POLITICS 

Friday, July 11, 1997

Johnny in Blunderland

By GEOFF KITNEY

WHEN Pauline Hanson put her racist and xenophobic poison into the political
mainstream, Prime Minister John Howard went to Queensland and defended her
right to speak out, promising that under his leadership Australians would be able to
say what they thought, freed of the yoke of political correctness.

He elevated the right of free speech to a new level, higher than the right of those
who might be hurt by her crude incitement of racial divisions in the community to
expect the nation's political leader to at least express moral outrage at what she had
said.

It is now a matter of shameful public record that Hanson's first political speech
marked the point at which Australia suddenly took a sharp turn away from equality,
tolerance and pride in cultural diversity towards a community in which a degree of
respectability has been given to racial vilification and even physical abuse. Australia
is a significantly less united and harmonious place than it was before Pauline Hanson
spoke.

This week, the Prime Minister returned to Queensland and this time he did speak
with a sense of indignation and outrage.

But it wasn't about what Hanson said. It was about what others have said in
response to her.

Howard said he was fed up with the "self-flagellation" of some Australians who
have been putting Australia down with claims that the country is less tolerant, more
racist and has much in its past to be ashamed of.

He didn't say so, of course, but he was referring to former Prime Minister Malcolm
Fraser and former High Court judge and author of the stolen generation report, Sir
Ronald Wilson, both of whom have strongly attacked him over his handling of the
Aboriginal and race issues.

Howard is a lot angrier about Fraser and Wilson than he is about Hanson.

She hurts others. They hurt him.

Howard's argument is that it's simply not true Australia is not a tolerant, open and
harmonious society with a non-discriminatory immigration policy and a record
second to none for its compassionate response to the flood of refugees from
Indo-China.

He's right. Australia is by most standards a tolerant, open and harmonious society
with a proud record on refugees and immigration. 

But Fraser and Wilson are right too. These things are under threat.

If Howard rode in taxis around Sydney instead of his government car he would meet
Indo-Chinese refugees who drive taxis who would tell him how their lives have
changed since Pauline Hanson made racist language more respectable.

I spoke to a driver this week, an Australian citizen for the past 10 years, who said he
regularly has people who refuse to get into his cab because he is Asian and who
says barely a day now goes by when he doesn't get told by customers to go back to
Asia.

He said he can trace the rise in racism towards him back almost to the day of
Hanson's maiden speech.

Howard refuses to acknowledge the impact of the Hanson factor on the lives of
many Australians. While he accuses others of presenting a distorted picture of
Australia's past, he denies the reality of the present. He rails against Labor's
political correctness but is substituting his own in its place. His indignation is oddly
selective.

While Hanson and the racists who make up a significant part of her following inflict
terrible damage on the moral fabric of Australia, Howard vents his strongest public
outrage on the visit to Australia by a clapped-out former American Black Panther
who is visiting Australia to speak against racism. 

How can he get so angry about an American nobody for tricking the immigration
authorities but describe Hanson and her supporters, as he did on radio yesterday,
only as people who express themselves "in perhaps not an elegant way"?

The ambiguity which Howard revealed in his views on race during the Asian
immigration debate in 1988, which he later said was a mistake he regretted, should
compel him to take meticulous care to ensure he leaves no room for doubt as the
nation's leader. He has not been meticulous enough in dealing with the dangerous
forces Hanson has unleashed.

Howard's handling of the Government's response to the threat posed by Hanson is
a blemish on a Prime Ministership which is increasingly being questioned by voters.
Universally, the polls are showing growing voter disappointment with Howard.

From the highs he achieved last year after his decisive victory and then his decisive
leadership over the gun control issue, Howard has been in steady decline. The
factor now working most strongly against him is the perception that he is a weak
and indecisive leader.

This is very dangerous for Howard. 

It's these doubts which so long delayed his rise to the Prime Ministership. They
were set aside when the overriding consideration for voters was to get rid of
Keating.

Now the doubts are coming back and they threaten Howard's hopes of a long and
sweetly successful Prime Ministership. If he is not careful, his Prime Ministership
will be short and sour.

But it's not the Hanson/race issue which is most likely to reinforce the perception of
Howard as a poor leader. The reality is that a considerable portion of the electorate
- particularly in the battler groups Howard won over - does have serious concerns
about immigration and its impact on their communities.

Unemployment - the great intractable problem of the late 20th century - is now the
big bogey issue for Howard. It's the issue the community is crying out for leadership
on. 

Instead, Howard is giving it gobbledegook.

Howard has long had a strong personal conviction that the key to achieving a
structural shift in the jobs market is to have a more flexible wage structure. Which
means removing the barriers to paying wages below current minimums.

Early this week he went further than he has ever gone to put this view publicly. He
said there was a trade-off between higher minimums and lower unemployment and
compared Australia with the United States where there are lower minimums, lower
dole payments and much lower unemployment.

"There is a trade-off. I think it is a debate all Australians ought to have," he said,
with conviction.

A day later his conviction evaporated into a thick fog of political double speak.

Asked if he was calling for a national debate, he said: "Well, I don't know. I mean, I
have been described as calling for a national debate ..."

Question: "You said it a couple of times."

Howard: "Yes, well. I like having national debates about lot of things ... that doesn't
mean we are going to turn things on their head."

The reason for Howard's sudden retreat was obvious: He flew a kite and decided
the political risk of keeping it flying was too great.

So, on the unemployment issue, the message Howard leaves us with is that there is
a solution he believes could work but it's too politically difficult to argue for it.

This is a message which will not help Australians to feel more positive about his
leadership.