Puzzled about Howard’s Motivators

Howard’s perfidy is plain, but his motives a mystery.  Why does a smart political operator, with patent desire for a place in history, condemn himself to ignominy, a destroyer of our legal traditions, our social harmony, and even the planet?  Unlike Bush and Cheney, whose policies are readily linked to financial advantage, there is (so far) no obvious Australian equivalent to the Bush family financial empire or Halliburton.

Help me out here.  It’s easy for me to see his policy and moral flaws, but I can’t see why he does things.

Simple megalomania is an inadequate explanation.  Machiavelli advises princes to gain power by any means, but then govern wisely to prevent ill-will and inevitable insurrection.  The best real-world example is shrewd Augustus, who grabbed power with much blood and few scruples, but then concentrated on good administration and building infrastructure, "finding Rome built of bricks, leaving it made of marble".

However, in his autobiographical Res Gestae, Augustus took greatest pride in how often he was able to close the doors to the Temple of War.

Thus, a megalomaniac can change the methods of his/her rule: redeeming early sins to earn the respect of history, and be remembered with balanced affection, by putting power to good use even if the lust for it never wanes.

Little Johnny?  He inherited a rejuvenated economy, (The Economist still regards any current prosperity as largely due to Hawke-Keating reforms), and promptly gutted its ability to earn an income in the global market, letting infrastructure run down until even business complains about "capacity constraints".  Peace?  War’s temple doors have been ripped off their hinges by the Deputy Sheriff and his belligerent friends.

Our Dear Leader is intelligent enough to know that future generations will look on him as Australia’s canniest politician and worst leader for centuries.  He is smart enough to have done better.  As clever and sneaky as Themistokles, he is as poor a governor as Ethelred the Unready.

So, what motivates him?  If his policies are any guide, his ideals are simple: gold is good.  If he lives up to those ideals, he’ll have a lucrative set of directorships lined up, or grateful cronies will have deposited lots of gold on his behalf, hidden deep underground by the Gnomes of Zurich or in a Gordian knot of family trusts.  Yet there is no hint of such things!

Unless we find the financial incentive, the only thing left to explain his actions is the mere enjoyment of wielding power, and without the ability to build, his potency can only be demonstrated by destruction.  Does he enjoy hearing "Morituri te salutant" from the working poor?  Such charges are too easily dismissed as sour grapes from the intellectual elite.

So, which is it?  Are there any other alternatives?  Have I missed something?