Fair dinkum, you would think there is an election in the air.For 33 years as a Member of Federal Parliament, John Winston Howard has treated Indigenous Australians as second-rate citizens.
For over three decades, he has barely been prepared to give them the time of day.
As Prime Minister for 11 years, he has never been able to say: "Sorry" to Australia's first inhabitants.
Now, on the eve of the Federal election, John Howard comes up with his grand plan to recognise Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in the Preamble to the Australian Constitution.
What a tremendous gesture! It won't change their legal rights. It won't change their treatment by bureaucrats and unsympathetic Ministers but it will make John Howard feel good that he added them to the Constitution.
John Howard is acting like a criminal facing a jail sentence - pleading with the Judge to let him walk free because he had commenced reading the Bible and had turned to Jesus for salvation.
Somehow, I don't the people of Australia will be very forgiving of John Howard on Judgment Day in few weeks time.
What else can we expect from this born-again politician in the next few desperate weeks of his career?
Maybe he will sign the Kyoto Protocol before election day.
Or he might become a paid-up member of the Australian Republican Movement just to show that he really supported an Australian Republic all along. The people must have just misunderstood him.
Of course, he will announce a review of the WorkChoices legislation by telling the workers of Australia that he is really on their side and that he will crack down on those few rogue employers rorting the system.
A special Prime Ministerial Review of 457 visas is almost guaranteed to be announced shortly and a fairer tax system will be another certain pronouncement.
John Howard will have an armoury of education promises, child care promises, climate change promises, defence promises, immigration promises, health promises, job creation promises - in fact, his promises over the next few weeks will be oozing out of every orifice of his body!
Now, if only he could arrange another Tampa or refugee crisis or security threat to Australia during the next six weeks ...........
Don't laugh too loud
because anything is
on the cards with this
Wiley Coyote of Australian politics.
