Bad guys hurt the good guys


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 of Mr Howard would love to put an end it. There is no way the Prime Minister personally approves of the padding of expense claims that Senator Colston has allegedly engaged in, and he is entitled to feel peeved that his electoral honeymoon has ended for such a grubby reason.
Yet for Mr Howard the knowledge of what is theoretically right and proper is tempered by the pragmatism that goes with wanting to be able to govern.
Should Senator Colston finally be forced from his position the constitution says his replacement must be the nominee of the Labor Party under whose banner he was originally elected.
When that happens Mr Howard would be back having to depend on the Democrats and the Greens to get his legislation passed.
Which is why there was the attempt last week to be too clever by half and say that the government would refuse to accept Senator Colston's vote.
Mr Howard wanted to make it look like he was dropping Senator Colston while in reality he was doing nothing of the kind.
Having a Coalition senator absent whenever Senator Colston chose to vote with it would not remove the majority of the government plus Tasmanian Independent Senator Brian Harradine.
The public reaction to this attempt to have the best of both worlds will surely be an increase in the disenchantment with all politicians, which means that the Government will suffer most.
And the big winners will end up being the minor parties, who can look forward to record votes at the next Senate election.
Mr Howard, by going to extraordinary lengths to have a majority in this Parliament, is guaranteeing that he will not have one in the next.
He is merely postponing the day when he has to deal again with the Democrats and the Greens plus, perhaps, a senator or two from a Right wing group like that formed by Pauline Hanson.

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