Defeat Down Under

Despite some hope in the last few days of an electoral comeback, John Howard and his Liberal Party (think classical liberals, not the American kind) have gone down to defeat.

As a triumphant Kevin Rudd last night led Labor to an historic landslide victory with a national swing of 5.7% giving him a likely majority of 24 seats, ousted prime minister John Howard suffered an ignominious end to his 33-year political career with the apparent loss of his seat of Bennelong.

Labor's victory means that for the first time in Australian history Labor now holds government in every state, territory and at Commonwealth level.

Having stayed up until about 5am watching election returns (don’t ask, I have no idea why I did that), I can say it seems Iraq and terrorism seemed to play little role in the election. I don’t think it was mentioned once as an issue by the various candidates and reporters. It seemed a number of domestic issues (including interest rates) and the sense that after 12 years of Liberal Party control voters simply wanted ‘a change’.

Howard will never have the fame that Tony Blair does here in America but hopefully history will remember him well in Australia for all he has done for his country and the western alliance.

One interesting bit of fallout from this election for fans of 80’s and early 90’s music…it looks like Peter Garrett, the one time lead singer of Midnight Oil will become Minister for Climate Change, Environment & Heritage, Arts.

posted by DrewM. at 12:41 PM

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