SYDNEY: Australia’s tough stance towards its tiny South Pacific island neighbours will likely be replaced by a softer line if Prime Minister John Howard loses next week’s elections, analysts say.

Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd, a former diplomat tipped in the opinion polls to win the vote, is also expected to take a more hands-on approach than Howard, who has largely left the running of foreign policy to his foreign minister.

But the substance of Australian policy towards the impoverished island nations may not be that different, with military interventions in troubled states still on the cards, the analysts said.

“In that there would be a distinction, it would be one of style,” said Damien Kingsbury, of Deakin University. “Perhaps a Labour government would be a little more conciliatory and perhaps not as bombastic.” Howard’s 11 years in office have been marked by an interventionist policy in the region which has annoyed some of Australia’s neighbours even though most of the measures have had widespread international backing.

Under what became known as the “Howard doctrine”, Canberra has dispatched soldiers in recent years to East Timor, Tonga and the Solomon Islands as they were rocked by political unrest.

The more active approach was driven by the fear that failed states in Australia’s backyard could become havens for terrorists or international gangsters.

But Foreign Minister Alexander Downer’s high-handed approach has ruffled the feathers of Pacific leaders on more than one occasion, Kingsbury said.

“The way he acts towards some of the smaller regional governments is in direct contrast to the way he behaves in respect to larger countries.”—AFP