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Nick Squires

Sydney
It was, in the eyes of the government's critics, the final nail in the coffin. Just two days before the federal election which swept prime minister John Howard from power, activists from his Liberal Party were caught red-handed engaging in a dirty tricks campaign in Sydney.
In a major embarrassment for Mr Howard, the campaigners were found to be distributing flyers falsely linking the opposition Labor Party with Islamic extremists. The flyers encouraged Muslims to vote for Labor, claiming the party had called for the perpetrators of the 2002 Bali  bombings to be forgiven and for a mosque to be built in Sydney.
They also claimed that Labor had allowed a controversial Muslim sheikh, who compared scantily clad women to 'uncovered meat', to live in Australia.
They were from the fictitious Islamic Australia Federation.
'Labor was the only political party to support the entry to this country of our grand mufti reverend Sheikh [Taj Aldin] al-Hilaly and we thank [former Labor prime minister] Paul Keating for overturning the objections of [the Australian domestic intelligence agency] Asio to allow our grand mufti to enter this country,' the flyers said.
They were as ham-fisted as they were underhand - the Labor logo  was forged, and the traditional Islamic salute Allahu akbar, God is great, was misspelled as 'Ala Akba'.
The campaign was a disaster for Mr Howard's already faltering re-election campaign and confirmed the worst fears of critics that the government had, over 11 years, pandered to base prejudices in order to retain power. The Democrats accused the Liberal Party of giving 'knowing winks to dog-whistling that plays on fear regarding Muslim Australians'.
The leaflets were distributed in the electorate of Lindsay, in Sydney's far-flung western suburbs, by the husband of retiring government MP Jackie Kelly and the husband of the candidate lined up to replace her, Karen Chijoff.
The fallout from the scandal is continuing. Recriminations are flying, several party officials have been expelled and Mrs Chijoff has kicked her husband out of the family home. Greg Chijoff is in hiding and not answering his phone.
The campaign is being investigated not only by the Australian Electoral Commission, but also the federal police. The head of the state Liberal Party has called the flyers 'disgusting and appalling' and says he wants to know who else was behind the debacle.
Despite the desperate 11th-hour attempt to stir  up anti-Labor feelings, Mrs Chijoff's challenge for the seat was defeated.
A forlorn-looking campaign trailer was photographed in her back garden this week. The word  'Taleban' had been spray-painted across it in red letters, while Chijoff had been amended to Pi**off.
She says it is unlikely she will go back into politics. 'I just want to put this behind me and get on with my life,' she said.
There was a grim reminder yesterday  that the prejudices to which the rogue activists tried to pander are alive and well in the ethnic melting pot that is Sydney.
The severed heads of two pigs were found at the proposed site of an Islamic school in the suburb of Camden. The heads, impaled on wooden stakes, had the Australian flag draped between them.
The proposed school, for around 1,200 Muslim students, has been highly controversial, prompting thousands of objection letters.
The chairman of the Community Relations Commission, Stepan Kerkyasharian, condemned the 'obsessive hatred of the mindless bigots who perpetrated this outrage'.
A decade ago it was Asian immigrants who were the targets of prejudice, during the rise of Pauline Hanson's One Nation party. These days it is Australia's burgeoning Muslim population which attracts the ire of the rednecks.



Dirty-tricks smear campaign the last nail in Howard's coffin