Saturday, November 24. 2007
So long, Little Johnny
After eleven years and four terms in office, Australians finally decided today to say goodbye to Mr. Sheen, and replace him with the hopefully more sensible Milky Bar Kid. In fact, it was such a resounding victory for Rudd that Howard may even become the second P.M. in Australian history to completely lose his seat.
Once again this proves that democracy can bring down the destructive “axis of evil” between George W. Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard — Two down, one more to go!
History has shown that a Labor* federal government combined with Liberal state governments seems to work best. I'm hoping that Australian politics starts to go through a period of normalisation as a result of this election, since the last few years have been extremely embarrassing looking upon Australia with a foreign perspective.
Since he's a Banana-Bender, Rudd will be sworn-in and surely take up residence in The Lodge rather than Kirribilli, putting an end to the ridiculous Sydney-centric government leadership that's been prevalent over the past decade.
Now, let's see if Rudd can keep his promises…
Interesting :)
Foreign policy took a back seat throughout the campaign (at least as far as I saw), but that’s a very important point, especially seeing as it would be very damaging to Liberal.
I did agree that Australia needed a change, but unfortunately Kevin Rudd’s huge ego coupled with a very american (lowercase "a") "Kevin ’07" approach turned me right off of another "me too" leader (Jack Johnson vs bitter rival John Jackson).
Needless to say, I voted Family First.
It’s all very likely, knowing Labor’s history, that Rudd will disappear and be replaced with someone else.
At the end of the day they’re all the same, but this time around it wasn’t a case of "better the devil you know" but rather "a change is as good as a holiday."
From a foreign perspective, anyone new is better than the ongoing embarrassment of Howard. Interestingly, Howard’s mob had special pamphlets at my consulate for "overseas voters" that made me think he was even more desperate; however Rudd apparently advertised heavily in Hong Kong for votes. I presume both parties realised that postal votes would be enormous during this election.
As far as Family First is concerned, they bother me because despite their secular appearance they comprise mostly of conservative Christians and this become obvious when you study their key policies (including their hilarious mandatory ISP filtering policy to eliminate internet pornography). Economically, I see Family First as being incapable of running a nation, just as the Greens would be. There’s a lot more to a government than a handful of nice policies, and that’s one of the many reasons why most democratic countries are fairly locked into a "two-party system."
If they really are the future for Australian politics then I can no longer deny that Australia is on the path to become another America, sociologically speaking. There are already too many signs of this progression, especially in New South Wales, and I’m terrified of a "Jesus Camp" style documentary being produced about Australians sometime within the next 15 years.
You’d be surprised, Steve, how many times I’ve looked at Australia from outside and thought that I should stop calling myself an Australian. The crap that’s been going on lately may be nothing new, but from my perspective it can be sickening to watch, and that makes me feel very sad for Australia.
Wait… Did you seriously think I voted for Family First?
I think the way Australia is viewed abroad was something that had been missed. To be honest, it would have been very interesting to see how much better ALP would have done if they had used that trick, because I think we turned into a bit like America in the last couple of years and don’t actually know what we’re doing from other’s points of view. Which is even sadder in itself.
Apart from Kevin Rudd as PM and Peter Garrett having a portfolio of any kind, I think we’re headed for a much better political state, especially seeing as in 18 months Liberal in WA will be back in power – and very strongly too.
At least Tony Abbott has gone…
Politics do suck still though.
Steve, Steve, Steve… I would never believe you, of all people, would vote for Family First – everyone knows you really voted for What Women Want followed by Non-Custodial Parents Party.
If anything, that at least proves I read the ballot as I went through numbering everything below the line (yes, I’m pedantic and evil).
Peter-bloody-Garrett has his priorities so firmly planted up his own arse that I’m not sure why people care any more.
Then again, I’m not really in touch with what’s going on in the arse end of the world on a day-to-day domestic standpoint, which means my vote is biased also. Your vote was the more meaningful one I suppose, considering the government is elected to serve those within the country.
Hmm, do you think they know that?
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