Howard concedes defeat in Australian elections

[babylonsister]

Source: CNN

Howard concedes defeat in Australian elections


SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) -- Australia's conservative Prime Minister John Howard has conceded defeat in elections, clearing the way for center-left Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd to take power.
art.concede.gi.jpg

John Howard concedes defeat to the opposition Labor Party on Saturday.

With nearly 12 years in office, Howard was Australia's second-longest serving prime minister.

Howard delivered his concession speech after it became clear the Labor Party would gain at least 16 seats in parliament giving it a majority in the house that elects the prime minister.

more...

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/11/24/australia.election/index.html

[0007]

1. Here's a guy 'ya just love to hate.

Australia

Much different than the 60's when I was living there.

[lovuian]

17. Blair is gone Busceloni is gone Howard is gone

none its only Sarkosky and Bush now

[Alexander]

20. Aznar is gone, too.

Couldn't happen to a nicer group of fascists.

[goforit]

23. So, the New World Order is striking out, eh? LOL!!!! Go Australia!

[Supersedeas]

24. do ya see a pattern?

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Yes! Another one bites the dust. nt.

[ohio2007]

3. Howard beaten by a conservative ?

Rudd is prepared to bluntly dump, qualify out of existence or put off to the never-never any one of the causes Labor championed during the past 11 years of Howard Government.

When asked, in an interview with The Australian, whether he would consider a separate Aboriginal treaty, Rudd’s reply was one word: “No."…

What about pursuing Howard’s promise of a reconciliation referendum on a constitutional preamble to recognise the role of indigenous Australians? “I’m concerned about making advances on the practical front first.” ...

A bill of rights perhaps? ... Well, Labor has a commitment to seek “community consultation” on a bill of rights but “no commitment” to implement one.

An interesting battle will break out after the election between the leader and his party. Rudd doesn’t sound like the candidate the Howard haters were imagining.

UPDATE

On 3AW with Neil Mitchell today, Rudd even needed four questions on whether he’d say “sorry” to Aborigines before conceding no more than that he’d issue a statement of which “the substance” would be to say sorry.

Three options: he’s unable to give direct answers; he’s trying to hide Labor’s dumber Leftist policies; or he’s walking into a huge ideological battle with Labor after the election. I favor two of those options.

UPDATE 2

As the election tightens, Rudd becomes even more Liberal:



KEVIN Rudd has taken a tough line on border security, warning that a Labor government will turn the boats back and deter asylum-seekers, using the threat of detention and the nation’s close ties with Indonesia…

Mr Rudd also said that a referendum on Aboriginal reconciliation, a separate Aboriginal treaty and a republican referendum would not occur in the first term of a Rudd Labor government, if at all.

With that agenda, Rudd’s real battle after the election will be with his own party.




http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/rudd_to_lead_a_not_labor_government/

new boss the same as the old boss?

I suspect history will repeat itself in the '08 election here

[Kolesar]

11. Hmm. I think that needs a little more "development"

I googled up the Australian election just because I was looking for something to be happy about. Now it's off to rake some leaves.

[Joanne98]

14. Stopping immigration IS a left-wing position. Note Bernie Sanders vote in the Senate.

He voted AGAINST the immigration bill because he's a socialist. Only liberals support immigration. Recently it's been because they believe in neo-liberalism, globalization, Adam Smith, Milton Friedman.. FREE MARKETS!!!!! Immigration is only Adam Smith part two...I wish people would get this staighten out. I sick of being called a racist by people farther to the right of me!

[Selatius]

19. Which liberal are you talking about?

In Australia, the term "liberal" continues to hold a right wing connotation. In the US, after FDR co-opted the term from the right wing, "liberal" means something more left wing. The old definition of a liberal was someone who was generally socially progressive but favored little government intervention to regulate the markets against abuses and monopolies. He was liberal not in that you should be able to do whatever you want with your life but do whatever you want to employees or people, including dumping mercury in the local river because you run a coal-fired power station.

[entanglement]

26. Bernie Sanders isn't a socialist - he's a social democrat

I'm a socialist and I believe in the right of all people to live and work wherever they choose. I believe that if the global working class has to gain the upper hand against capital, it has to be united
Nationalism, xenophobia and all other forms of chauvinism are an enemy of the global working class and a most useful tool in the hands of the bosses and the imperialists to keep us at each others throats while they profit.

I could name any number of strident opponents of immigration in the far-right. Think Tancredo & the Minuteman gang in the USA, One Australia Party in Australia, BNP in the UK and so on. Very, VERY far from socialist of any kind. Also remember that politicians (of all stripes) use immigrants as a scapegoat to distract attention from their failed policies.

[fascisthunter]

16. It Appears You are Dissatisfied with this election Result

tis a shame

[ohio2007]

22. Not all Australians will be dancing in the streets

those natives of Oz won't

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30AVhf-ZLwM&feature=related

[canetoad]

25. Do yourself a favour

and find some decent sources eh?

'The Australian' is Murdoch owned, Neil Mitchell is a loudmouthed blowhard and Andrew Bolt is the worst of the lot. Nasty, little right winger who is not held in any regard as a journalist by intelligent people.

For reasonable balanced reporting, may I suggest the ABC, http://www.abc.net.au/ or any of the Fairfax newspapers eg. theage.com.au

[soothsayer]

4. good riddance to bad rubbish

[ckramer]

5. Bush should arrest Hillary and Obama before the election

like Putin did to Kasparov.

Then he will be really rewriting the history.

[Joe Chi Minh]

6. It seems very appropriate that Austalia should lead the Anglo-Saxon

world by returning to a semblance of socio-political justice and economic sanity.

Not so long ago, a British unskilled working man could go to Australia with his family, take a similar unskilled job in Ausralia and quite soon buy a nice house. If his wife worked maybe have a swimming pool as well. Certainly, they would have a car. In fact, there was a programme on just such a family on TV here in the UK. And I know that it was REALITY-BASED, you perjurious far right-wing mutts!

As always, it was a double-dealing left-wing prime minister who brought about the begining of the rot with a move towards corporatism: Bob Hawke. A DLC type par excellence.

[ohio2007]

7. You must be from Oz

How about the supression of the Aboriginies rights that Rudd favors as party policy ?

[Joe Chi Minh]

13. I've been there twice and New Zealand once. I take it you are a

right-winger, maybe far right. Just let me know when you come across a far-right winger who shows any concern for his own people in the sense of racial type, will you, never mind compatriots of another racial origin. I'd be intrigued to hear about it.

As for Rudd's policies regarding the aborigines, I defer to no-one in my admiration for the Aboriginal people, but I'm sure that if they are rights that Rudd is removing, your definition of freedom and mine with regard to them would differ. Alcohol has always caused major social problems with the Aboriginal people, as it has, I believe, with the native Americans in your country. Or so I was told on here by a native American poster.

If I remember correctly an article I read in a UK newspaper, the combination of alcohol and pornography has led to a particularly disturbing level of paedophilia in Australian aboriginal families, and violence generally. Vices that are, of course, far from confined to the Aborigines, but as I said, it is the level involved that has evidently caused Rudd to treat the matter exceptionally.

Many thousands of years of living in the harshest environment imaginable followed by a sudden requirement to adapt to our venal, materialistic values has evidently led to immense stresses for them, and the vulnerability of character of the weakest among them under the influence of drink is surely something only an irresponsible national leader would ignore.

Since we were created according to certain specifications, freedom in such matters is basically religious in its nature, and as the derivation of the word, religion, indicates, it implies being bound by responsibilities. A mother's duties towards the children she loves are surely very onerous, but it would be farcical if mothers raised Cain that their personal freedom was being prejudiced by them, wouldn't it?

[Violet_Crumble]

21. I am, and it really seems to bother you that the conservatives lost this election...

In case anyone else wasn't aware, that thing you posted about Rudd being a conservative is written by a conservative pundit who oversimplified things a fair bit. I can understand that right-wingers would jump on things like that to try to make themselves feel better about what was a decisive and humiliating election loss...

Clearly you must know far more about Australian politics than me, so can you point out what suppression of indigenous rights that is being favoured as party policy?

[MiniMe]

8. We should be very happy that * can't serve for 12 years

:scared:

[DeepModem Mom]

9. K&R

[ohio2007]

10. With hindsight being 20/20

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBpyichRWo0&feature=related

[L0oniX]

12. Guilt by association ...every leader who buddied up with Bush looses power

[balantz]

15. Let's hope the trend continues

all the way to the White House!

[anakie]

18. Rudd won by taking his party to the right

Labor is not and has not been a left wing party for years. At best centre-left now probably classified as centre-right. A tactic that succeeded in sucking all the oxygen out of John Howard's wedge issues by pretty much agreeing with them eg illegal immigration, Aboriginal intervention, middle and upper class welfare payments, Howard's ecomonic agenda etc.

He, and the win, can be likened to Blair when he first won government in Britain by claiming the mantle of Thatcherism and forcing the Tories even more to the right.

The interesting wash up is going to be what happens to the Libs as Labor takes their right of centre turf.

But the main thing of course, and it is still real the morning after (I checked) is that Howard is gone. And man if feels good. I hope you can have the same feeling next year.


Peace