Strumming up votes in Australia

John Hewson, the Australian opposition leader, perhaps recalling the electoral success of the saxophone-playing Bill Clinton, strums hopefully in a Sydney radio station before an election campaign interview. Mr Hewson, whose Liberal-National Party coalition is slightly ahead of Labor in most opinion polls, yesterday defended his proposals to cut the migrant intake and repeated his call for benefit cuts for new immigrants, saying taxpayers could not be expected to foot the bill during a recession. Voting is on Saturday.

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