(IPS) analysis The re-election of Australia's conservative Prime Minister John Howard owed much to his skill in playing on racial fears at the expense of a trickle of asylum seekers arriving on Australia's northern shores in frail wooden boats.

Howard's victory delivered the third straight defeat of the opposition Labour Party and vanquished the populist anti-immigration One Nation Party, led by Pauline Hanson.

Hanson complains, with justification, that Howard has adopted her policies and consequently attracted the political support of many of the one million Australians who voted for her party at the last federal election.

For its part, the Labour Party is in disarray. Kim Beazely announced in his concession speech on Saturday night that he would be resigning as leader at the first meeting of the parliamentary party.

Duncan Kerr, a left wing member of the shadow cabinet, argues that Labour needs to take a more compassionate approach to asylum seekers. ''Labour will have to choose between becoming a second party of the right, or finding the moral courage and creative strength to speak honestly about what we stand for,'' he said.

Price tag

Howard's win, however, comes with a high price tag. Australia's reputation is in tatters in the eyes of many in the international community, not least its nearest neighbours Indonesia and the Pacific islands.

Internally, Australia's view of itself as a tolerant and successful multi-cultural society is under extreme strain. Howard, however, shows no sign of doubting the wisdom of playing the race card to his political benefit. On Sunday, he emphatically rejected revising the policy on asylum seekers. ''We're not going to re-assess it,'' he declared.

Early in the election campaign, respected Aboriginal leader Mick Dodson passionately spoke out against the Howard use of the race issue.

''Xenophobic fear of the other is being invoked in the most despicable way as a rallying call to security of national borders and nationalism itself. Asylum seekers in boats have replaced indigenous Australians as the scapegoats for this fear and hate,'' he said.

Howard coyly sidesteps accepting that his tough anti-asylum policy won him the election. ''There are a lot of things that contribute to a victory but the idea that it was all due to the public response to the issue of border protection, important though that was, and continues to be, ignores the steps the government took to respond to community concerns to rebuild its political position from a number of months ago,'' he said.

Howard's resort to the race issue emerged dramatically in September when the Norwegian container ship, the MV Tampa, rescued 430 asylum seekers from a sinking fishing boat. The captain of the Tampa then sought to put the refugees from Afghanistan and Iraq ashore on the Christmas Island, a remote Australian island.

Howard dispatched Special Air Services troops to prevent the Tampa moving to the shore. The hardline policy alienated the Norwegian government and the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, which criticised Howard.

Outpouring of support

Before Howard had even spoken to the newly elected Indonesian government of Megawati Soekarnoputri, he insisted publicly that Indonesia should accept the asylum seekers back. ''Our position remains that they (Indonesia) should take them back because that's where they came from,'' he said at the time. Megawati's response was to refuse to even return Howard's phone calls.

However, with an outpouring of support from tabloid papers and radio talkback hosts, Howard pressed on. Rather than allow the asylum seekers to land, Howard devised what he called the ''Pacific solution'' for the asylum seekers - dispatching them at the expense of the Australian government to poor neighbouring countries including Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

There their applications for refugee status will be assessed and, if successful, they will be able to be resettled in Australia.

To demonstrate its resolve and remove legal doubts about commandeering ships, Howard introduced special legislation - the Border Protection Bill - in Parliament. The legislation authorised delegated government officers to tow unauthorised boats carrying asylum seekers back into international waters.

It was a dramatic move that forced the opposition Labour Party into choosing between a principled but unpopular opposition to the bill or to acquiesce. After initially opposing the first version of the legislation and encountering a public backlash, the Labour Party opted to acquiesce.

Howard the strong leader - first seen when he gained overwhelming backing for reducing gun ownership in 1996 - was re-born. The Opposition Labour Party was portrayed as vacillating when it came to protecting Australia's borders. It was a crude but effective political strategy.

Unlikely to be sustained

The ''Pacific solution'', which held together for the duration of the five-week election campaign, is showing signs of unravelling.

What seemed like a neat solution for 430 people has turned into farce as boatloads of asylum-seekers continue to arrive. Howard's dispatch of the Australian Navy, at a cost of tens of millions of dollars over a few months, is unlikely to be sustained, especially with the likely onset of a global recession.

Australia's relations with Indonesia have once more dramatically soured. Last week, Professors Ross Garnaut, Peter Drysdale and Stuart Harris from the Australian National University publicly criticised Howard for using the ''megaphone of domestic politics'' to pressure Indonesia over asylum seekers.

In the Pacific, Papua New Guinea and Nauru are wary of taking more of Australia's unwanted asylum-seekers. Fiji and Vanuatu are cautiously considering Australian Government proposals to accept asylum seekers.

While domestic criticism of Howard's approach to dealing with asylum seekers is mounting, there appears little prospect of a change of policy while he is in office.

Howard, who has repeatedly said he would reassess whether he will continue as prime minister in 18 months time when he turns 64, shows little enthusiasm for retiring. ''The idea of retirement couldn't be further from my mind,'' he said.