The Not happy, John!' campaign was an Australian
political campaign
A political campaign is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making progress within a specific group. In democracy, democracies, political campaigns often refer to election, electoral campaigns, by which representatives a ...
to oppose the re-election of
Prime Minister
A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...
John Howard
John Winston Howard (born 26 July 1939) is an Australian former politician who served as the 25th prime minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007. He held office as leader of the Liberal Party of Australia. His eleven-year tenure as prime min ...
as member for
Bennelong
Woollarawarre Bennelong ( 1764 – 3 January 1813) was a senior man of the Eora, an Aboriginal Australian people of the Port Jackson area, at the time of the first British settlement in Australia. Bennelong served as an interlocutor between ...
in the
2004 Australian federal election
The 2004 Australian federal election was held in Australia on 9 October 2004. All 150 seats in the House of Representatives and 40 seats in the 76-member Senate were up for election. The incumbent Liberal Party of Australia led by Prime Minist ...
. The title of the campaign is based on the popular television commercial "
Not happy, Jan!" and the book ''
Not Happy, John'' by
Margo Kingston
Margo Kingston (born 1959) is an Australian journalist, author, and commentator. She is best known for her work at ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' and her weblog, Webdiary. Since 2012, Kingston has been a citizen journalist, reporting and comment ...
.
The campaign did not promote any specific candidate; instead, it called for votes for any other candidate standing against Howard. The campaign was unsuccessful, in that Howard was returned as member, but had some success in that it reduced Howard's majority by 3% in the face of a 2% swing to Howard's
Liberal Party
The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world.
The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. For example, while the political systems ...
, and he did lose the seat as sitting Prime Minister in the subsequent election.
Supporters of the campaign included
Margo Kingston
Margo Kingston (born 1959) is an Australian journalist, author, and commentator. She is best known for her work at ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' and her weblog, Webdiary. Since 2012, Kingston has been a citizen journalist, reporting and comment ...
(journalist),
John Valder (previous president of Howard's
Liberal Party
The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world.
The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. For example, while the political systems ...
),
Brian Deegan
Brian Deegan (born May 9, 1974)"Brian Deegan." Notable Sports Figures. Ed. Dana R. Barnes. Detroit: Gale, 2004. Gale Biography In Context. Web. August 6, 2012. is an American professional freestyle motocross rider and racing driver.
Deegan w ...
(former magistrate, who stood against
Alexander Downer
Alexander John Gosse Downer (born 9 September 1951) is an Australian former politician and diplomat who was leader of the Liberal Party from 1994 to 1995, Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1996 to 2007, and High Commissioner to the United Ki ...
),
Andrew Wilkie
Andrew Damien Wilkie (born 8 November 1961) is an Australian politician and independent federal member for Division of Clark, Clark (previously Division of Denison, Denison). Before entering politics Wilkie was an infantry officer in the Austr ...
(
Greens candidate),
Alex Broun playwright and Nicole Campbell (
Labor Party candidate). The campaign was launched on 22 June 2004 and continued until the election on 9 October.
There was a small 'Not Happy, John' campaign for the
2007 election based on the philosophy behind the original campaign. Valder discussed the increased displeasure of the electorate since 2004 on issues such as the
David Hicks
David Matthew Hicks (born 7 August 1975) is an Australian who attended al-Qaeda's Al Farouq training camp in Afghanistan. Hicks traveled to Pakistan after converting to Islam to learn more about the faith, eventually leading to his time in th ...
affair and
the Iraq War. The possibility of unseating Howard had increased further since the reduction in margin in 2004 due to an unfavourable
redistribution, that resulted in a very slight loss of margin.
Kingston wrote a follow-up book 'Still not happy, John!' to coincide with the 2007 election.
References
Further reading
*
Kingston, Margo. ''Not Happy, John! defending Australia's democracy''. Paperback, 240 pages. Published June 2004 by
Penguin
Penguins are a group of aquatic flightless birds from the family Spheniscidae () of the order Sphenisciformes (). They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere. Only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is equatorial, with a sm ...
. .
External links
Not Happy John Campaign site
2004 elections in Australia
{{Australia-poli-stub