Melbourne — Australian Prime Minister John Howard has been the Houdini of politics. He repeatedly gets into tight places, always managing to escape. This month, however, he suffered the most significant defeat of his decade in power. His government had to withdraw proposed new anti-refugee legislation after two Senators from his own side refused to support it.

The bill was targeted at refugees arriving by boat, mainly from Indonesian-controlled West Papua (where independence activists are regularly persecuted by Indonesian police). Others come from the Middle East — including hundreds from Iraq and Afghanistan (Australian troops are stationed in both countries).

Under Howard’s bill, these “boat people” would have been diverted 2500 miles away to Nauru, a tiny, impoverished atoll in Polynesia. Nauru is technically an independent country (with a population of 12,000, and a land mass of 20 square kilometres). But it is effectively dependent on Australia for money and administration. The Australian proposal to ship hundreds of refugees for indeterminate detention there, was clearly an offer the Nauru government could not refuse.

Refugees live in tents while their claims are processed. Past claimants have languished for years before learning whether they can enter Australia or are sent home, and normal rights of appeal are non-existent (since they aren’t, technically, in Australia).

Nauru is thus Australia’s version of America’s Guantanamo Bay: a convenient loophole from the rule of law for a government claiming that national security trumps civil rights. (One wag named it “Guano Bay,” after the petrified bird poop that is the source of the island’s once-abundant phosphate deposits.) And just as George Bush’s Guantanamo strategy is being whittled away by U.S. Supreme Court rulings, Howard’s so-called “Pacific Solution” to refugees is now crumbling — although in his case more because of public opinion than legal opinion.

The refugee debacle represents the completion of a full circle in Howard’s colourful and controversial career. He first led Australia’s right-wing Liberal Party in the 1980s, campaigning against “Asian immigration” and the erosion of Australian heritage. Most Australians found him too extreme, and he languished in opposition until being dumped as leader in 1989.

Later he had a “kinder, gentler” makeover, re-taking his party’s helm in 1995 after renouncing some of his earlier extreme views. (Sound familiar?) His Liberal-National coalition won power a year later, and hasn’t lost it yet. Despite his careful moderate image, however, Howard doesn’t refrain from firing up redneck sentiment when it suits his political needs.

He kick-started a struggling 1998 campaign, for example, by stoking populist fears about aboriginal land claims. More gruesomely, his 2001 re-election featured an ideological and military confrontation with an earlier wave of boat people. Howard ordered the Australian navy to block refugee boats, even though some were barely seaworthy (and one sank, killing hundreds). Days before the tightly-contested vote, Howard accused refugees of throwing their children overboard, and a decent Norwegian captain of being a people-smuggler. Both claims were later proven false — but only after the votes had been counted.

There is a redneck streak among some Australians. But on the whole, Australia — like Canada — is a tolerant, increasingly diverse society. And Howard’s approach quickly lost favour in the face of both horror stories regarding the mistreatment of refugees in Nauru, and Australia’s underlying economic need for more immigration (not less). Australia’s unemployment rate is under five per cent, and the country accepts a net inward migration of over 100,000 people each year: proportionately not as large as Canada’s inflow, but close.

In short, real-world economics have overtaken the remnants of redneck attitudes. Most Australians accept immigration as a positive force. Even business lobbyists opposed Howard’s refugee proposals. How much damage this episode will do to Howard’s re-election chances (the next vote will occur in 2007) remains to be seen.

The whole episode holds some interesting lessons for Canadian conservatives. Howard has been extremely adept at simultaneously appearing “middle of the road,” while throwing regular bones to the hard-line conservatives who still form his core base. Two of Howard’s main advisors helped to export this successful recipe by working on Stephen Harper’s 2006 campaign.

Every now and then, however, even a seasoned politician like Howard gets the balance wrong. And when he accidentally shows his true colours, people don’t generally like what they see.

Jim Stanford

Jim Stanford is economist and director of the Centre for Future Work, and divides his time between Vancouver and Sydney. He has a PhD in economics from the New School for Social Research in New York,...