it’s the only way they can stay in power they will not be reelected unless they take a stand against the despots in our government

Support for US military coalitions wasn’t an issue in this election. In fact it is a bipartisan policy to support US military actions under our joint military treaties.

Australia has participated in the last 8 major conflicts and always supported the US. That will continue regardless of who is in office.

Howard was defeated because he was running on a platform of retiring within 3 years, because of industrial relations policies and because the opposition party finally decided to run a candidate that wasn’t a complete embarrassment.

Welcome to our world. I hope you didn’t feel too foolish when your realization occurred. Now we can work together to make America better.

Re: Economics

If there are far too many dollars out there “chasing” too few goods, then there’s an inflation hovering over the horizon just waiting to appear the day a Dem president takes office. Can you say flaming bag ‘o shit on the doorstep as a “house warming” present?

What to do about it? Start producing more goods we can export to people who have dollars to spend. To achieve this I suggest we get the health care reform done quickly and then improve our tax rate structure to allow corp. America produce more and reinvest without so much (or any) taxation.

Raise prices, so Americans spend somewhat less on imported goods. This is already happening with oil & gasoline. Expect it at WalMart too.

Keep interest rates steady and don’t over-react with higher rates which would kill the capital investment side of the economy. Fat chance of that with a Repub like Bernanke running the Fed.

Renegotiate any trade deals which are outstandingly bad for our exports.

Hope that these things don’t slow the economy too much.

peas!

As for reasons – the best thing I read the whole election was from the blog of a Melbourne barrister. Here’s an excerpt, you can read the whole thing here http://anonymouslefty.blogspot.com/. And just so you know. WorkChoices (named a la Clean Air Act) was the “union killer” industrial legislation introduced by Howard.

“”WorkChoices” is an appalling bit of legislation aimed solely at enabling employers to cut employees’ conditions. The abandonment of “unfair dismissal” protections means that YOU CAN BE DISMISSED UNFAIRLY. (Raise a concern about a dangerous bit of equipment at work? “Oh, sorry, we don’t need your services any more.”)
* Instead of “unions”, the Liberals are largely controlled by the lobbying power of the Business Council of Australia – representatives of BIG Business, not small business. And certainly not of ordinary Australian workers. Do you really think that what’s in the interests of Big Business is by definition in your interests? That’s what those expensive advertising campaigns have been trying to make you believe; have you bought it?
* The Liberals have absolute contempt for the taxpayer: they’ve taken more hundreds of millions of your dollars to spend on advertising campaigns for themselves than any government ever before.
* As a government, they never accept responsibility. For anything. Whenever anything goes wrong, it’s “I wasn’t told” and “I had no knowledge of that”. They never acknowledge fault, find what went wrong and make sure it won’t happen again.
* They have contempt for justice, of the rule of law – because it was politically convenient, they were happy for an Australian citizen to be held for five years without charge (think seriously about what that means: it means that you don’t have to have done anything – other than be unpopular in the Herald Sun – to be jailed indefinitely). And then they were happy for him to be corralled into pleading guilty to a charge that DIDN’T EVEN EXIST WHEN HE WAS ALLEGED TO HAVE BROKEN IT. (Sure you’re not breaking any future laws? How can you be so sure?)
* They’ve accepted Australians in Australia being subject to US law: the US decides to impose ever-harsher copyright laws on its own citizens, and, apparently they apply to us as well. Regulation without representation.
* They sent Australian troops to a poorly-planned and ill-considered war; a war to pacify a country we’d failed to pacify ten years earlier, and a war when we were already in Afghanistan tracking down Osama Bin Laden. (Oops, now we’ve let him escape.) They didn’t wait to see if Afghanistan could become a stable democracy before charging off to smash up Iraq; and in the process, unsurprisingly, they actually made the place worse, difficult though that is to imagine.
* Their “good economic management” boils down to (a) presiding over a resources boom where China and India are desperate for anything we can dig out of the ground; (b) inheriting the economic reforms left to them by Hawke and Keating, (c) flogging off public assets and (d) imposing a GST which mainly hits the poor. And, (E), most of all, their perfection of the art of cynical political spending: they cut services for the first two and a half years of every term, so they can save some cash to splurge before each election. If you vote for them on that basis, you are telling them that you don’t care what they do between elections, just so long as they bribe you more than the other party. In which case, don’t whinge at the appallingly harsh budget they’ll bring down next year to start saving for the 2010 campaign.
* They are tired, and out of touch, and god knows WHAT they’ll do if they scrape over the line again – you had no idea in 2004 they were going to give you WorkChoices; likewise you have no idea what they’ll give you next.”

Australia now has it’s first woman deputy prime minister. And this guy (the singer) is now the Minister for the Environment. I hope he wears that shirt and hat to the swearing-in ceremony.

He wore a better t-shirt when he sang at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

It had the single word “Sorry” on it.

That was an allusion to John Howard’s continuing refusal to apologize to the Aboriginal community for the way that they had been treated by ethnic European Aussies in the past (including taking babies away from parents and raising them in “white” Aussie families as recently as the 60s, if I have my Aussie history straight for the dates). Howard _still_ refuses to apologize, BTW.

Peter Garret (the singer mentioned above) has been taking a lot of flack from environmentalists for having “sold out” of late, due to his grudging political support of the Labor party’s support of a controversial pulp mill to be built in Tasmania. IMHO, if the Greens actually secure the balance of power in the Aussie Senate (still a distinct possibility, with the relevant vote count too close to call the last I looked), the pulp mill is dead anyway. Labor’s strong support for ratifying Kyoto, and whatever comes out of the Bali round in the near future will be principally riding on this man’s shoulders.

I’m not one for supporting entertainers turned politicians blindly. (Witness Ronald Regan.) But, so far, on balance, Garret has impressed me with his sincerity, even if he has had to adapt to Aussie political realities.

I’m personally still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

While we’re trying to get Persi up here from EPU land, here’s the word:

Aww Rats! John Howard’s concession speech was gracious. Not only did he concede defeat generally, he accepted that he was likely to lose his own seat. Currently, with just over 77% of the vote counted, he trails the Labor candidate, a highly-respected former public broadcaster, by 51.14% to 48.86%.

See, if you just hold on long enough, nightmares eventually end.

Promise?

Gracious it was. As I said to my wife while watching the speech: “This is how power is supposed to be transfered in a democracy. You watch and see if Bush does the same.”

Howard’s Thatcher-esque labor law changes “Work Choices” sunk him. I’ve lived in Oz for about 16 years now, I have never seen ordinary Aussies so mad about anything else.

Howard is not as transparently phony and mendacious as Bush. As a native Aussie colleague of mine put it (paraphrased): “There is absolutely no doubt that Howard is genuine and honest, and saying what he believes. It’s just that he’s a f*cking idiot.”

Wow. Wonder what the issues were? [egr bold]

And you should still be wondering.
The main issue in this election – industrial relations – wasn’t mentioned, and Iraq simply wasn’t an issue, as signifified by no candidate or interviewer mentioning it as an issue during the entire campaign.

Seriously, is there anything that happens in the world that isn’t about you?

Thank you for your kind feedback. I would have thought that this section covered the industrial relations bit:

The election was fought mainly on domestic issues, with Labor cashing in on anger at workplace laws…

But please, carry on if I have missed the boat entirely here.

Is everything about us? Have mercy. As our country is quietly sliding into dictatorship, we have become more focused on national politics and what can be done here. The election victory in Australia is important in its own right, but also serves as inspiration for our own national elections in a year.

You have elected a better government. We wonder if we can turn things around in time for our elections. Thank you Australia for showing us it can be done.

Wow. Wonder what the issues were? [egr bold]

And you should still be wondering.
The main issue in this election – industrial relations – wasn’t mentioned, and Iraq simply wasn’t an issue, as signifified by no candidate or interviewer mentioning it as an issue during the entire campaign.

Seriously, is there anything that happens in the world that isn’t about you?

peas!

I noted about Rudd’s speech that he thanked everyone who’s ever lived but he didn’t thank God. Given that he’s an evangelical, and a pretty hardcore one at that, that says a lot about what sort of selfcontrol he has (I don’t think in-your-face religiosity is a votewinner here).

The issues, in case you’re interested, were in order of importance: desire for change, industrial relations, education, healthcare, climate change, Iraq.