The leader of Australia's influential Democrats yesterday quit her party to defect to the Labour opposition, where she said she could better fight the Prime Minister, Mr John Howard's government.
Democrats leader Ms Cheryl Kernot, whose former party holds a key block of seats in the Parliament's Upper House, said in Canberra she was angry at the government's lack of vision and its failure to counter the populist drive of anti-immigration MP Ms Pauline Hanson.
"I firmly believe the Howard government has demonstrated itself to be a new government shackled by old ideas," she said when announcing her surprise decision to stand as a Labour candidate for the Lower House at the next election, expected late next year.
"For 18 months I have watched as the Howard government allowed an agent of division to vilify and scapegoat black Australians and migrants under the cloak of free speech," Ms Kernot said in a reference to Ms Hanson's political rise.
"It simply lacks any vision about the future direction of the country," Ms Kernot said.
The government's obsession with its budget and its willingness to exploit the worst in people for political gain had done enormous damage to Australia's social fabric, she said. Ms Kernot did not warn her party before she announced her decision.