Having turned 80 last month and 12 years out of office, Australia’s 25th Prime Minister John Winston Howard’s occasional and well-considered public opinions are a welcome reminder of how much he is missed. Take, for instance, his current criticism of the Reserve Bank’s record low one per cent official interest rate and his warnings about China’s worsening authoritarianism, seen in the crackdown on the Hong Kong demonstrations

Both issues are of vital concern.