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Showing posts from April, 1997

PM can't ignore demons of the Right

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Edition 1SUN 27 APR 1997, Page 043 PM can't ignore demons of the Right By RICHARD FARMER   LIBERAL Party tacticians could do worse than read the history of the party during the 1950s and early 1960s as they grapple with how to handle the growth of fanatical parties of the Right. Back in the pre-Whitlam days, Labor was reduced to political impotency by not knowing how to react to the various shades of Marxism within its own ranks. The Liberal and National Parties now risk the same fate as they try to work out how to live with Pauline Hanson and the motley collection of parties springing up on a belief that the established conservative Coalition does not take its policies far enough. The Labor Party's dilemma of old has many similarities with that of Prime Minister John Howard today. Within the Labor Party there were many who agreed with the Marxists about the utopia of the socialist State to come. The differences were about how to get to the promised land, rather than what wou

Bad guys hurt the good guys

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Edition 1SUN 20 APR 1997, Page 138 Bad guys hurt the good guys By RICHARD FARMER   BLAMING the government -whether it is responsible or not -is the normal reaction of voters and John Howard well knows it. It is the reason that he is floundering around trying to make it look like he is doing something about Mal Colston while hoping to keep benefiting from his presence in the Senate. For more than a year the Labor Opposition has been unable to dent Mr Howard's high standing in the opinion polls by pointing to things that he has actually done or left undone. Now the disclosure of the details of the travel and other expense claims of the Queensland Independent Senator, claims for which the government is in no way responsible, is starting to hurt the Coalition's standing. There is certainly very little that is fair about politics when the actions of the bad guys hurt the good guys, but that is how it is. All politicians get smeared with the muck raked up about the few and one part