SYDNEY, Nov 10: Australian Prime Minister John Howard swept back to power for a historic third term on Saturday in a triumph widely attributed to the strength of public support for his hardline refugee policies.

But Opposition Labour leader Kim Beazley, who conceded defeat in his home city of Perth and also stood down as his party’s leader, said the war-time mood generated by the Sept 11 terrorist attacks in the United States had given the government a telling advantage.

“It is an extraordinarily difficult scene to conduct an election campaign against the background of an ongoing war and in circumstances where people feel a great sense of insecurity,” he added.

“To conduct an election campaign against this background from opposition is the most difficult task that any opposition can undertake and I am so proud of the way we have fought it,” added the 52-year-old who has lost two elections since taking over as Labour leader in 1996.

With 79 percent of the vote counted, Australian Broadcasting Corporation computer projections gave Howard’s Liberal Party 68 seats and its junior coalition partner, the National Party, 12 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives. Labour had 67 seats and there were three Independents.

“I cannot express to you the sense of honour and privilege I feel once again being elected as prime minister of the greatest country in the world,” Howard told Liberal Party supporters in a Sydney hotel.

Howard said Australia faced some new and unexpected challenges.

“All of us are deeply conscious of the changes that have come over the world and therefore over our own nation since the terrible events in the United States of the 11th of September,” he said.

“It requires of all of us of goodwill and of faith in freedom and a belief in the great principles upon which this nation has been built that we come together, we bind together in unity.”

Howard had a wafer slim majority after the last election in 1998, with 11 seats categorised as extreme marginals with a majority under one percent.

Former Labour prime minister Bob Hawke accused Howard of adopting the anti-immigration policies of right wing firebrand Pauline Hanson and her One Nation party.

One Nation’s vote was halved in Saturday’s election, most of its former supporters apparently giving the coalition their vote and helping it to win.

Former Labour Senator Stephen Loosley told ABC television labor appeared to have been hurt by the issue of asylum seekers which dominated the election campaign and by ethnic gang crime in Sydney’s southern suburbs.

Howard, who first won government in March 1996, sought a third term to equal the record held by only two previous Liberal leaders, Robert Menzies and Malcolm Fraser.

Seen as a tough and resolute leader, Howard campaigned hard on the need for strong leadership during a period of international crisis.

His major election theme was his warning: “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.”

He revelled in the overwhelming domestic support but ignored the international condemnation he received over his uncompromising stand on illegal immigration, using the navy to divert asylum seekers away to tiny Pacific island nations to have their claims processed.

Beazley, who at one stage faced annihilation, managed in a strong campaign to force domestic issues like education, health and jobs to the forefront. But all he managed to do was minimise the Labour losses.

“We have fought a magnificent campaign in adverse circumstances and we have held onto a position which I could not believe we would have five weeks ago,” he said.

Hawke said it was the threat of war in the wake of the terrorism attacks that had forced the electorate to stick with the status quo. Hawke, speaking on ABC television, said Labour would not have to reposition its domestic policies in light of its defeat.

“On what I regard as the fundamental issues, I think Labour had the right position,” Hawke said.

“Over the next three years, we have to sell our policies on that and persuade the Australian people why their best interests will be served by going to Labour.” He said hopefully next time around, the election campaign would be fought on domestic issues.

“All the evidence shows that when you have a position of external crisis, the incumbents are always favoured,” Hawke said.

“All I’m saying is that I hope in three years time, we’ll have a situation which isn’t muddied by those external circumstances.”—AFP