Colonel Winston Custer has been fighting Indians for as long as he can remember. He’s totally surrounded and his few remaining desperate troops are down to their last bullets.

Suddenly he throws down his weapon, puts his hands up and yells to the Indians that it’s all been a terrible mistake. He can see that now. In the past he’s been a bit slow to appreciate the Indians’ point of view but if they give him one more chance he’ll make amends.

An arrow flies through the air and …

We interrupt this movie for a convoluted political message.

Prime Minister Howard reminds us that the progressive side of Australian politics already supports reconciliation with Indigenous Australians – it’s his supporters, the conservative side, which does not.

Therefore, if we re-elect him, he could switch sides in favour of reconciliation and bring his supporters over with him. A referendum to enshrine into the wording of our Constitution his late-life ideological conversion would then have the support of both sides of politics and would succeed.

But, he warns, if the progressive side of politics gets into government we will never get this suddenly vital Constitutional amendment because then he will withdraw his support and his followers would be bound to block it.

… Now back to the movie. Thoonk goes the arrow.

Actually we must suffer a nail-biting wait of five and a bit weeks to know if the arrow finds its mark. What will the government’s poll-driven policy spinmeisters, Machiavelli Houdini have up their sleeze, er sleeves?

So far they’ve tried going way off to the right, with their Aboriginal intervention program in an attempt to trap the Labor Party into saying something – but to no avail. Spending $quillions on highly paid but inexperienced health workers to go to the Northern Territory in brand new Land Cruisers and wait for the people to turn up for treatment has produced almost nothing.

OK then, say the pollsters, let’s swing wildly to the left and outflank the latté set by reversing years of obstructing the idea of reconciliation by writing something into the Constitution. Brilliant! If Kevin Rudd refuses to bite when we go to his right, we’ll go to his left and have him surrounded.

The poor old Labor Party thought it would be safe with its election slogan, “We’ll have what he’s having”. But now it looks like what ‘he’ is having is a complete loss of any remaining shred of honesty or integrity.