Australian voters have done a good day's work in their general election. They have returned Mr John Howard's conservative Liberal-National coalition to office with a substantially reduced majority which will make it more difficult for him to implement his controversial plan to introduce a form of value added tax. They have also seen off the threat to their multicultural society by depriving Mrs Pauline Hanson's racist One Nation party of representation in the federal parliament.
Her extraordinarily rapid rise to national prominence over the last year was partly due to Mr Howard's initially inept handling of the issues she highlighted. Thus her attacks on Aboriginal rights attracted greater attention because of Mr Howard's own efforts to limit them where they interfered with mining concessions. He then floundered between the temptation to rely on transfers from her followers and a principled opposition to her wider attacks on Asian immigration and her calls for repatriation of all refugees.
To his credit Mr Howard eventually chose the second course. He advised his followers to join other major parties in voting tactically against her candidates, in what has proved to be a highly effective move.
Mr Howard also decided to fight the election on a proposal to introduce a 10 per cent general sales tax rather than on the dangerous brew of race and class issues which appeared to be his chosen agenda earlier in the year. A deal on Aboriginal land rights largely removed that issue from the inter-party arguments; he then had to accept defeat over his support for a stevedore firm that locked out dock workers but then lost a high-profile court case on the issue. Instead, he shifted focus to structural reform of the taxation system. This was a courageous move, in effect fighting an election campaign on a proposal to increase taxes. Although the proposal was attacked as regressive by the opposition Labor Party it attracted support from business and those who recognised to need to overhaul the Australian fiscal system. The outcome makes it difficult to implement, given that the opposition has a blocking majority in the Senate, which may jeopardise Mr Howard's leadership term with younger and more impatient party colleagues.
In the event solidarity between the voters opposed to the One Nation party ensured it has no national representation. But that party also comprehensively lost out in the campaign arguments, both on issues of Australia's multiculturalism and on taxation and economic affairs. The result is, therefore, a welcome vindication of the achievements made in recent years to broaden the country's Asian involvement and to find an effective means of defining its various identities. The issue of whether and how Australia should become a republic bears on this question, which is likely to become prominent once again now that the election is over. Mr Howard is left in a difficult position, but he has undoubtedly gained in political stature following this close result.