It was largely achieved through the biggest fire sale of publicly owned enterprises and assets in Australia's history. A large tranche of that was the sale of Telstra, who as a (now) private enterprise responsable solely for maximising dividends to it's shareholders, has demonstrated that it is not remotely interested in forward thinking plans by governement regarding the nations future. The national broadband plan would already be underway if it were still publicly owned.
Another interesting sale was that of the national defence industry provider to a company that turned out to be largely owned by the French government. You might say that the French more or less own the supplier of our armed forces.
Howard must have done some good things - not too fuckin' many though - but the deeper you dig, the more disgusting and dispicable he becomes. He was a political opportunist of particularly poor character, a poisonous little dwarf and not worth pissing on
