CAMPAIGN GETS UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL ON HEROIN ISSUE

The election campaign turned bitter and personal yesterday when the Prime
Minister, Mr John Howard, accused Labor frontbencher Senator Nick Bolkus of
making a despicable claim and called on the Opposition Leader, Mr Kim
Beazley, to bring him into line.

Mr Howard in effect accused Mr Beazley of letting others play dirty while
he kept his hands clean.

Senator Bolkus, shadow Attorney-General, issued a statement before Mr
Howard's drugs policy release which said: "Under John Howard, the price of
a cap of heroin has dropped from $40 to as little as $5."

The statement said Mr Howard had put the lives of young people at risk
through two years of neglect of Commonwealth law enforcement. The statement
was headed "John Howard's Drug Legacy - 60 dead in Perth alone".

Campaigning in Perth where he announced a $75 million four-year package to
fight illicit drugs, Mr Howard said the Bolkus statement was outrageous.

He likened Senator Bolkus's claim to the suggestion by Labor's Aboriginal
affairs spokesman, Mr Daryl Melham, that there was a similarity between
Coalition attitudes and those of the Ku Klux Klan during the native title
debate. He also likened it to the suggestion by the Deputy Opposition
Leader, Mr Gareth Evans, that Mr Howard liked bashing blacks.

Mr Howard said Mr Beazley was adopting the practice of not engaging himself
in these tactics. "He and I have been able to conduct at a personal level a
very civil campaign. I regard him as a civil man," Mr Howard said. "But his
minions are running amok - and they are apparently allowed to say anything
without rebuke."

Mr Howard said that to imply the Government's policies had reduced the
price of heroin was an outrageous claim.

"The whole context of that press release was quite despicable, personal in
the extreme and the kind of cheap political jibe that has no part in a
sensible debate about trying to tackle the drug problem," he said.

Mr Howard said the community wanted politicians to sink their partisan
differences on issues such as drugs. "The people's disgust of too much
political point-scoring on an issue like this is evident. If I were my
opposite number, I would have a quiet word, at the very least, with Senator
Bolkus. "I'd show a bit of authority and strength and stop this sort of
practice of walking down the straight and narrow oneself, but turning a
blind eye to what the minions do on the side."

Among its initiatives in the drug fight, the Government is promising an
extra $23.4 million to set up four more Australian Federal Police mobile
strike teams; another $10 million for the drug education strategy; another
$10 million to expand community-based treatment services; and a $31.6
million increase in funding for border protection.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski