This has been a strange election. It’s been clear for weeks that Rudd would be the new Prime Minister, but I haven’t been able to figure out why. John Howard clearly has always been an odious man with ruinous policies, but which one of his faults undid him in the eyes of the Australian electorate? Was it:
- the nasty campaign?
- ceaseless toadying with George Bush?
- getting Australia into Iraq?
- cutting funding to Australian universities?
- throwing asylum-seekers in jail and claiming they’d thrown their children overboard?
- using the race card to attract One Nation voters and split the electorate?
- his refusal to sign Kyoto and his foot-dragging on climate change?
- his leanings toward nuclear power?
- the GST?
- undermining the redeveloping autonomy of indigenous Australians?
- and refusing to say ‘sorry’?
Not for the low-information Australian voters I walk among. Even the controversial IR laws weren’t enough to register on their radar. And Howard’s term has been marked by largely sane monetary policy. Why the revolution?
When I asked, people would say something like, ‘Well, it’s time for a change.’ ‘He’s been in for a long time, and it’s time for someone else.’ Simple voter fatigue.
And so Australia shrugged, and sent Howard packing.
West Australia, I know your results are tallied last, and even if you elect all Liberal Party candidates, it won’t make any difference. But I’ll be very disappointed.
24 November 2007 at 4:29 pm
Today after i learnt that labor won I went to meet up with some friends, I asked one of them, “so who did you vote for?”, and he said “for liberal”. I asked him why, and he says “well.. my mum always votes liberal and so does my sister”, to which i said, “so you just voted liberal because they do so”, and he said, “well yes, its less thinking..”. I seriously had to restrain my self from coming up with some potentially offending remark, but this would have been enough to push me over the edge had liberal won.