The facts down under
From Richard Alston
Sir: It is unfortunate that in his desperation to denigrate Tony Blair, Matthew Norman regurgitated oft-repeated mythology about the Australian 2001 election (‘Blair thinks he is the Wizard of Oz’, 1 April). His central proposition is that by turning away a boatload of asylum-seekers on 27 August 2001, Prime Minister John Howard was able to win a November election which ‘he had been certain to lose’. This is completely contrary to the facts.
The government had certainly had an abysmal first half-year, culminating in the loss of a previously safe Liberal seat, but following the May Budget and a popular first-time homebuyers’ scheme, the government commenced to claw back its poll deficit and by mid-July it had managed to retain the seat of Aston in another by-election, which was universally regarded as a very significant political achievement.
By August, Newspoll, the most reliable indicator, had the government in front while other opinion polls had the parties neck and neck. The boat episode was followed less than three weeks later by 11 September, an event of pivotal global significance which undoubtedly coloured the political canvas in the lead-up to the November election.
It is worth remembering that the principal opposition, the Labor party, also supported the government on Matthew Norman’s so-called defining issue.
Given that Australia has had for a number of years one of the most generous per capita refugee intakes in the world, Matthew Norman’s proposition that ‘Aus tralia is as close spiritually to an apartheid state as the democratic world knows today’ is not only grotesquely overblown rhetoric but indicative of a manic determination to slander anyone with whom Mr Blair seeks to make common cause.
Richard Alston
Australian High Commissioner London WC2
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