Rumble Down Under

A major ally in the war on terror faces an election this fall.

By Mary Kissel
Tuesday, August 14, 2007 12:01 a.m.

Radio listeners in Sydney last week were treated to some good ole Aussie plain talk on the war on terror. "It's not all negative and nobody pretends that it's easy," Prime Minister John Howard told talk show host Ray Hadley. "Pulling out will guarantee a descent into civil war and chaos and a victory for terrorism and we're totally opposed to that." And what of the much-maligned President Bush? While he's "under pressure at home," Mr. Howard retorted, "he's not a person who succumbs easily to pressure, and he's right."

Mr. Howard could just as easily have been describing himself. A man who's been fighting political trench warfare since the 1960s, the 68-year-old prime minister is dug into what he dubs "the toughest election I have had in the last decade or more." After 11 years in power at the helm of the ruling conservative Liberal Party, the straight-talking John Howard may finally be on the outs and Australia leaning left.

Polls show Mr. Howard trailing his challenger, the Labor Party's Kevin Rudd, by around 10 percentage points, with an election expected to be called in late October or early November. The so-called "Howard battlers," the blue-collar workers who swung the 1996 election decisively for the conservatives, are now seen as swing votes, particularly in Queensland and Tasmania.


A few decades ago, an Australian election wouldn't have mattered outside Asia, where Canberra occasionally intervened to put out fires in Pacific Island spats and kept tabs on Indonesia. Since taking office in 1996, however, Mr. Howard has carved out a global role for his country, proving himself a pragmatic and powerful ally in the war on terror. Australian troops are deployed in more hot spots than at any point in the country's history, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. Back at home, he's kept Australia's economic engines purring; the federal government is wholly debt-free and unemployment is at a 33-year low.

This is still a fresh vision of Australia, a nation where "tall poppies" get cut down--a popular phrase for compatriots who succeed too much and need to get taken down a notch. Talk to most Aussies, and they'll tell you they're just a middling-size nation that's largely dependent on mining resources. In fact, they have the world's 15th largest economy and boast some of Asia's most sophisticated services companies and a top-notch military.

Mr. Howard has had such a successful run that most political pundits attribute his polling numbers not to policy blunders but, first, to fatigue and, second, to Labor having finally found an electable challenger. (In good Aussie style, Mr. Rudd also comes in for his share of ribbing. One comedian asked earlier this year, "Do we want a Prime Minister named Kevin?")

It's hard to overestimate the fatigue factor. Mr. Howard is the second-longest serving prime minister in Australia's history. His core team, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Treasurer Peter Costello, has been in place since 1996. It's easy, too, to get complacent when the majority of Aussies now own their own homes, have stocks in their investment portfolios, and watch the war on terror from a comfortable geographic distance.

After a few leadership debacles, the Labor Party found Mr. Rudd, a 49-year-old fresh face. He styles himself a new left "economic conservative" who would keep the budget balanced. He spouts the odd non sequitur--he'd "keep interest rates low" while "preserving central bank independence"--and panders to the trade unions, threatening to roll back the Liberals' program of flexible work contracts. But other than that, Mr. Rudd largely echoes Mr. Howard's free trade, conservative economic management--something the prime minister acknowledges with relish. "I think it's a bit of a risk electing a bloke who doesn't have a plan of his own," Mr. Howard told radio host Mr. Hadley.


It's on the "fear issues" such as climate change, job security and foreign policy where Labor wants to distinguish itself--and where the election, if Mr. Rudd wins, could impact the U.S. and its allies. The opposition leader wants a phased withdrawal of Australian troops from Iraq, playing to local fears that the war on terror has "made Australia a target." He advocates humanitarian aid for, and dialogue between, opposing factions--unsurprising positions for a man who spent seven years as a foreign service bureaucrat before entering politics. Under a Rudd government, Australia would maintain its close U.S. alliance, he says, but plump for a stronger United Nations and nurture its relationship with China. Mr. Rudd also supports ratifying the Kyoto Treaty.

Mr. Howard has responded by rounding up his troops and getting prepped for a grass-roots tussle. That includes a dash of populist politics--most notably, a wash of money for projects in key constituencies. It hasn't, however, stopped him from pushing ahead with controversial national reforms. In June, after the release of a report of sexual abuse in aboriginal lands, he announced the government's most ambitious reform of policy toward its native population since the 1960s. Mr. Rudd supported it.

Mr. Howard's strengths lie in his record of economic growth and foreign policy successes. Mr. Rudd's strengths lie in distracting voters from that record and focusing them on peripheral issues. But as long as Mr. Rudd doesn't make any major gaffes, the thinking goes, Australians are ready for a change.

Or are they? As an Aussie friend once told me, of Mr. Howard, "Every time his critics give him the kiss of death, it amounts to mouth-to-mouth resuscitation; he revives and bounces back with incredible force." Mr. Howard has a long way to bounce in a short period of time. But don't count him out just yet.