PM Gives Labor Reason For Unity

Glenn Milne - The Australian

The failure of collective leadership that saw the ASIO bill laid aside in the parliament last Friday has kick-started another round of debate within the ALP about the possibility of John Howard pulling on a double dissolution election next year, fought on the issue of terror. The prospect has caused some fluttering of Labor hearts.

It is an option that will add to the already volatile mix shaping next year – 12 months that are likely to be dominated domestically by leadership instability on both sides of politics and internationally by terrorism and Iraq.

The fact is, for all the words written on the subject, Howard was never likely to go for a double dissolution election on the bills most often mentioned in that context: unfair dismissals, the pharmaceutical benefits scheme and Telstra privatisation. But terror is another matter altogether.

Clearly Howard believes he's on another Tampa-style winner with ASIO. As he slugged it out with Simon Crean on Friday, Howard likened Labor's position to their vacillation over border protection. Crean, he said, was "weak" and "soft" on terror. And like the Tampa, the Australian people would sniff that weakness out. Whether they do will be critical to the chances of any double dissolution election over the issue of terror – the key area in which the Howard Government has so far totally dominated Labor.

At first blush, you'd have to say Howard has used the ASIO bill to put Crean exactly where he wants: painting him as an obstructionist whose unnecessary civil libertarian concerns have crippled the Government's ability to stop acts of terror. For Howard, ASIO represents the same opportunity that Labor's crisis of conscience over border protection offered in the run-up to the 2001 election. Or does it?

Labor always realised it had been hopelessly outflanked on the Tampa and that its position – fundamentally undermined by a semi-public crisis of moral self-doubt – was electorally unsaleable. Voters instinctively knew that Labor didn't believe in what it was selling. The same is not true of its stand on ASIO. Crean begins from the position that Australians have a natural – and healthy – suspicion of ASIO.

Labor MPs left parliament on Friday with a sense of pride and purpose; there was a sense they had stood up for what they believed in. And more important that belief could successfully be defended in the electorate. It was no accident that Crean referred in his final parliamentary encounter with Howard to the fact the ASIO bill had been to the full ALP caucus three times.

Crean's message to Howard was that on ASIO – unlike Tampa – Labor is united, and that on true national security issues, Labor has a proud record.

Crean senses that Howard may be vulnerable here, based on the adage that the apex of a man's supremacy also, necessarily, marks the beginning of his decline. And Howard has been on top for a long time, courtesy of the effectiveness of driving a "wedge" between the ALP's social progressive and conservative blue-collar constituencies.

But it is just possible Howard's tactics on the ASIO bill are the high-water mark of this tactic. After all, if Howard was at all mindful of his responsibilities to Australians living under the terror threat, he would have compromised and accepted Labor's amended bill. Indeed, as Kim Beazley pointed out, even after the Opposition's changes, ASIO has more power than the FBI.

If the domestic terrorist threat is as real as Howard claims, why didn't the PM take what he could get and return to fight for even more powers for ASIO next year?

AS one senior bureaucrat told me: "I can't see why two grown men couldn't have sat down together on a subject like this and come to some sort of agreement." This official has the responsibility for sorting much of the intelligence warnings throughout the region. He admits to lying awake nights, wondering if his judgments have been right. Many people will agree with his sentiments. To play wedge politics with terrorism is in a different league altogether than Tampa.

All these atmospherics will bear on whether Howard is tempted by a double dissolution. Those close to Crean believe he won't, simply because Howard is a man who truly believes elections are hard enough to win without cutting short your term. Others, like Beazley, believe Howard might go for the double, simply because the PM believes his historic task is to crush Labor totally. But if that crushing defeat implies wresting control of the Senate from the ALP and minor parties, the numbers are against Howard.

A recent Parliamentary Library research paper, commissioned by a Labor frontbencher, concludes that Senate dominance would continue to elude the Government. The paper concludes: "The Coalition's chances of controlling the Senate after a double dissolution election are also unlikely. Based on the 2001 results the Coalition would win six seats in South Australia and five in the other states, giving a total of 33. The Coalition's best chances of gaining an additional seat are in Queensland and Western Australia if the One Nation vote collapses. Even if the Coalition wins six seats in all states it will still only have 38 seats in the Senate. The Coalition would still require support from the Greens or Democrats for an affirmative majority."

The numbers, Howard's character – and if Crean's assessment on the political fall-out from the ASIO bill is right – all suggest we'll be going to a normal House of Representatives and half Senate election at the allotted time.

The only question will be whether it's Howard or Peter Costello that leads the Government into it. As one wit remarked last week: "Peter Costello's looking increasingly like the Prince Charles of Australian politics."