SYDNEY, Oct 2: Australia's mainstream media is backing Prime Minister John Howard for a second term in Saturday elections but his government has failed to win the support of the powerful ethnic press.The bitter race debate that erupted soon after Howard took over in 1996 has left wounds in Australia's ethnic community and Asian voters - once loyal conservatives - have now turned against his Liberal Party.Many blame Howard for failing to swiftly repudiate MP Pauline Hanson, who won her legislative seat three years ago, and to condemn the anti-Asian policies of her One Nation Party. None of the 10 ethnic newspapers surveyed in a Sydney Morning Herald poll on Friday was urging readers to vote for the Liberal-National coalition.A reader survey in one Chinese daily revealed that 60 per cent would vote for the Opposition Labour Party, 20 per cent for the New Unity Party and less than 10 per cent for the Liberals.``John Howard's image is not so good. Many Chinese voters who supported him havenow changed,'' K C Wong, the managing editor of the Chinese language newspaper Sing Tao told the paper.A senior manager at Sunrise, the biggest Vietnamese daily, said the prime minister's bid to swing attention towards his proposals for tax reform had not been successful in that community.``The election is more about One Nation and racism,'' said senior manager Gary Giang. ``The Vietnamese are disappointed with John Howard. He has lost the trust of the Asian community.''The mainstream press - including normally Left-leaning dailies - have virtually unanimously backed Howard, with many highlighting his record on economic management.Relations between Howard and the ethnic community have always been touchy, thanks to comments he made while in Opposition where he backed a reduction in Australia's immigration intake from Asia.The Opposition Labour Party however has excellent relations with ethnic Australians and has capitalised on them during the five-week campaign.An eight-pageelection supplement published in the Chinese-language newspapers this week referred to a previous Labour government's decision to allow Chinese students here to stay after the Tiannanmen Square massacre.``This is the first time the 40,000 Chinese students will be eligible to vote. But whom to vote for?,'' the supplement said. ``To answer this question we only have to think who allowed us to stay in this beautiful country, who has stirred up racism and who has implicitly tolerated it.''In his last major campaign speech this week, Beazley said Australia's Asian neighbours - who have been confused and insulted by the Hanson phenomenon - would welcome a coalition loss.The advent of a Labour government would be a ``spectacular'' sign that Australia had turned its back on Hanson-inspired racism, he said.Anecdotal reports of increased incidents of racism towards Asian-Australians and a new unease among that community has received widespread coverage in the regional media.
