The Australian Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, has almost certainly headed off an election in which the new One Nation party might have achieved a balance of power in the Senate, a prospect which horrified all the established parties.
But he has done so in a way bound to add to the strains within the Australian right, now divided between very divergent factions within Mr Howard's Liberals, the National Party - the strongest in Queensland - and One Nation.
Mr Howard's threat to dissolve both houses of parliament if a bill limiting the rights of aboriginal people to make claims on much of Australia's land was not passed by an obstructive Senate would very likely have led to a Labor victory. But with One Nation in a pivotal position in the Upper House, he has now softened his bill and the solitary independent senator who was holding up its passage on behalf of aboriginals has relented.
While some aboriginal leaders lamented his shift, at least one suggested that in fact no substantive rights had been lost. The key issue was whether aboriginal groups have a right to negotiate compensation from mining companies proposing to work land leased from the Crown to which they have claim.
Since the mainly white farmers who now hold these leaseholds have no such right, the Howard government opposed it. Now the right to negotiate has been replaced by what is called "equivalent rights", which seems to mean that both farmers and aboriginals will have a right to negotiate.
This interpretation will not please Mr Howard, whose position is that he has made only a minor retreat, and it will infuriate some members of both the coalition parties.
But the technicalities of the Native Title issue matter less than the impact on an electorate which has shown itself open to One Nation arguments. One Nation claims that vast resources are being wasted on aboriginals while white rural Australians are being neglected.
The very language Mr Howard used in his press conference, with its stress on the equality of all Australians and its frequent references to the Australian way of life was a tribute to the effect of One Nation on Australian politics.