Refugee Issue Dominating South Australian Election Campaign

In developments reminiscent of last year's federal election campaign, the South Austrlian election campaign is now dominated by the refugee/asylum-seeker issue.

The reports of self-mutilation by asylum-seekers in detention at Woomera has taken centre-stage in the Liberal government's campaign for a third term, just as it did during John Howard's successful third term campaign last year.

South Australian newspapers and radio talkback are concentrating on the issue which also got an airing in the televised debate between the Premier, Rob Kerin, and the Opposition Leader, Mike Rann, last night.

The South Australian government seemed headed for certain defeat in recent times. The former Premier, John Olsen, was forced to resign last October over his involvement in a scandal concerning government tenders.

The Liberal government was led by Dean Brown when it won office in 1993. Brown was deposed by John Olsen in time for the 1997 election, in a political payback with a history stretching back two decades in South Australia. Reduced to minority status at the 1997 election, the government lost several more members to the cross-benches and was rocked by the scandal that led to Olsen's departure.

However, Rob Kerin is seen by many as a new face, with a more presentable, folksy image in keeping with that of the state's longest serving Premier, Sir Thomas Playford, who served as Premier for 26 years between 1938-65.

Rann, by contrast, has been attacked as a "professional politician", a relic from the last Labor Government between 1982-93. Whilst the ALP has countered with the argument that the State should be run by professionals and not amateurs, it seems that Rann is regarded as too slick and packaged to capture the enthusiasm of the electorate.

The Federal Immigration Minister, Philip Ruddock, has visited South Australia this week and Rob Kerin and Dean Brown (now Deputy Premier) have been vocal in their denunciation of the behaviour of the asylum-seekers at Woomera.

The hunger strikes and demonstrations by opponents of the government's policy are bound to play into the hands of the Liberal Party in the February 9 election, if the experience of last year is any guide.

The Prime Minister, John Howard, will launch the Liberal Party's election campaign next Sunday, before flying out to visit Indonesia and the United States. Discussions about refugees will be on the agenda in Jakarta, and Howard's visit to the World Trade Centre site in New York will revive images of the events of September 11. This dual focus is similar to that which prevailed in September and October last year.

Whilst there is mounting concern about the government's "Pacific solution" to the asylum-seekers issue, demonstrated this week by the resignation of the Chairman of the Council for Multicultural Australia, Neville Roach, there is no evidence that the issue will do anything other than consolidate the conservative vote in the election.

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