Dr Nicholas Gruen
writes:

Most dominant and successful federal
politicians have usually been conviction politicians. But getting the mix
between conviction and pragmatism is necessary – and difficult. You have to
persevere and risk making mistakes.

John Howard followed this formula.
Beazley could too – even from the disadvantaged position of Opposition. That’s
if he could discover those convictions within and find a compelling way to
express them.

If you recall, Howard tried and
failed to sell fear of foreigners to the Australian electorate twice before his
great triumph – the Tampa incident. He floated restrictions on Asian immigration
in the mid eighties but they failed to gain traction. A decade later, Pauline Hanson
reopened the issue. With studied insouciance in the face of ritualised calls to
repudiate Hanson, Howard enthused about the new air of free
speech.

Tampa was the defining moment of Howard
as a conviction politician. Though he’d failed twice before, he’d put in the
groundwork vilifying boat people as “illegals” and “queue jumpers.” He was also
very lucky. Within a few weeks of Tampa, security against foreign threats
crashed into our consciousness as the twin towers crashed to
earth.

As it was with the boat people,
Australians could go either way on David Hicks – it all depends on the way the
street theatre of politics plays out.

So here’s another kind of “Tampa
incident.” Some street theatre for the Opposition. Not enough to win an
election but enough to revive Kim Beazley’s flagging fortunes. Beazley gets a
group of eminent and respected Australians together – Malcolm Fraser comes most
readily to mind amongst others. They travel as far as they can towards Camp
Delta at Guantanamo Bay with a simple message to the first US official who stops
them.

Read the full article on the Henry Thornton website here.