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ELECTION 2001
Race attack on Howard intensifies
By ANNABEL CRABB
AND DEBRA JOPSON
Saturday 3 November 2001
The attack on John Howard over the issue of race was stepped up yesterday when his predecessor as Liberal leader said Australia was viewed as racist under his leadership and he was also fiercely criticised by a prominent retired judge.
Former Liberal leader John Hewson said Mr Howard had "successfully manipulated prejudice" in the community and accused the Prime Minister of estranging Australia from its Asian neighbors.
"We are seen as white, arrogant, something of an aggressor ... and as the great pretender wanting to be deputy sheriff to George W., sticking `Wanted, Dead or Alive' posters on every tree in Asian Islam," he said during an ABC radio broadcast.
Retired NSW Supreme Court judge Hal Wootten, a former commissioner in the 1991 report into Aboriginal deaths in custody, told a Sydney forum yesterday that indigenous communities should stop waiting "for some narrow-minded little creep to say a sorry that he wouldn't mean anyway".
Mr Wootten also said white liberals needed to lose their fear of being racist and Australians should ask difficult questions such as: "Should people who have been wrecking organisations for years continue to be revered as (Aboriginal) elders or given the boot?"
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Dr Hewson's attack yesterday on his successor began with a column in The Financial Review in which he claimed Mr Howard had "successfully manipulated prejudice to his personal political advantage".
"Some have said that Howard consciously played the race card with the Tampa ... maybe he did play that card," Dr Hewson wrote.
"Well, I haven't," was the terse response yesterday from Mr Howard, who described Dr Hewson's intervention as "completely unsurprising".
Dr Hewson has attacked Mr Howard before on social issues as well as tax reform.
He said during last night's broadcast on Radio National that "to an Asian, our solution to the Tampa reeks of racism. It further feeds the suspicion that still persists in Asia that we have never really abandoned the White Australia policy."
Both the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer declined to comment further on Dr Hewson's broadcast.
Opposition Leader Kim Beazley was also unwilling to enter the debate yesterday. "I'm certainly not a commentator on anything John Hewson's got to say," he said.
Former leaders of both major political parties have emerged during the campaign with claims that the "race card" has been played and criticisms of the government's stance on asylum seekers, a stance shared by Labor.
Former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser this week called "obscene" the government's diversion of asylum seekers to poorer neighboring nations.
Last week, former NSW Labor premier Neville Wran said the "race card" had been played in the election campaign, a claim on which Mr Beazley also refused to comment.
Meanwhile yesterday Mr Howard attacked Mr Beazley over claims by NSW Labor candidate Peter Knott that the September 11 attacks were a result of US foreign policy.
Mr Howard said the Labor leader "didn't have the strength" to disendorse Mr Knott over the comments, but Mr Beazley said he had sought and obtained an apology and retraction from Mr Knott.
with DARREN GRAY
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