Australians face poll tainted by race row

AUSTRALIA faces the grim prospect of a general election based on race after the federal government yesterday rejected parliament's changes to its controversial legislation that limits Aborigines' rights to claim title to their native lands.

After months of bitter negotiations with Aborigines and parliamentary horse-trading, John Howard, the Prime Minister, yesterday declared "unacceptable" amendments to the legislation on which he has staked his political reputation, and which he now seems likely to use as a trigger to dissolve both houses of parliament and call a general election. "If the issue is to be resolved, it may be necessary to have a double dissolution," he said.

Aboriginal leaders denounced the government, branded its legislation as racist and walked out of talks in Canberra, the capital, on Thursday night. Gladys Tybingoompa, an elder of the Wik people of north Queensland, said: "Today, to the whole of the world, especially to the nation of Australia, I say this to you: it's come to a disgrace. This is called the walkaway, the last time the message is given to you, to the Australians. Clap your hands together like the sea of hands to give support to us all." Australia's leading Aboriginal official, Gatjil Djerrkura, head of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders' Commission, said: "It seems we can have no faith in the government to protect our existing rights."

The racial clash has come about over the Howard government's native title legislation known as the Wik bill. It was introduced to parliament last year after the High Court ruled, in a case that the Wik people brought before it, that Aborigines could claim native title over pastoral leases. Such leases were first granted in colonial times, to allow farming in regions of outback Australia the size of small European countries. Until the High Court's Wik judgment in 1996, farmers had had exclusive access to such lands, where tribal Aborigines had been pushed off generations ago.

Most farmers claimed that the court ruling would ruin their livelihoods, and called on Mr Howard's conservative government to extinguish native title rights altogether. The government responded with legislation that restricted native title claims. Its Bill was passed in the House of Representatives, the lower house, last year, but was amended in the Senate, the upper house, where the coalition does not have a majority. Mr Howard re-submitted the Bill to the Senate, which refused to back down on three of its key amendments on Wednesday night.

These amendments allowed Aborigines the right to negotiate with mining companies on pastoral leases (which the original bill disallowed); struck out a "sunset clause" that disallowed any native title claims after six years ; and made the Bill subject to Australia's Racial Discrimination Act, not exempt as the government wanted. Although the Senate had compromised on seven other points, Mr Howard yesterday pronounced its three amendments unacceptable and returned the Bill to the lower house, where it is now "laid aside".

Mr Howard has until October to call an election, which he is determined to do in the hope of getting the Bill passed by a joint sitting of both houses of a new parliament. But, despite the Prime Minister's claim that such an election would not be race-based, his government's insensitive treatment of Aborigines over this and other issues would inevitably feature prominently and cause Australia irreparable international damage.

Mr Howard joined political battle on another front on Wednesday when Patrick Stevedores, Australia's second-largest stevedore company, sacked its entire staff of 1,600 dock workers and replaced them with contract non-union labour. The dramatic sackings were the climax of a waterfront dispute that has been simmering for months, in which Mr Howard's government is supporting the employers's moves to break the power of the dock workers' union.

The Prime Minister described the sackings as "a defining moment in Australia's industrial relations history". Like his refusal to back down over the native title Bill, he sees the waterside confrontation as an issue that could give his government a tough image as it moves towards an election. But both flashpoints are huge political gambles.