Howard's bluff

Australia's treatment of its Aborigines has always been one of the few blots on its human rights record. For more than 200 years laws were based on the convenient fiction that the nation was an empty wilderness when the first white settlers arrived -- depriving natives who had lived there for thousands of years of their land rights.

Eventually, the courts struck down such a racially discriminatory concept and last year ruled that Aboriginal title rights could coexist with modern land leases. But still the controversy has continued. The ruling Liberal-National coalition has sought to reverse the effects of this judgment, arguing that it is necessary to provide certainty for 26,000 ranchers and miners whose legal rights might otherwise be in doubt.

Now the decision of the Australian Senate to radically rewrite the government's bill in order to retain many Aboriginal rights has called Prime Minister John Howard's bluff. He has been left with little choice but to carry out his often-repeated threat to seek a fresh election if the Senate refuses to pass the original version of his bill, although there are signs that he may delay doing so -- possibly until next October.

Mr. Howard had been trying to move the political agenda away from this dispute and on to economic concerns such as his government's tax reform plans. Now he faces the prospect of an election in which the Aboriginal issue will loom large. His opponents are already warning that it will inevitably take the form of a race-based battle.

Fellow coalition members predict that this constitutes a recipe for political and social suicide, with the opposition sure to exploit the race card. The government is already eight points behind in the polls, but Mr. Howard seems to have decided that he has no choice. His only hope is to delay the election long enough to have a fighting chance of swinging public opinion back to his side.

-- South China Morning Post