Tiger ban could bite Howard in his seat

Pandering to ethnic minorities

from Voice of Shire by Darrin Hodges

THE Howard Government risks harming its re-election chances in two marginal Sydney seats, including the Prime Minister's electorate of Bennelong, if it moves to list the Tamil Tigers as a terrorist organisation.

Research obtained by The Weekend Australian highlights the danger of an ethnic voter backlash if the Government proscribes the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

The Tamil Tigers are banned in the US, Britain, Canada and the 27 countries of the European Union, prompting speculation that Australia will also ban the group.

Legal preparations for a possible terrorist listing have been under way in Canberra, but the Government says it has not made a formal decision.

Any move by the Government to proscribe the LTTE as a terrorist group carries an electoral risk among the estimated 30,000 Tamils in Australia, most of whom strongly support the Tigers' separatist struggle for an independent homeland in Sri Lanka.

The largest grouping is in the marginal Sydney seat of Parramatta, where almost 1100 residents nominated their ancestry as Tamil, based on census tables supplied to The Weekend Australian. Parramatta is held by Labor, but is a notional Liberal seat after redistribution of boundaries. Labor requires a swing of just 0.9 per cent, or about 700 raw votes, to retain Parramatta.

The other politically sensitive concentration of Tamils is the 300 in John Howard's Bennelong. His seat would fall to Labor with a swing of 4 per cent, or more than 3000 raw votes.
[ The Australian - 04/08/07 ]