Old fox Howard on rocky path to fourth term

By GREG ANSLEY Herald correspondent

This week John Howard's mates in Washington delivered a solid thump to his soft electoral underbelly by conceding the weakest and most tortuous of any of the bilateral free trade agreements the United States has concluded.

Many of Australia's most influential commentators refuse to even allow the adjective "free". In the most sensitive rural marginal seats in Queensland, it has set political bushfires burning in a crucial year for Howard's career ambitions.

Some time in the second half of the year - probably October or November, all going to plan - Howard will ask voters for a fourth consecutive term and the distinction of becoming Australia's second-longest serving Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies.

Even before the announcement of the trade agreement, with its exclusion of sugar and the limited gains for other major farm commodities, voters were beginning to undermine the ascendancy Howard has enjoyed for so long.

A Newspoll in the Australian showed that after the distribution of preferences, a Labor Government would have nudged past the Coalition Government to win office had an election been held last weekend.

The Coalition needs to lose only eight seats across Australia to be swept from power: in Queensland, five marginal electorates cover the ailing and now infuriated home of the sugar industry, all of which are likely to be contested by independents who could fatally split the conservative vote.

Elsewhere, the Greens are commanding an increasing share of political support and, with the ailing but still significant Democrats, could add to wider disenchantment to provide Labor with the preferences it needs.

The Opposition is already having a field day, accusing the Government of selling out its mates and dooming the sugar industry.

So has the old fox finally outsmarted himself? Hardly. Howard is an exceptionally astute politician who is well able to calculate the mathematics of politics and manipulate its equations..

He knew well in advance that President George W. Bush was facing his own election this year, that the immensely powerful US farm lobby would not permit concessions of the kind Canberra was seeking and that, as the smaller partner, Australia would have to abandon some weighty ambitions.

Top of the list was sugar, which - for all Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson's claims that excluding the industry would be "un-Australian" - would never get past US opposition. It was also apparent for some time that beef and dairying would win nowhere near the access Canberra was pursuing.

But Howard knew that when it came to the crunch, beef and dairying would accept whatever gains could be extracted (as they have) and that sugar was ultimately expendable. Last weekend, before the deal was finalised, he was already in damage control, phoning MPs in vulnerable seats, industry leaders and political allies.

The moment the agreement was announced, he had a sugar aid plan ready to roll. Canegrowers, who have been fighting a losing battle against global market realities for two decades were angry but resigned.

For broader consumption, Howard could argue the case of national interest. Important as it may be to Queensland, canegrowing is small fry in national terms and the Government has been able to argue convincingly that it could not forgo large gains for other sectors of the economy, and claimed potential gains of A$2 billion a year, for sugar which would win nothing either way.

Howard has also been able to mesh the trade agreement into the Government's broader foreign policy agenda, locking trade and the economy into the strong defence alliance that already exists.

He can further argue, as Bush does, that successful bilateral deals involving the US places pressure on other countries and blocs to seriously negotiate a more liberal global trading regime, despite warnings from critics that it could just as easily have the opposite effect.

Underlying this reasoning, and playing to Australia's persistent sense of international insecurity, is the implied argument that the nation has no other great friends or trading pacts, and that if the world goes to hell at least it's with the biggest bloke on the block.

Locally, Howard knows his voters. While state elections are always fought on state issues, the Queensland election two weeks ago gave some indication of how an organised protest vote in sugar marginals may fare in a federal poll.

Former National MP Bob Katter, who quit the party to become an independent because of Coalition policies, organised a co-ordinated campaign by independents in six sugar seats, based on protection for the industry.

Although the Nationals conceded the party had felt pain, the independents did not cost them any of their handful of seats in the Labor-dominated State parliament and not one of the independents was elected.

The impact of independents in a federal election could be greater because Canberra runs the competition, economic, trade and industry policies that impact heavily on rural Australia, but they would still face an uphill battle.

Certainly, Labor would have a rough ride trying to win many canegrowers - or any other farmers, for that matter - from the Coalition, however hard leader Mark Latham may slug out their case over the US trade deal. Simply, most farmers have never liked, or trusted, Labor.

Latham also faces a very real risk of Howard turning it all against him.

Already, the Government is working to isolate Labor on free trade and to spin Latham's criticism of the agreement into a broader tapestry of anti-Americanism, undermining the alliance at a time of great danger for Australia.

Latham has already had to painfully swallow earlier, personal attacks on President Bush, retract loud, broader criticism of the US, and work hard to portray Labor as an advocate of the alliance, subject to an independent Australian foreign policy.

Labor treads fragile ground when it attacks Howard on foreign policy, and especially Australia's relationship with America. Most Australians support the alliance, take comfort from the protection it provides, and feel pleased and proud that the nation has joined a select few to be favoured with a free trade agreement.

Even the Iraq war has not harmed Howard, for all the initial opposition and suspicion since that the nation was hoodwinked into combat.

Polling suggests that satisfaction with the ousting of Saddam Hussein, the much-praised role of Australian forces in the conflict, and the perception of Howard as a leader of strength and resolve, outweighs concern over a war justified on the grounds of non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

The polls have been supported by events. While the US and Britain have been aflame with outrage and anger at the use, misuse or veracity of pre-war intelligence, Australia has so far shown little real concern.

None of this guarantees these issues will not hammer, or at least badly wing, Howard in the coming election, especially with the outcome likely to be decided by a sizeable block of swinging voters who don't make up their minds until the last 48 hours.

But it suggests that while Howard's path will not be easy, Latham will need to watch carefully to avoid the traps the Coalition is already digging around him.

And, in the end, it will almost certainly be the things that concern Australians most - health, housing, education, welfare and employment - that decide who will be the country's next Prime Minister.