The Murdoch press plays down an embarrassing backbench revolt
Richard Farmer, former political columnist for The Australian and The Daily Telegraph and a former Murdoch lobbyist on pay television writes:
On Monday Kim Beazley was “to axe AWAs in backflip”. On Tuesday that had become “Unions push ALP for more”. Wednesday saw “Beazley to risk pay cuts.” And this morning Beazley had become “another Latham: business.” The Opposition Leader's plan to make industrial relations the key election issue was certainly captivating The Australian with four front page leads in a row; every one of them putting a negative slant on Labor's plans.
Prime Minister John Howard, meanwhile, was facing the potentially biggest embarrassment of a Liberal leader since goodness knows when. His changes to immigration law designed to ship any would-be refugees to Pacific Islands were stalled in the face of opposition from within his own party. And where was that on The Oz's front pages? No appearance your worship.
Right across the Murdoch press there is a reluctance to expose the danger of the Prime Minister being humiliated by his own backbenchers. The Daily Telegraph this morning has NSW Labor in an “etag farce.” The Courier-Mail, understandably enough, is full of “Maroon Magic”. In Melbourne, the Herald Sun had a widow facing a $1m probe and The Adelaide Advertiser is saving teenage girls with a cancer vaccine. Down in Hobart the “trees deal faces axing” while Jana Pittman fits a baby into her plans. Up north the NT News sticks to its local “desert mystery deepens as NT survivor's car found”.
Unreported it might be, but potential humiliation it is. This morning in the House of Representatives, the Government postponed debate on the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006 so that talks with potential rebel members could continue. Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone has the unenviable task of trying to find acceptable amendments to a bill that a Senate committee has declared unamendable.
Complicating the situation for Mr Howard is the presence in Australia of an Indonesian parliamentary delegation. The MPs from Jakarta are here evaluating the sincerity of our Government's attempt to show that accepting 42 Papuan as refugees in need of protection from persecution does not imply criticism of the Indonesian Government's actions in Papua. Explaining the inexplicable is proving as hard as amending the unamendable.
The political embarrassment for the Government at home here in Australia is the well-founded belief of many people that the real reason for a new way of dealing with designated unauthorised arrivals is purely and simply the appeasement of the Indonesian government. Mr Howard denied yesterday that Indonesia had anything to do with it but Senator Vanstone was honest enough on last night's 7.30 Report to admit it was. No amount of backtracking by the Senator on AM this morning can change what she so honestly said last night.
The early release yesterday of terrorist leader Abu Bakar Bashir after a token period in an Indonesian jail makes this quite the wrong time to be accused of kow towing to Indonesia and Mr Howard well knows it. He must now be regretting his foolish decision to introduce such controversial legislation without first checking whether a significant minority of his own members would accept it.
