A comparison of Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s nationalism to that of Nazism prompted outrage on Thursday, with one top minister calling the former leader who called it an “unguided missile”. Former Prime Minister Paul Keating, who led the country from 1991 until defeated by Howard in 1996, used a speech on Wednesday to accuse Howard of being a Nazi-like nationalist rather than a patriot for disparaging multiculturalism and so-called “elites”. “In Hitler’s day the term “elite” had not yet arrived. If it had, the nationalist in him would have compelled him to use it,” Keating told a festival at the Sydney Film School. “A nationalist will always remain suspicious of someone who does not seem to belong to his kind of people or more likely his kind of thinking. “Shades there of John Howard’s discomfort with Australia’s multicultural community and a disgust of the Islamic community.”
The animosity between Howard and Keating, once dubbed the “Lizard of Oz” by British newspapers for appearing to manhandle the Queen, is legendary in Australia. Howard has led the country for 11 years and through four election wins. Howard, lagging in polls ahead of a fifth election bid due later this year, said Keating ought to get on with life. “I’m a nationalist, I’m a patriot, I’m a believer and I feel sorry for Mr Keating,” he told reporters.