Peter Howson (politician)

Peter Howson, CMG (22 May 1919 – 1 February 2009) was an Australian politician.

Howson was born in London, England in 1919 to Jessie and George Arthur Howson, and was educated at Stowe School and Trinity College, Cambridge. During World War II, he served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as a pilot from 1940 to 1946, and was Mentioned in Despatches for his service.

Howson was the Liberal Party of Australia member for the House of Representatives seat of Fawkner from his defeat of William Bourke at the 1955 election until its abolition before the 1969 election. He was then elected as the member for Casey. He was appointed Minister for Air in June 1964 in Robert Menzies' last ministry.

In 1967, Harold Holt's government was attacked over allegations that it had misused the VIP aircraft fleet for ministers' private purposes. When asked to table records on the fleet's movements, Holt and Howson refused and implied that they did not exist, but Senator John Gorton later found that the records did exist and tabled them in the Senate. When Gorton became Prime Minister, on 10 January 1968, he retained Howson in his ministry, but after he won a seat in the House of Representatives he carried out a Cabinet reshuffle on 28 February 1968 and dropped Howson from the ministry.

Expecting to be rewarded for his support of McMahon during Gorton's ministry, Howson was disappointed when he was appointed in March 1971 to a portfolio no one in the McMahon Ministry wanted, Australia's first Minister for the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts and was controversially reported as commenting: "The little bastard [McMahon] gave me trees, boongs and pooftas". Howson was defeated by Labor's Race Mathews at the 1972 election.

Howson published a diary recording the events during his period as a parliamentarian and as a Minister.

In 1973 he founded the Deafness Foundation Victoria.

Howson was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1980 for services to Parliament. He was also awarded the Centenary Medal in 2001 for long and devoted service to improving conditions for Australia's indigenous people.

Howson was active as a commentator on Indigenous matters, strongly supporting their cultural assimilation while deriding the Stolen Generations as a "silly fairy tale".

Howson died in Geelong after suffering complications from a fall.