Racist party gains in Australia

By PETER O’CONNOR

Associated Press Writer

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The resurgence of a far-right party that opposes Asian immigrants and Aborigines has stunned Australia’s ruling coalition, which fears the One Nation Party will cost it power in national elections this year.

One Nation won 9.6 percent of the vote in a state election Saturday in Western Australia, a surprisingly strong result that helped sweep the coalition of the Liberal and the National parties from office in favor of the opposition Labor Party.

The conservative coalition of the two parties, which forms Australia’s federal government, fears One Nation could siphon votes and smash Prime Minister John Howard’s hopes for a third term in autumn elections.

“We’ve got to recognize One Nation is a significant force in the political spectrum within Australia,” federal Forestry Minister Wilson Tuckey said Monday.

One Nation advocates a ban on Asian immigration and tough policies on Aborigines — elements of an antiestablishment platform that attracts support from poor or conservative Australians of European ancestry unhappy about growing ethnic diversity and disenchanted with mainstream parties.

“People are voting One Nation as a protest, particularly against conservative governments,” said Antony Green, an electoral analyst with the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Formed in 1996 by Pauline Hanson, a fish-and-chip shop owner, One Nation won 23 percent of the vote in a state election in 1998 and 8.4 percent in the federal poll that year. But it was later splintered by internal bickering, and was widely seen as a spent force until Saturday’s election in Western Australia.

One Nation got as much as a quarter of the vote in some districts. It won just three seats in the state’s upper legislative house, but its spoiler role hurt the conservative coalition, which was a few percentage points behind Labor in a protracted vote count.

“The message out of Western Australia is be afraid, be very afraid, because there are a lot of rural voters out there prepared to kick the National Party in the guts and they don’t care,” said Green.

Meanwhile, two newspaper polls showed that public support for the government appeared to be waning.

A poll in The Sydney Morning Herald showed support for the ruling coalition at 35 percent, compared with that for the Labor Party at 43 percent. It was the poorest showing for the coalition since mid-1998. A second poll in The Australian showed support for the government sliding 5 points to 39 percent while Labor’s backing rose 5 points to 47 percent.

Neither poll provided a margin of error.