The NEXT coming Oz election thread!

This has been one of the most interesting periods in Australian politics in ages

Yes, isn't it, vikkor?

Who would have thought that Howard would consider supporting the GWB's Iraq position a plus right now? I haven't seen him so passionate in ages. A truly awful sight!


Welcome to the thread, BTW. I don't think we've met before?

Labor to step back from US
Cynthia Banham Foreign Affairs Reporter
February 16, 2007/Sydney Morning Herald

KEVIN RUDD has promised that under a Labor government there would be a more independent approach towards the alliance with the US, with no automatic compliance with every aspect of its foreign policy.

Outlining his foreign policy vision for Australia in the magazine The Diplomat, the Opposition Leader also flagged a return to the days when multilateralism and the importance of supporting the United Nations were at the forefront of Australia's international diplomatic efforts.

Mr Rudd, in his first pronouncements on the subject since assuming the role of alternative prime minister, nominated "three strong pillars" that would form the basis of a Labor govern- ment's foreign policy approach.

They were the US alliance, Australia's membership of the UN, and comprehensive engagement with the Asia-Pacific region.
...........................

He said the alliance was "overwhelmingly in Australia's strategic interests". This was particularly so in the Asia-Pacific, with its incremental nuclearisation, growing militant Islam, and threats of regional pandemics. But he said: "Labor does not believe in an alliance which mandates automatic compliance with every aspect of US foreign policy. It is an agreement between two sovereign nations, underpinned by a set of common values and shared ways of looking at the world." Mr Rudd said that on Mr Howard's watch "instead of offering useful counsel, we became an unquestioning cheer squad for a deeply flawed policy on Iraq with ominous consequences for the future stability of the wider Middle East".

In a blistering critique of foreign policy under Mr Howard, Mr Rudd said the Government had emphasised bilateral diplomacy "to the virtual exclusion of effective multilateral diplomacy".

He promised to reinvigorate the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation group.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/labor-to-step-back-from-us/2007/02/15/1171405374546.html

Hello Msgola

No, I haven't dropped into this thread before, so hello to you

Despite Labors long history over the last decade of not offering much in the way of leaders, it seems Rudd is not just criticising the government but offering alternative policies, which is rather refressing to see. He is offering leadership instead of just reactionism. And, whether he wins or loses the next election, this is something Australia needs.

What I have found funny, is the knots he's tying Howard up in, which is not something I've seen before. While I don't think the Liberal Government has be too bad over all for Australia, I've never particularly liked that Howard openly lies to us, while his government shuts down the senate, and personally attacks anyone who disagrees with their viewpoint.

Bomber didn't really have any idea how to win an election (but if you heard his defeat speach, it was one of the best political orations I've heard...and where was that during the election itself?), Crean was slippery, and Latham a loudmouth. And each of them was shot down in flames by a very very cluey politician (ie Howard).

As an aside to the leadership issue, I'm concerned that the Workchoice Agreements will send Australia down the US road (which is about 30 years ahead of us in terms of workplace contracts), with it's great divide between the % of rich and the % of poor, and all it's inherent social problems.

Hello, Vikorr, and welcome to A2K and to Msolga's thread on Aussie politics.
I am Realjohnboy from the US and I have been following this thread, and indeed follow world politics closely enough to be dangerous. There are not many posters here. One to watch out for is Nimh from Amsterdam who's knowledge of all things political is mind-boggling.
The interesting thing to me is that Aus and, I believe, the UK will hold elections prior to the next US Presidential election in Nov, 2008. There will be many issues confronting Mr Howard (eg Workplace Agreements) and whoever runs from his party to replace Mr Blair.
But Iraq is going to loom large large amongst all three very unhappy electorates.
If Mr Howard gets turned out and if Blair can't convince his voters to stay the course, this will bode very badly for any US candidate who continues to support our Iraq policy.

Again, thank you for joining in.

Well, I hope you stick around, vikkor. It'd be great to have a bit more Oz input. (nudge, nudge to other Oz A2Kers. You know who you are! :wink: )

OK, here my two bob's worth in response to you, vikorr:



Agree. It is truly refreshing to see some real alternative policies from the Labor side! I'm not certain I agree with all of what's being proposed, but at least there will be real differences between the two major parties. About time!



I disagree strongly about the Liberals not being "too bad" for Oz. But then many of my major concerns have been about human rights issues (treatment of asylum seekers, aborigines, mis-use of "anti-terrorism" laws, the lack of support for David Hicks ... etc, etc ... Also what I call "sovereignty" issues", meaning too much subservience to the current US government regarding our involvement in Iraq, treatment David Hicks, etc. I agree 100% about the constant lying & lack if transparency of the Howard government.



I know what you mean about Kim Beazley. I was at an IR rally which he addressed in the city (Melbourne) last year & he was dynamic! Inspiring! Really! But what was lacking under his leadership was clear policy differences to the Libs on most issues of importance. Labor looked simply like a watered-down version of the same thing. Many of Latham's policies I strongly agreed with, actually. It seemed to be "personality issues" that got him into major strife. And the fact that he was given too much freedom to campaign on his own terms at a difficult time for Labor. They let him slog his heart out when the ALP had no viable alternative to Howard & looked like being done like a dinner .... then promptly & mercilessly stabbed him in the back when he didn't achieve the impossible. He made huge gains with the electorate for a while (remember those polls?), followed by some big blunders. Which made him very easy target for the Libs to exploit, which was exactly what they did. Crean I always saw as basically decent, but totally unappealing to the voters. Besides, he made some powerful enemies with the NSW Right, with some of his proposed changes to the ALP!



I agree. 1000%!
IMO If IR is not addressed as a major issue in this coming election then the working people of this nation are sunk! Despite Howard & co. rabbiting on about "prosperity" & how working folk have "never had it so good", most of us know it isn't so for a large proportion of the population. The gap between rich & poor is widening at an alarming rate & will continue to do so with further casualization of the workforce continues under the Libs' IR laws. Adding to that, I'd say that Labor's biggest challenge is to gain credibility regarding management of "the economy". Things actually aren't good for many, many debt-ridden, credit-dependent Australian households, which is why the mere suggestion of any rise in interest rates causes near panic in the mortgage belts. Somehow Rudd has to persuade these folk that Labor is as capable, if not more so, than Costello & co. And that furthermore, Labor is the party to protect their jobs, their conditions & their rights at work.

I can see that a Blair defeat would be very bad news for GWB & the Republicans, RJB, but a defeat of the Howard/Liberal government? I have always thought that we were considered such small fry in the US, if considered at all ....

Singing such a different song! :wink: :

From this:

US forces give the nod
It's a setback for your country
Bombs and trenches all in rows
Bombs and threats still ask for more

Divided world the CIA
Who controls the issue
You leave us with no time to talk
You can write your own assessment

Sing me songs of no denying
Seems to me too many trying
Waiting for the next big thing

Will you know it when you see it
High risk children dogs of war
Now market movements call the shots
Business deals in parking lots
Waiting for the meat of tomorrow

Everyone is too stoned to start emission
People too scared to go to prison
We're unable to make decisions
Political party line don't cross that floor
L. Ron Hubbard can't save your life
Superboy takes a plutonium wife
In the shadows of Ban the Bomb we live

Sing me songs of no denying
Seems to me too many trying
Waiting for the next big thing

To this! :

Dear reader,

it is very perplexing for me to feel the need to heap praise on a formerly much-loathed politician. But I must. In this (long) speech Malcolm Fraser (Liberal prime minister of Australia from 1975-1983)details the many human right abuses of the current Liberal government of Australia, led by John Howard. This is as clear & as detailed an account as any I've seen on this subject in the Australian media. Yes, this is the same Malcolm Fraser who was implicated in the 1975 coup/dismissal of the ALP government of Gough Whitlam! And here he is in 2007 saying these things, with such conviction.

If you don't do anything else, read the last line of the last paragraph of his speech (below). He is talking about the Liberal party & John Howard. In an election year!:

"..... Every person participating in this conference should ask how he or she would feel if the son or daughter or relative or friend of their own had been treated as David Hicks has been treated. We must banish the idea that the laws and attitudes depicted in the Hicks case are only relevant to the other, to people not like us. They are indeed relevant, they are important and those who allowed this to happen do not deserve public support."

Human rights education is a human right:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/opinion/items/200702/s1849110.htm

Ah, the weird world of Oz politics!: Peter Garrett (ALP) approves of the establishment of a US base in Australia (Yes, we're getting another one! In WA. Announced just this week.) & that former conservative bogey man, Malcolm Fraser (Liberal Party), turns out to be just about the strongest champion of human rights around!
Such interesting times we live in.

Hi, I quite agree with most of what you wrote here. When I said 'not too bad', it had managed the economy fairly well, and hasn't yet caused any major crisis'. Now if you look at Qld, it's lurching from one crisis to another, yet it's people keep voting Beattie back in...they say 'there's no alternative', but really, is it possible for any government to have as many stuffups as Qld's current? (as an aside, it is now more secretive than during the Joh era)

Just a few more detailed comments on your post (most of these topics are threads all by themselves):

Human rights issues :
INDONESIA :
Australian govt's have always pandered to Indonesia :
- after it invaded E Timor in 1975, and up until it's independence, UN figures say Indonesia killed 200,000 E Timorese
- The same slaughter is undoubtedly happening in West Papua. They are not Indonesia. The only interest Indonesia has in WP is their resources, which contribute very significantly to their GDP.
-Suharto is estimated to have killed 500,000 Indonesian's on his rise to power. Keating called him 'Elder Statesmen' and apparently saw him as a bit of a mentor.

ASSYLUM SEEKERS :
If you mean the boat people (not including those from West Papua who have legitimate political cause to land on Australian soil), well, this is a tricky one. Economies are only able to absorb so many new people, if said people don't contribute to the economy but rather take from the economy. How is immigration meant to be managed if there is no control over it? The US found a way - employ them in minimal wage jobs that no one else wants to do, and look the other way. Do we really want that for Australia? Or the enclaves that form, with all their related crime?

ABORIGINE's :
I'm fairly sure the Govt's tried absolutely everything by now to break the poverty cycle...well, everything except setting up a nationwide scholarship systems to send talented aboriginals to boarding schools (if they want to go of course). In general though, they sink a great deal more money per capita into aboriginal welfare programs than into welfare for other Australians.

HICKS
Quite agree that he should have been charged a long time back by the US, and that the Aust Govt should have been calling long and loud for such.

AUSTRALIA'S SUBSERVIENCE
Australia has a policy of Appeasement to Indonesia, and Subservience to the US (Well, Howard at the very least, is very subservient. Rudd has indicidated he does not believe we should be quite so).

Australia has a strategic interest in keeping the US onside, and with 'building credit' with the US. Australia has the worlds largest muslim nation of it's NW coast, and by coincidence, Australia also has HUGE gas and oil fields of it's NW coast. Indonesia, as anyone can tell by the rhetoric that comes out of their leaders whenever Australia 'oversteps the mark' (eg. accepting Assylum Seekers from West Papua) is not overly friendly towards Australia. So the 'credit' that Australia builds with the US goes a long way towards ensuring that Australia is never invaded.

Of course, there is a difference between building credit, and sickly sweet subservience.

Hi Vikorr

I'd like to respond to your all of the points your last post, but it being late (1 am, Monday morning) I'll restrict myself to asylum seekers.

Proportionally Australia takes fewer asylum seekers per head of population than many other comparable countries. It is not as though we are taking on an unfair burden. By "asylum seekers" I mean refugees, people who are seeking asylum from war, famine, political persecution, etc. Some arriving here "illegally" by boat. These people need to go somewhere & to my mind it is perfectly reasonable that they find refuge in this country. They are often people in desperate circumstances. I find it abhorrent then, that part of the "process" that many must endure, on arriving in this country is to be locked up in virtual concentration camps in the desert, or to be sent off-shore to Nauru, so as not to have access to legal appeals in Australian courts. Some people have spent years detained in these terrible places, to the detriment of their physical & mental health. Others have been sent "home" by our government, despite the likelihood of severe reprisals in a number of cases. I simply say we should take our fair share of genuine refugees. The process could, of course be made more orderly, but that would require international cooperation, perhaps under the auspices of the UN & organizations like the Red Cross, etc. It is very ad hoc & messy at the moment.

Regarding refugees & "the economy": I can't see how genuine refugees from say, Somalia, can "contribute to the economy" immediately on their arrival in this country. And I don't think the immediate ability to contribute to the economy should be the criteria of whether Australia should feel obliged to accept refugees or not. We should accept them because they seek refuge & then assist them to gain the language & work skills to properly participate in this community. This is not happening at the moment. They are brought here & virtually dumped into already struggling communities like Springvale, Footscray, Sunshine or Dandenong (in Melbourne) then pretty much forgotten about. Then people complain about "ghettos" in these communities.

Our government has been more than willing to accommodate wealthy migrants from Asia & other countries because they're seen as being "good for the economy". The thing is, so could asylum seekers, if given the proper opportunities. Australia's prosperity, after WW2, was built on the huge intake of refugees & displaced people from Europe. When labour was needed, to build the Snowy hydro scheme, to build the railways to work in all sorts of necessary occupations, many of them government funded. Those refugee-migrants contributed enormously to the development of this country in all sorts of ways besides economic. And so could our current refugees, if given half the opportunity. Anyway, I believe we have a moral obligation to assist them, that is the overriding consideration.

I don't know that the US has actually "found a way" of dealing with "illegal" migrants by employing them illegally (?) on minimal pay to do work that Americans don't want to do. Though perhaps RJB or others might want to comment on this one, knowing much more about the situation than me. Personally, I see this as a form exploitation, creating second class citizens, without proper rights in the society they make a valuable contribute toward.

It's late. I didn't mean for this to be so long a response.

Here's a thread on asylum seekers & the Oz experience, started in 2005, if any of you are interested:


A cruel, cruel deportation from Oz:
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=46353&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Uhoh! :

Cheney seeks greater war effort from allies
Geoff Elliott and Steve Lewis
February 19, 2007/the Australian

US Vice-President Dick Cheney will discuss a greater Australian contribution to the military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan when he meets John Howard later this week as the Bush administration tries to shore up support for the war on terror at home and abroad.

Mr Cheney will travel to Japan and Australia this week to thank two steadfast allies, but a senior administration official indicated the message would not end there, as Washington escalated its troop commitment in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Asked specifically if the US was satisfied with the contributions by Japan and Australia in Afghanistan and Iraq, the senior official said: "Yes. We are very appreciative, which is not to say that you're not always hoping to get others to do more, as the United States does more in each of these places." ... <cont>

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21247856-601,00.html

Ah Vikkor, after writing & posting that response to you on asylum seekers in my soggy, heat-stressed state in the wee small hours of this morning (see above), what do I find in my morning paper, but this! I could have saved myself the trouble .... this editorial puts the case 1000 times better than I ever could.:

A shameful denial of the right to sanctuary
February 19, 2007/AGE Editorial

IN 2002, then president of Nauru Rene Harris dubbed Australia's so-called Pacific Solution a nightmare. In exchange for nearly $30 million in aid, his tiny debt-ridden country had agreed to house 1100 asylum seekers while their refugee applications were processed. Almost five years later, the number of detainees on Nauru is small but the "solution" remains a nightmarish indictment of Australia's disregard for its international obligations.

Far from being chastened by early condemnation of the policy by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and by continuing outrage from human rights groups at home and abroad, the Howard Government has hardened its stance. On Saturday The Age revealed that if refugee status is granted in Nauru, resettlement in Australia will not be possible. The message is clear: people arriving in this country by boat, without a visa, will be treated as criminals undeserving of humanitarian support no matter how valid their claims to asylum.



Recent developments, especially Indonesia's co-operation in stopping illegal boats and evidence that wrongful imprisonment often leads to psychiatric illness, have had no appreciable impact on the Government's determination to value deterrence over its human rights obligations. Such intransigence and lack of humanity should spark outrage from all fair-minded citizens.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/editorial/a-shameful-denial-of-the-right-to-sanctuary/2007/02/18/1171733607458.html

Rudd overtakes Howard as preferred PM: Newspoll
Steve Lewis, Chief political correspondent
February 20, 2007/the AUSTRALIAN

KEVIN Rudd has emerged as the voters' preferred Prime Minister for the first time and surged to a record high approval rating, but the Coalition has made inroads into Labor support.

The Opposition continues to hold a strong overall lead over the Coalition - leading by 54 to 46 per cent after preferences - as the Labor leader fends off a string of personal attacks from government MPs.
But the Coalition has improved its primary vote, according to the latest Newspoll taken exclusively for The Australian, with a rise of three percentage points to 41 per cent after a week dominated by debate over the Iraq war. ... <cont>

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21254424-601,00.html

Newspoll results:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21254131-2702,00.html