Brian Howe (politician)

Brian Leslie Howe AO (born 28 January 1936) is a retired Australian politician and Uniting Church minister.

Howe was the minister at a Methodist church in Fitzroy from 1961 to 1969, while lecturing part-time in sociology.

He remains an ordained Uniting Church minister.

This model of research and action was based on his experience studying in Chicago from 1965 to 1967, and particularly his involvement in the civil rights and anti-poverty movements.

CURA participated in campaigns against major changes in inner city Melbourne, including homelessness, the demolition of housing for high-rise estates, freeway construction.

It supported the rights of tenants, the marginalisation of ethnic groups, and the provision of social services.

In the early 1970s, Howe was the founding director of the Centre for Urban Research and Action (CURA).

Howe was elected to the House of Representatives at the 1977 federal election, representing the northern Melbourne metropolitan electoral Division of Batman.

He defeated the incumbent Horrie Garrick for Labor preselection in a hard-fought preselection contest.

It was reportedly the first occasion on which an incumbent Victorian Labor MP in a safe seat was defeated for preselection.

He was a government minister continuously from 1983 to 1996, and a member of the House of Representatives from 1977 to 1996, representing the Division of Batman in Victoria.

Howe was born in Melbourne.

He grew up in the suburb of Malvern and attended Melbourne High School, going on to complete a Bachelor of Arts and a diploma in criminology at the University of Melbourne.

He later moved to the United States to study at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago.

A member of the Socialist Left faction of the Labor Party, Howe was Minister for Defence Support in the government of Bob Hawke from 1983.

In 1984 he became Minister for Social Security and carried out various radical reforms to Australia's welfare system.

In February 1986 Howe instigated the Cass Social Security Review, which led to substantive restructuring of the social security system.

Some of the most important changes were

The most important new payments were:

As well as succeeding Keating as Deputy Prime Minister, Howe was a minister who was qualified to succeed Keating as Treasurer as Howe as a minister had been a member of the Expenditure Review Committee since 1987.

However the position of Treasurer went instead to John Kerin.

Howe appeared to face significant opposition within his electorate in 1988, when up to 60 members of the Greek Westgarth branch of the ALP defected to join the Australian Democrats.

One of the defectors, tram-conductor George Gogas, contested Batman as a Democrat candidate in 1990, but polled only 12.9 per cent of the vote.

After the 1990 election Howe was appointed to the post of Minister for Community Services and Health.

Howe’s tenure as Minister for Community Services from 1990-1994 coincided with a reorientation of disability policy to encourage disabled people to enter or remain in the formal workforce, enhancing and protecting the rights of people with disabilities and providing opportunities for them to contribute to wider society.

He served as the eighth deputy prime minister of Australia and the deputy leader of the Labor Party from 1991 to 1995, under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating.

When Paul Keating resigned from the cabinet in 1991, Howe was elected deputy leader of the Labor Party in his place, defeating Graeme Campbell in a caucus ballot by 81 votes to 18.

He was subsequently appointed Deputy Prime Minister.

Howe continued as Deputy Prime Minister when Keating became Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Howe became Minister for Health, Housing and Community Services in the Keating government in December 1991, dropping the health part of the portfolio in 1993.

In 1991, Brian Howe was the responsible minister for the Disability Reform Package.

which modified Commonwealth income support payments for people with disabilities to encourage their integration into the workforce.

The package contained a large shift in emphasis toward 'open employment' as opposed to the existing special employment programs.

In June 1995 he resigned as Deputy Prime Minister and was succeeded by Kim Beazley.

He remained in the House of Representatives and as a minister until the 1996 election.

Howe's last months in the Deputy PM's role were marked by speculation that his successor would be, not Beazley, but Carmen Lawrence, the erstwhile Premier of Western Australia.

At the time Lawrence enjoyed considerable popularity, and there were those in the ALP who hoped that with her as Deputy PM, the Keating government (then doing badly in the opinion polls) would benefit.

This hope was dashed when Lawrence herself became the subject of a royal commission around the time Howe left the post, although she denied that the royal commission had been her reason for not seeking out the job.

Kim Beazley was eventually elected as his successor.

Howe was an extremely active Minister with a strong sense of social justice.

Radical reforms were implemented in social security, disability and other areas during his term of office.