base was quickly eroded, however, by a series of embarrassing public blunders. One was the emergence of a 1987 speech to the far-right Australian League of Rights. Another was the sacking of John Hewson from the shadow ministry in August 1994. A damaging incident emerged from a formal dinner attended by Downer. While promoting the Liberal slogan "The Things That Matter", in a reference to abusing husbands, Downer quipped that the party's domestic violence policy would accordingly be named "The Things That Batter". Downer also found it difficult to handle the gulf between monarchists and republicans in his own party but resolved the dispute by promising to establish a constitutional convention to consider the issue. By the end of 1994, his approval ratings had dwindled to 34 percent after being as high as 53 percent. Another event in 1994 that would spell the end of Downer's leadership was his decision for the Coalition to support the Keating Government's sexual privacy legislation. The issue divided the Coalition with several MPs and Senators either voting against the legislation or abstaining from it. On 9 January 1995, internal Liberal Party polling showed that with Downer as leader, the Coalition had a slim chance of holding its marginal seats in the next election, let alone of winning government. On 11 January, Downer launched a major policy statement with ten policy commitments and criticised Liberals he saw as undermining his leadership. Downer negotiated in mid-January with now back-bencher Hewson, but this resulted in Hewson publicly declaring he wanted the shadow Treasury portfolio which meant Downer would have to sack deputy Liberal leader Peter Costello from the position to give the job to Hewson. On 30 January 1995, he resigned as Liberal Leader and John Howard was elected unopposed to replace him. Downer pledged his support to Howard and said he would "kneecap" anyone who undermined Howard's second attempt at winning the prime ministership. With a tenure of just over eight months, Downer is to date the shortest-serving leader of the federal Liberal Party. He is also, alongside Brendan Nelson, one of two federal Liberal leaders never to lead the party into an election. On opposition leadership, he said in 2008, "The moment when I wanted to [leave] was just about the first day I started in the job. There was many a time from the first day onwards when I thought to myself, How the