My head hurts. Thank god elections only happen once every three years. Jaysus that was a big night.
For them of youse who don't know, down here in Ozland we had an election yesterday. John Howard, PM of Oz since 1996, leader of the very conservative Liberal Party and one of the slimiest little bastards to grace the Oz political scene in my lifetime, had his arse presented to him by the Australian people , diced and pickled. Oh frabjous Day !! In case it's not obvious your Wombat loathed the sucker. Detested him since I first came across him in the late sixties when Howard , as leader of the young Liberals hectored anti Vietnam protestors and draft resistors while making damn sure he never left the confines of the Sydney University faculty of law and most certainly kept well and truely out of harms way.
To make matters even worse for wee Johnny it looks as if he is going to lose his own parliamentary seat, a seat he has held for the past 34 years. It's only the second time in Oz's history that a serving PM has lost his own seat in a general election. Ironically, the last time it happened, it was at the end of a campaign where the most debated government policy was a revamp of our industrial relations laws. Guess what was the big election issue this time ?
On the day, the ALP required 16
seats to take government and with some
seats still undecided it looks at this stage that they may well achieve double that figure. The Libs also lost control of the Senate, probably to the Greens.
So the liberals have been replaced by the Labor Party. Sadly a Labor Party that has drifted so far to the right that "Howards Battlers" had no compuction whatsoever in voting for them. Hopefully the ALP will be somewhat more progressive in office but don't hold your breath.
Kevin Rudd, our new great leader (
) is without doubt the most conservative leader of the ALP in this commonwealth's history. He's also a committed christian, not a good look for me. The great advance will be the probable junking of Howard's much hated Work Place Agreements that are palpably unfair to most of the workers who would be forced to sign up to one. The ALP is also committed to signing the Kyoto protocol although at this late stage such an act is nothing other than symbolism. A rejigging of the asylum seeker policy is also likely as the ALP is committed to dumping Howard's highly unpopular Pacific Solution. The biggest plus Rudd has for me is his committment to education. If he does all he has said he will this will be a very very good thing for a country that has seen the overall spending on education falling since the mid nineties. Where once we had three universities in the top fifty internationally now we have none.
The Australian economy is booming right now, thanks largely to China and it's relentless appetite for our minerals and energy resources. It's also booming as a result of the many and varied reforms carried out on an economy that risked becoming totally moribund at the end of the 1970s. Many of the reforms required were introduced by successive governments , both Labor and Liberal through the eighties and nineties. For that we have to thank Rudd's predecessors. It's doubtul he will be the reformer that men like Howard (yes Howard, even an avid anti Howardite like me has to, albeit begrudgingly give the bugger some credit), Keating and Hawke.
Rudd would appear to be headed for an easy ride over the next couple of years at least. The Liberals, despite being the federal government since 1996 now no longer have a single government (state or federal) which they control. That one party controls all of Australia's governments is not good but it shows the Libs have some pretty serious problems to face up to and if you knew just how incompetent are some of Australia's state governments you'd understand what a woeful situation this is.
Howard's annointed successor, former treasurer Peter Costello, has today announced he will not contest the leadership and has all but confirmed that he will either retire before or at the next election. Costello is one of the great losers. He did not have the fortitude to challenge Howard for the leadership before the election, is immensely unpopular to the Oz electorate, and if he did assume the leadership would probably be rolled by Malcolm Turnbull before the next election. So screw you guys, I'm going home!!
The mantle will probably shift to one Malcolm Turnbull. MT was one of the very few liberals to actually increase their popular vote yesterday. He is a renowned lawyer (his defence of Peter Wright in the Spycatcher trial where he took on and whipped MI5 made his name) who went on to great success in business before entering politics. Make no bones about it, should Turnbull ever make it to the Lodge (Oz White House) he will surely become one of Oz's great PMs however it seems unlikely that Rudd will serve less than two full terms as PM as we do not change governments lightly. Since 1952 we have seen only four changes of government and a total of ten prime ministers. Six Liberal and four Labor. Whether Turnbull will have the patience to hang around for more than six years on the opposition benches in order to become PM is somewhat doubtful but the future will tell. Turnbull is also an avowed republican so maybe just maybe we can finally be shot of the Queen of England who also happens to be the Queen of Australia. My guess is that when Lizzie carks it Oz will go republic.
The rest of the Libs are a sorry bunch. Alexander Downer (most famous for his karaoke and his cross dressing), Tony Abbott (know to all as the mad monk due to his religious fervour), Phillip Ruddock, Kevin Andrews and Brendan Nelson (just your typical run of the mill scumbags) and an assorted bunch of ne're do wells typical of political parties throughout this nation. Indeed one of tragedies of this election for the Libs was that so many of their brighter stars lost their
seats.
Labor now has it all to do. How will they go ? I'll have to whip out some entrails and have a reading. We shall see. There is some bright youngish talent in the team plus a few complete wankers.
As a final point, while foreign policy did not play a big part in the election it is ALP policy to pull OZ troops out of Iraq while continuing to support the effort in Afghanistan. Australia's involvement in Iraq is immensely unpopular amongst the Australian people. My guess is that we will may well maintain a presence within Iraq but if we do it will be non combatant. Australia's air and sea presence in the region is unlikely to change I'd think so you can all rest securely in your beds.
.
)
Linear Mode
