Danish languages replace ä and ö with similar characters æ and ø.
Swedish also has some important differences in grammar. Definite articles are suffixed onto the end of their nouns, so "ett hus" (a house) becomes "huset" (the house). Also unlike English, Swedish uses two grammatical genders called "Common" and "Neuter". Nouns of the Common gender are sometimes called "en words", and many words for living (or once-living) things are "en words". Nouns of the Neuter gender are sometimes called "ett words".
Walter Mikac
Walter Mikac is an Australian writer and motivational speaker.
Walter Mikac's wife and two small children were killed at the Port Arthur massacre. He has written two books, one called "To Have And To Hold" and the other is called "Circle of Life: Sustenance for the Soul". It is about handling grief and tragedy. He helped create the Alannah and Madeline Foundation to help children who are the victims of violent crime
Martin Bryant
Martin Bryant (born 7 May 1967) is an Australian criminal who killed 35 people in Tasmania in 1996, in the Port Arthur massacre. He is now in prison for the most murders in Australian recorded history.
Bryant has been given a sentence of life in gaol for each of the 35 murders. He is never to be released. He is held in solitary confinement (by himself) in Hobarts Risdon Prison.
Martin Bryant is believed to have an IQ (thinking level) of an 11-year-old. Guards and doctors report that his only interest seems to be himself. He has tried to kill himself several times in prison.
Rugby League
Rugby League is a ball sport. Two teams of thirteen players play against each other. The ball used is oval in shape. The field is a rectangle shape. It is 100 metres long and 70 metres wide. It is played for 80 minutes (40 minutes each half).
A "try" is scored when a player scores or touches the ball down in the in-goal area (the try line included). A try is worth 4 points and if its converted (the goal kicker kicks the ball in between the top of the goal post), the team gets an extra 2 points. Another method of scoring points is through drop goals which are worth 1 point, or penalty goals which are worth 2 points.
Rugby League is played in over 30 countries in the world. The countries that play it the most are Australia, England, Ireland and New Zealand. The Rugby League World Cup has been played by Australia, New Zealand, England, Ireland, France, Wales, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Scotland, United States, Italy, Cook Islands, Lebanon, Russia and South Africa. The current world champions are Australia, who won the 2017 Rugby League World Cup. The 2021 Rugby League World Cup will be held in England.
Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Hoffman (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor. He has been in many movies.