2007 Australian federal election

[Low Light Mike]

For those interested in such things, the upcoming Australia federal election might result in a change of government for that nation, which might result in some changes in policies, which might become a leadership-example for other nations to follow.

This is mainly re environmental issues, which the rest of the world should also be concerned with.

The funny thing about the Australian election, is that I've just spent 30 minutes surfing the net to try and find the exact election date, but I've had no luck. One of those situations where the various websites (including the country's electoral commission website) tell you everything about the vote, except the date!

For those who listened to socially-conscious rock music in the 1980's, you might be interested to know that Peter Garrett, once lead singer for Midnight Oil, is the Labor Party's environmental guy, and would become enviro minister if his party is elected.

Like I said at the start, while this country is far away from B.C., the winds of change from their possible election result could impact the rest of the world, in a leadership-example role for enviro and conservation principles.

Stay tuned to see what happens, whenever this "upcoming election" is finally held.

ps: the Aussie Labor Party spells the L-word without a "u". That surprised me.

[Low Light Mike]

from Globe and Mail:
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www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071124.wrudd24/BNStory/International/home?cid=al_gam_mostview
Australia changes course
ROHAN SULLIVAN

Associated Press

November 24, 2007 at 9:17 AM EST

SYDNEY, Australia — Conservative Prime Minister John Howard suffered a humiliating defeat Saturday at the hands of the left-leaning opposition, whose leader has promised to immediately sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and withdraw Australia's combat troops from Iraq.

Labor Party head Kevin Rudd's pledges on global warming and Iraq move Australia sharply away from policies that had made Mr. Howard one of U.S. President George W. Bush's staunchest allies.

Mr. Rudd has named global warming as his top priority, and his signing of the Kyoto Protocol will leave the U.S. as the only industrialized country not to have joined it.

Mr. Rudd said he would withdraw Australia's 550 combat troops from Iraq, leaving twice that number in mostly security roles. Howard had said all the troops will stay as long as needed.

Official figures from the Australian Electoral Commission showed Labor far in front after more than 70 per cent of the ballots had been counted — with 53 per cent of the vote compared to 46.7 per cent for Mr. Howard's coalition.

Using those figures, an Australian Broadcasting Corp. analysis showed that Labor would get at least 81 places in the 150-seat lower house of Parliament — a clear majority.

It was an embarrassing end to the career of Mr. Howard, Australia's second-longest serving leader.

As little as a year ago, Mr. Howard had appeared almost unassailable. But on Saturday he was in real danger of becoming only the second sitting prime minister in 106 years of federal government to lose his own seat in Parliament.

Mr. Howard took full blame for the drubbing handed to his centre-right coalition.

“I accept full responsibility for the Liberal Party campaign, and I therefore accept full responsibility for the coalition's defeat in this election campaign,” Mr. Howard said in his concession speech in Sydney.

A new government is unlikely to mean a fundamental change in Australia's close alliance with the United States — its most important security partner — or its growing economic and political ties with Asia.

At home, Mr. Rudd has pledged to govern as an “economic conservative,” while pouring money into schools and universities. He will curtail sweeping industrial reforms laws that were perceived to hand bosses too much power, turning many working voters against Mr. Howard.

“Today Australia has looked to the future,” Mr. Rudd said in a nationally televised victory speech, to wild cheers from supporters. “Today the Australian people have decided that we as a nation will move forward ... to embrace the future, together to write a new page in our nation's history.”

In his concession speech, Mr. Howard announced he had phoned Mr. Rudd to congratulate him on “a very emphatic victory.”

The change from Mr. Howard to Mr. Rudd also marks a generational shift for Australia.

Mr. Rudd, a 50-year-old former diplomat who speaks fluent Chinese, urged voters to support him because Mr. Howard, 68, was out of touch with modern Australia and ill-equipped to deal with new-age issues such as climate change.

Mr. Howard campaigned on his economic management, arguing that his government was mostly responsible for 17 years of unbroken growth, fuelled by China's and India's hunger for Australia's coal and other minerals, and that Mr. Rudd could not be trusted to maintain prosperous times.

Labor has been out of power for more than a decade, and few in Mr. Rudd's team — including him — has any government experience at federal level. His team includes a former rock star — Midnight Oil singer Peter Garrett — a television journalist and former union officials.

But analysts say his foreign policy credentials are impeccable, and that he has shown discipline and political skill since his election as Labor leader 11 months ago.

Mr. Rudd's election as Labor leader marked the start of Mr. Howard's decline in opinion polls, from which he never recovered.

Mr. Howard's four straight election victories since 1996 made him one of Australia's most successful politicians. He refused to stand down before this election — even after being urged to do by some party colleagues.

[Neil]

As noted at the top of that story, it's taken from today's Globe and Mail.

Yesterday's Globe ran an op-ed piece from John O'Sullivan, from the right wing Hudson Institute. Although he was speaking about the same Kevin Rudd who won the election, one would think the two stories were describing entirely different people and parties. O'Sullivan characterized Rudd's Labor Party as holding to essentially the same course as John Howard's Liberals, with some superficial differences.

On minimising the meaning of Howard's impending defeat, O'Sullivan said, "History changing politicians such as Mr Howard and Margaret Thatcher are put in office in order to solve crises. Once the crises are resolved and life seems safely tranquil, voters feel able to take modest risks with the future." He preceded that statement with what he called the "truth" about how wonderfully the corporatist policies of Mr Howard had worked, and some derisive remarks directed at concerns of the left. The thrust of his piece was to suggest that Australians were happy with the way things were, and were simply tired of Mr Howard. "Voters simply get bored with the same leader- however successful", he said. "In Australia tomorrow, however, they want a change that represents as little change as possible."

One of my complaints with newspapers is that they frequently run pieces from people who are not sufficiently described, and readers really have no context for their remarks. I often look up the writer or his affiliation to see where the views really come from. In this case, it really helped, to understand how this guy's views were so different from the perception of the rest of the press, and probably from the Australian people themselves. I suppose the corporatist sector has an interest in promoting the view that voters didn't really reject their program.

[Low Light Mike]

Neil, thanks for sharing the results of your "digging deeper" re that story. Much appreciated.

I'm really interested to see what comes from their new Gov't re the environment. I think that they could be world leaders re positive enviro policy. Their new Minister of the Environment will be burning the midnight oil to work on Kyoto items.