AUSTRALIA goes to the polls on March 2nd, with the federal Labor government facing an uphill battle to hang on to power. On the latest opinion polls, the conservative Liberal/National Party Coalition is between 8 per cent and 10 per cent ahead of the government, and needs only a swing of 1 per cent to win.
It might for once be a very gentlemanly general election in Australia. The Prime Minister, Mr Paul Keating, well known for his robust parliamentary language, went on radio in Sydney just days before announcing the election and declared that he does not believe in being rude and abusive. Mr Keating who in the past has castigated the Leader of the Opposition, Mr John Howard, as "an old tart" and "a little whinger", and Opposition frontbencher, Mr Peter Reith, as "a vile character" said "I don't believe in rudeness, I don't believe in personal effrontery. I would rather go through life with out that sort of behaviour."
The Prime Minister did admit to an occasional "corporate slur" but insisted he was not vindictive and did not wish anyone ill.
But if the 52 year old Mr Keating, dubbed the "Lizard of Oz" by British tabloids, who once referred to a Leader of the Opposition as a "mangy maggot", ceases to trade insults it may become even more difficult for voters to tell which party is which.
The Opposition Liberal Party (which is conservative), led by Mr Howard, has steadfastly refused to release details of its policies until the last minute, on the grounds that if it did the government would steal the best bits and rubbish the rest.
The reality is that the Labor government (an American spelling was adopted when the party was formed) under Mr Keating has already stolen most of them. Both major parties are economic rationalists. Labor has already embraced privatisation with enthusiasm. It has, for example, sold control of the national airline, Qantas, to British Airways and it has sold most of the Commonwealth Bank and intends to sell the rest before the end of the year.
Labor has also slashed import tariffs, relies heavily on a high interest rate policy to control an otherwise deregulated economy and is in the process of dismantling national pay agreements in favour of local enterprise bargaining.
Mr Howard this week announced that if elected his government will sell up to a third of the national telecommunications carrier. Telstra, during its first term of office, hopefully for at least A$8 billion (£3.7 billion). But the government has already prepared the ground it has "corporatised" Telstra (formerly known as Telecom) and broken its monopoly by allowing a private enterprise group, Optus to compete directly in the provision of telephone services.
Mr Howard would continue the push for enterprise bargaining, and go further than Labor in reducing the role of trade unions. He is likely to reduce immigration from the current level of around 100,000 a year, but has, given no hint of any radical policy change. He has promised a full public inquiry into the restrictions on foreign ownership of the Australian media.
A Howard government would almost certainly ease the restrictions, but Mr Howard has said only that the laws are out of date and need to be overhauled. If the opinion polls are mirrored by the real voting on March 2nd, Labor's 13 year rule will end and the coalition will have a very comfortable majority. But the coalition was leading by 51.4 per cent to 48.6 per cent before the, last election in 1993 yet that politest of politicians, the sweet talking Paul John Keating, still scraped in.