Did the Prime Minister have an epiphany? No. Just a message from the pollster. There is considerable cynicism among traditional Liberal voters, reported Mark Textor, about the Federal Government takeover of Aboriginal policy in the Northern Territory. We look like losing seats we never even thought were in danger. Listen to Elton John:

It’s sad, so sad
It’s a sad, sad situation
And it’s getting more and more absurd
It’s sad, so sad
Why can’t we talk it over
Oh it seems to me
That sorry seems to be the hardest word

So how about saying sorry? No. No. I know I’m old fashioned, but I don’t mind it. That’s how I want to be. I’m a Johnny Mercer man. Fools rush in where wise men never go.

Johnny and Harold Arlen are my advisers. They knew:

  • You’ve got to accentuate the positive
  • Eliminate the negative
  • Latch on to the affirmative
  • Don’t mess with Mister In-Between

“I was never able to recite a fable” … “Let’s give them that old black magic that I weave so well.”

Let them have another referendum. Put some nice words in the preamble to the Constitution. So give me a speech and quickly find me a venue.

So there John Howard was last night at the Sydney Institute where:

It’s like singin’ to empty tables

Or a gallery full of ghosts

Or like givin’ a great big party

Where nobody shows but the host

“I still believe,” John Howard told the quickly assembled rent-a-crowd, “that a collective national apology for past injustice fails to provide the necessary basis to move forward. Just as the responsibility agenda is gaining ground it would, I believe, only reinforce a culture of victim-hood and take us backwards.”

So, in an attempt to meet the Textor message:

I announce that, if re-elected, I will put to the Australian people within 18 months a referendum to formally recognise indigenous Australians in our constitution – their history as the first inhabitants of our country, their unique heritage of culture and languages, and their special, though not separate, place within a reconciled, indivisible nation.