AUSTRALIA: Anti-Refugee Rhetoric Gives Premier a Third Term

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Bob Burton

CANBERRA, Nov 11 2001 (IPS) - Conservative Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s comfortable win of a third term in office in Saturday’s elections was due largely to his creation, and exploitation, of fears about boatloads of asylum seekers heading for Australia’s shores in rickety wooden boats from Indonesia.

The federal election, held on Saturday, saw Howard’s Liberal- National Party coalition gain a swing of 2 percent and at least hold the same number of seats which, combined with independent members, could give it a national 10-seat majority in Parliament.

Last week, Howard’s Liberal Party ran full-page advertisements in major newspapers saying “we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come. . . a vote for your local Liberal team member protects our borders”.

The use by Howard’s coalition of voters’ fears about immigration was such that even revelations in the last days of the poll campaign — that claims made a month ago by Howard and several of his senior ministers that asylum seekers had thrown children overboard from a boat sailing into Australian waters were fabricated — did not prevent its victory.

In fact, instead of damaging Howard, both Labor and Liberal strategists believe the revelations perversely helped him by shifting the focus of debate away from Labor’s preferred health and education issues and back to Howard’s focus on the number of boats arriving on Australia’s northern shores.

Claiming victory at the Liberal Party celebrations at an up- market hotel in inner city Sydney, Howard dispensed with the divisive rhetoric and appealed for unity in the face of global uncertainty following the Sep. 11 terror attacks in the United States.

“It requires all of us of goodwill and of faith in freedom and a belief in the great principles upon which this nation has been built that we come together, we bind together in unity,” he said.

The Labor Opposition, which needed a swing of just 0.8 percent to win government, fell victim to a pincer movement on the refugee issue.

Earlier this year, Labor held a commanding lead in the polls and looked certain to win after the Liberals suffered a string of humiliating defeats in state elections in Western Australia, Queensland, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory.

All that changed when in September, Howard dispatched Special Air Services troops to prevent 430 asylum seekers — rescued from a sinking fishing boat by a Norwegian container ship — from landing on remote Christmas Island.

While the move drew international condemnation, it dramatically boosted Howard’s electoral stock here at home.

With the Labor Opposition reluctant to agree to support the government’s hardline position of turning away boats of asylum seekers, it lost support from conservative working-class voters to Howard’s coalition.

Progressive supporters, who were appalled at Labor’s abandonment of support for a more humanitarian policy, turned to the Green Party.

Labor Party strategist Bob McMullen acknowledges that Labor’s ambivalent position cost its support on both the right and left. “The alienated coalition voters that voted (the anti-immigration) One Nation party have all just marched back. . . there has also been a protest vote that has gone to the Greens,” he said.

Conceding defeat on Saturday night, Labor Leader Kim Beazley hinted that the cost of an election campaign based on playing on fears of a refugee influx has been high.

“The task and challenge for those of us in politics is to bring out the generosity that resides in the soul of the ordinary Australian, so that we as a nation turn to each other and not against each other,” he said.

But while Howard’s coalition has won a comfortable majority in the lower house, neither it or the Labor Opposition has a majority in the Senate. Because its members are elected under a proportional representation system, minor parties have a better chance of gaining representation, requiring just 14.5 percent to win a seat.

Howard’s strident stand blocking the arrival of boatloads of asylum seekers succeeded in derailing the bid by Pauline Hanson’s populist One Nation Party to gain seats in the Senate.

Still, she said, the party had gotten more recognition of issues it had been pushing. “One Nation has made a difference. We have seen the Liberal Party pick up a lot of policies and issues that I have spoken about over the years. The boat issue was a very big issue that turned it back to the Liberal Party,” she told journalists on Saturday night.

The Democrats — a small business centre-left party that holds the balance of power in the Senate — had been expected to poll well after electing Natasha Stott-Despoja as its leader and negotiating a favourable preferences deal with the Labor Party.

However, voters disaffected with Labor’s performance on asylum seekers and environmental issues turned instead to the Greens.

The Australian Greens’ only member, Senator Bob Brown, who had been expected to struggle to hold his seat in Tasmania, was elected into the chamber easily. The Democrats have conceded that the Greens will win a seat at their expense in New South Wales and also possibly Victoria and Western Australia.

While Brown is celebrating the doubling of the Green vote and winning additional seats, he recognises the ugly mood of the nation. “Many Australians are fearful: One Nation has collapsed because Mr Howard has absorbed some of its key policies,” he said.