KEY POINTS:
New Zealanders have good reasons to celebrate the accomplishments of Australia's long-serving prime minister even if the outcome of today's election is Howard's end.
John Howard's political and economic legacy is secure. During his 11 1/2-year reign, 24 million people, which include nearly half-a-million New Zealanders, have experienced extraordinary prosperity.
Sure, Australia is blessed with mineral resources - its continental gas shelf, iron ore, coal, bauxite and, dare I say it, uranium, which will be exported to China and India to help power nuclear stations to fuel the world's factories and major technical installations which produce cheap products for the developed world.
But it has also been blessed with a Government that has not been hostage to the insular mindset of the Clark regime, with its fixation on corrupting the electoral system in favour of the Labour Party and its parliamentary co-conspirators, rather than taking this nation forward.
Howard has taken brave stands to protect the free world, such as his support for the Iraq invasion, which made him a leper in the eyes of many of New Zealand's chattering classes and caught him offside with many of his own countrymen who opposed the invasion (much of it in retrospect).
His countrymen paid a huge price in the Bali explosion. But Iraq has hardly featured in the Australian election. Even the New York Times, which has made a fetish out of its opposition to George W Bush's adventurism, is now conceding on its own front page that the increase in US troops has dampened violence.
Our chattering classes have also demonised Howard over his position on climate change from the smug heights of New Zealand's early adoption of the Kyoto Protocol. In reality, neither country has made any advance on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Kyoto targets - we are equally in deficit.
But Howard's realism against the type of moralism that has been exhibited by his opponent, Labor's Kevin Rudd, and Helen Clark here, has cost him politically.
It's worth pointing out that Clark's Government is only now getting around to introducing an emissions trading regime, but typically in such a way that it risks future investment by steamrolling valid requests for proper consultation and demonising those who put their heads over the parapets as disaffected deniers.
Rudd will represent Australia at the United Nations climate change meeting in Bali next month if he wins today's election. But the prospective Labor prime minister will not sign Australia up to a process that impacts on the country's future prosperity unless big emitters like China can be brought into the framework.
This propensity for realism by both sides of Australia's political divide will underpin that country's extraordinary success for decades to come. For that we should be grateful.
Howard's Australia has provided a lifeline for countless New Zealanders who have sought prosperity for themselves and their families by crossing the ditch to work and enjoy life in the Lucky Country. Figures out this week showed 40,000 Kiwis moved to Australia in the past 12 months. Just 13,000 came the other way - some to lead the swag of New Zealand businesses now Australian-owned.
Many professionals have voted with their feet to join a nation which is imbued with confidence and celebrates those who want to get ahead, instead of staying here to fester within the increasingly repressive regime that is Helengrad - over-taxed and demonised as greedy for wanting to keep more of their own earnings, sick of the Government's tendency to reward dependency and with a gutsful of the Nanny State.
Many unskilled workers have headed for Western Australia where they can earn big money in the mines, knowing they will also get to keep more of it than they would here.
But typically, the only New Zealanders resident in Australia who were interviewed by TV3's Campbell Live show this week on the election were the naysayers.
Howard's run is now over. Even if the Liberals, by a twist of adroit electoral seat management do manage to fight back, it will be Treasurer Peter Costello who takes Australia on into the future.
Howard will not hang about to fester on the backbenches. Like his close political compatriot, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who was only half-joking when he told the Australian Story programme he may give lectures on cruise ships, he will not overstay his welcome.
Howard has been a good friend to New Zealand, bringing this country within the "council of ministers" tent, promoting a single economic market and ensuring we remain under Australia's defence umbrella.
Some might say he's the best prime minister New Zealand never had.