Australia's Asian push at risk in poll: Keating

Australia's Asian push at risk in poll: Keating

CANBERRA (Reuter): Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating, fighting for his political survival, warned voters yesterday that Australia could turn its back on Asia if the conservative opposition won the March 2 general election.

Keating, still well behind in opinion polls a week before the ballot, said the ruling Labor Party's efforts to bind the nation to Asia was a cornerstone of its 13 years in government.

"Don't let the fire go out...," he said in a radio interview when asked for a single reason why voters should re-elect Labor for a record sixth consecutive term in office.

"This is a period of such great opportunity for Australia, particularly in Asia. If we turn out back now and look backwards, we are finished.

"I just can't see us being able to get that restarted while that window of opportunity is open."

The issue of Australia's integration with the Asian region has figured highly throughout the campaign, with Keating linking it with his push for the nation to become a republic by year 2001 and with his pursuit of an Asia-Pacific free trade area.

"Let the Australian nation...go to Asia, the fastest growing part of the world, with our heads held high with an Australian as our head of state. That's our vision of Australia," said Keating, who has said he is obsessed with Asia.

Over 60 percent of Australia's merchandise exports are sold into Asia and the country wants to rival Singapore as a hub for multinationals launching into the region.

Opposition leader John Howard, who personally favors retaining a representative of the British monarchy as head of state, has rejected Keating's assertion that Australia must sever its ties with Britain to be taken seriously in Asia.

Howard, who denies his conservative coalition of Liberal and National parties will stall the country's integration with its Asian neighbors, has countered Keating's criticisms by actively courting votes among ethnic Asian communities.

Condemned in 1988 for calling for a cut in Asian immigration, Howard appears to have largely mended his image among two of Australia's biggest Asian communities, ethnic Chinese and Vietnamese, together numbering over 380,000 people.

Opinion polls published in the Chinese press and comments from a leading figure in the Vietnamese community suggest many Asians have accepted Howard's apology for his 1988 remark.

"He's tried very hard to meet with the community," said David Giang, editor of the Vietnamese-language The Sunrise Daily and a commissioner for the New South Wales state Ethnic Affairs Commission.

"Howard had many views they do not like..., but he can change and that's what people like to see," he told Reuters.

Among the influential Chinese community, Howard also seems to have made inroads. Polls carried by the community newspaper Independence Daily shows his support rising from 18 percent to over 30 percent since campaigning began on Jan. 27.

Keating appeared confident and relaxed on the campaign trail on Friday despite his 6.6-percentage-point handicap in national opinion polls, as his party hoped for a confidence-boosting win in a provincial election in the state of Tasmania today.

Labor claims its opinion polling puts it ahead of Tasmania's Liberal government, but political analysts are tipping a hung state parliament.