Contraceptiongate
Senator Brian Harradine, Right to Life's man in federal parliament, found himself in an advantageous bargaining position during the scuffle over the budget. Along with the Greens and the Democrats, Harradine's vote on the budget became vital to the government's ability to get many of its regressive and unpopular measures through the upper house.
But while the Greens proved difficult to buy, insisting on the "un-do-able" policies such as a wealth tax and defence budget cuts, Harradine's deal was perfectly able to be done.
On October 25 Treasurer John Dawkins announced, with some relief, that Senator Harradine had "indicated the terms on which he could support the government's budget". Dawkins did not go into details.
On October 26 the world summit of National Academies of Science in New Delhi passed a motion condemning a mysterious decision by the Australian government to freeze $35 million in overseas aid for family planning programs in the Third World, which had only just been pledged in the 1993 budget. The conference warned that the freeze would contribute to the lack of reproductive health services which causes the deaths of thousands of women and children each year.
On October 27 Gordon Bilney, offsider to foreign affairs minister Gareth Evans and minister for Development Cooperation and Pacific Island Affairs, went on radio to say that the Australian government was committed to this type of overseas aid, and the only reason it had frozen the funds was that "pressure had been applied — in a budget context". In a separate interview, Bilney revealed that the decision to suspend the aid followed a "request" by Harradine "to examine the intellectual basis" of the program.
Both Harradine and the government denied a connection between the frozen funds and Harradine's support for budget measures he had previously opposed. "It would have been a pretty lousy deal if that was my support for the government", Harradine told the Australian on October 28.
But by October 30 the Sydney Morning Herald could report that the government had "confirmed yesterday that it had bowed to demands by [Harradine] to ... review Australia's involvement in population control". "The decisions...", reported Canberra correspondent Bernard Lagan, "were taken by ministers who negotiated with Senator Harradine ... to get his support to pass the budget through the Senate".
Since the secret deal was exposed, both the government and Harradine have moved into damage control.
The government, via the forked tongue of Gareth Evans, says it's no big deal: they'll just hold an inquiry, prove that population control is important and then unfreeze the funds. Harradine has come over all ideologically sound and is now claiming that the grounds for his opposition to the family planning aid is concern that "Australia's precious aid money" is being "diverted from cooperation development and poverty alleviation programs to population control programs" which "run roughshod over women's health and fail to address the real causes of poverty".
So, the government really has principles. And Harradine really cares about women's health. And a pig just flew into the Green Left office and submitted an article on parliamentary democracy.
By Karen Fredericks