I forget the exact date of the election.

Anyway, here are a couple basic things to increase your understanding of the Australian election.

1.There are two chambers in the British Parliament. A 150 member House of Commons elected on a constituency basis. They don't use first past the post however, but a system where lower votes are redistributed until the winner has over 50%. This is known as '2 party preferred'.

A Senate of 72? members elected using STV.

Retiring Labor M.Ps and replacements
1.Port Adelaide (South Austalia) Rod Sawfgd(something like that)
incoming Mark Butler,37 Lawyer and Union General Secretary, M.A-International Relations

2.Blaxland (New South Wales), Michael Hatton,
incoming, Jason Clare,35 Lawyer and Transurban Corporate Executive, former New South Wales Premier Senior Advisor

3.Franklin (Tasmania), Harry Quick
incoming, Julie Collins,36 State Labor Party State Secretary, Former Tasmania Premier Advisor

4.Charlton (New South Wales), Kelly Hoare,
incoming Greg Combet, Secretary Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), BSC- Mining Engineering, B.A-Economics

5.Isaacs (Victoria), Ann Corcoran
incoming Mark Dreyfus, Lawyer

6.Brand (Western Australia) Kim Beazley
incoming Gary Gray, Woodside Energy Director of Corporate Affairs, B.A- Economics

7.Corio (?) Gavan O'Connor
incoming Richard Marles,40 Lawyer ACTU Health and Safety Commssion Head

8.Fremantle (Western Australia) Carmen Lawrence
incoming Melissa Parke, Lawyer and former Bunbury Community Centre Solicitor in Charge

9.Cowan (Western Australia), Graham Edwards
incoming Liz Prime University Director of Nursing Programs

10.Maribyrnong (Victoria), Bob Sercombe
incoming Bill Shorten,40 Union National Secretary, ACTU Executive

Labor Party winnable ridings and candidates in those ridings
Labor won 60 seats in the last election of the 150 in the House of Commons, so assuming they hold all of them, they will need to gain 16 to gain a majority.

1.Kingston (South Australia)2003 2 party preferred Labor Party vote: 49.9% Amanda Rishworth, Psychologist and Training Coordinator

2.Bonner (Queensland) 49.5% Kerry Rea, former State Minister Assistant, B.A- English, History and Philosophy, Brisbane City Councillor

3.Greenway (New South Wales) 49.4% Michael Vassili,43 Lawyer and Prosecutor

4.Wakefield (South Australia) 49.3% Nick Champion, Municipal Government Sports and Recreation Policy Advisor

5.Makin (South Australia) 49.1% Tony Zappia, Fitness Centre Owner and fitness and weight training instructor, former Power Lifting Champion, Mayor of Salisbury

6.Calare (New South Wales) 48.9%, Michael Allen

7.Braddon (Tasmania) 48.9% Sid Sidebottom Senator Advisor former History and Religious Studies Teacher, former M.P 1998-2004 (defeated)

8.Hasluck (Western Australia) 48.2% Sharryn Jackson, State Ministerial Chief of Staff

9.Stirling (Western Australia) 48.0% Peter Tinley,45 Manufacturing Firm Owner, Retired Army Major and Iraq Deputy Commander

10.Eden-Monaro (New South Wales) 47.9% Mike Kelly Lawyer and Retired Army Colonel

11.Bass (Tasmania) 47.4% Jodie Campbell, Call Centre Team Leader and Union Delegate, Launcestor City Councillor

12.Soloman (Northern Territory) 47.2% Damian Hale,38 Rugby Coach

13.Moreton (Queensland) 45.8% Graham Perrett,41 Lawyer and former State Government Senior Policy Advisor

14.Page (New South Wales) 45.8% Janelle Saffin, former State Senator 1995-2003

15.Bennalong (New South Wales) 45.7% Maxine McKew,54 Broadcast and Print Journalist

16.Hinkler (Queensland) 45.2% Garry Parr, Realtor and firm owner

17.McMillan (Victoria) 45.0% Christine Maxfield, Union Equity Officer

18.Deakin (Victoria) 45.0% Mike Syman, Electrician and Union Occupational Health and Safety Officer

19.Lindsay (New South Wales) 44.7% David Bradbury, Tax Lawyer, Penrith City Councillor

20.Corangamite (Victoria) 44.7% Darren Cheeseman Public Sector Union Official former Ballarat City Councillor

21.Boothby (South Australia) 44.6% Nicole Cornes, Sunday Mail Columnist and former Small Business Owner, law Student

22.Wentworth (New South Wales) 44.5% George Newhouse, Lawyer, Mayor of Waverley

23.La Trobe (Victoria) 44.2% Rodney Cocks,31 Retired Military Officer and Lawyer

24.Dobell (New South Wales) 44.1% Craig Thompson,42 Union National Secretary, Commerce Degree and Law Degree

25.Herbert (Queensland) 43.8% George Colbran, Restauranteur

26.Kalgoorlie (Western Australia) 43.7% Sharon Thiel, B.A- Human Resource Management and Psychology

27.McEwen (Victoria) 43.6% Rob Mitchell,39 Victoria Minister of Agriculture Senior Advisor former Member of State Parliament 2002-2005

28.Cowper (New South Wales) 43.6% Paul Sekfy, Consultant and firm owner

29.Sturt (South Australia) 43.2% Mia Handshin, Consultant and firm owner

30.Robertson (New South Wales) 43.2% Belinda Neal,44 Lawyer, Senator 1994-1999

31.Peterson (New South Wales) 43.0%, Jim Arneman, Paramedic and New South Wales Ambulance Board Staff Director

32.Gippsland (Victoria) 42.3% Jane Rowe, former Small Business Owner, East Gippsland Shire Councillor

33.Longman (Queensland) 42.3% Jon Sullivan former Member of State Parliament 1989-1998

34.Dickson (Queensland) 42.2% Chris Meibusch Lawyer

35.Petrie (Queensland) 42.1% Yvette D'Ath, Union Lawyer

36.Higgins (Victoria) 41.2% Barbara Norman, University Global Cities Institute Business and Partnerships Manager

37.Macquarie (New South Wales) 41.1% Bob Debus, 64, Lawyer and former Book Publishing Firm Editor and Radio Broadcaster, former Minister of State Parliament and Cabinet Minister

38.Kennedy (Queensland) 41.1% Alan Neilan, Retired Teacher and Union Local Official

39.Bowman (Queensland) 40.9% Jason Young, Electrical Fitter and Mechanic, Union Official

40.Dunkley (Victoria) 40.6% Graham McBride former Environmental Product Manufacturing firm Senior Executive (in U.K) MSC- Engineering

41.Mac Arthur (New South Wales) 40.5% Nick Bleasdale,33 Building Contractor and firm owner

42.Canning (Western Australia) 40.5% John Hughes, former M.P Research Officer

43.Kooyong (Victoria) 40.4% Ken Harvey, Public Health Physician and consultant

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So what will an ALP victory mean for workers?

As the Labor Party increases its lead in the polls, it feels less need to talk up pro-worker policies. What was once a position of tearing up Work Choices has now become a policy of ‘Work Choices Lite’. Expect more retreats to come. These retreats have not been isolated incidents; we have also seen back flips on Medicare, Uranium mining and Voluntary Student Unionism to name a few.

The fact is that whether we have a Liberal or Labor government, workers will continue to face attacks on their wages as well as more cuts and privatisations. Should Howard retain power, workers will face a new level of attacks from a cocky and arrogant government. Should Labor be handed the reins of power workers will be more confident to take back what was lost under 11 years of Howard, particularly because of the promises of their union leaders. The reality is, however, that such confidence will be met with fierce opposition from a big business backed Labor party government.

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More on the Socialist Alliance

[ 28 October 2007: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

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15.Bennalong (New South Wales) 45.7% Maxine McKew,54 Broadcast and Print Journalist

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Responding to the new spirit of struggle marking the Howard years, a new political formation, the Socialist Alliance, was formed in 2001. It brought together socialists and other activists looking for an alternative to the pro-capitalist policies of the Labour Party. The Alliance is a registered party and is presenting 25 candidates for the parliament and senate. Dozens of union activists have joined in recent months and several trade unions are offering support. One of its affiliates and driving forces is the Democratic Socialist Perspective, a Marxist organization.

The Alliance is widely distributing three statements in the election — a Green Charter; a charter of workers rights entitled, "Working people in Australia need a party of our own"; and a "Gender Agenda" dedicated to women’s rights.

Alliance candidate and Aboriginal rights activist Sam Watson has summed up the stakes in the election with these words: "The alternative we need must put people and our planet before the profits of the giant corporations. It must enshrine the principles of democracy, solidarity and cooperation. It must learn from Indigenous tradition and respect and live in balance with the natural world."

The Australian anti-union offensive should serve as a warning to workers in Canada and elsewhere—Australia’s is the program that bosses everywhere in the world would like to implement. We can learn much from the fightback of people there.

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Anybody know if Garrett has modified or abandoned his own principles in the name of getting power in name?

Also, will the SA be standing for Senate seats? Under the form of PR used to elect Australian Senators, they'd have a shot at electing some.

Also, fyi, according to the link to the SA site, the election date is November 24th.

[ 29 October 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 29 October 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 30 October 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

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Oct 14 (Reuters) - Here are the main policy issues for Australia's national elections to be held on Nov. 24:

IRAQ

Australia's election will decide the future for Australia's military commitment in Iraq.

Australia has about 1,500 troops in and around Iraq, and conservative prime minister John Howard was one of the first to commit to the U.S.-led war against Saddam Hussein in 2003

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LABOR'S aspiring treasurer, Wayne Swan, has outlined a tough conservative plan to run tight budgets and keep cutting tariffs, setting himself on a potential collision course with colleagues and unions if elected.

In an interview with the Herald, Mr Swan said that as treasurer he would not intervene to freeze tariffs to protect industries suffering from the rampaging dollar, such as car makers. "We're not going back, we're going forward," he said. "We won't be going back to a tariff wall."

And he vowed to be "tough" with colleagues wanting to spend heavily to implement their agendas after a decade in the political wilderness.

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All of which starts to make some sense when considering that the economy is Labor's weak spot in public opinion.

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The poll indicates all is not lost for the Coalition if it can swing the campaign back to the economy.

It is regarded by 59 per cent of respondents as the best party for the economy, compared with only 30 per cent for Labor, unchanged since the question was last posed in May.

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http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/11/01/1193619061092.html

[ 02 November 2007: Message edited by: Doug ]

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Originally posted by Fidel:

Even Reuters can't tell the diff between political Liberals and Conservatives.

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The Liberals down there ARE the Conservatives. Its like BC. (Or are you making a quip?)

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As the Labor Party increases its lead in the polls, it feels less need to talk up pro-worker policies

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Oct 14 (Reuters) - Here are the main policy issues for Australia's national elections to be held on Nov. 24:

IRAQ

Australia's election will decide the future for Australia's military commitment in Iraq.

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Interviewer: there is an election coming this year, if Labor won government how long would it take for Australia to disengage in Iraq?

Fitzgibbon: well Kevin Rudd has made it quite clear – it can't happen overnight, logistically it simply isn’t possible. We'd be sending a clear signal to our American friends that we want to remove our battle group from Iraq and obviously that would take some time. We wouldn't be doing in a way which would, obviously, let our allies down or pose a threat to any troops in Iraq. But we believe the rotation system does allow us an orderly withdrawal from Iraq without in any way threatening our relationship with the United States or putting any troops at any risk.

Interviewer: but when you say it can't happen overnight isn't that exactly what Mr Howard's been saying all along?

Fitzgibbon: well no, Mr Howard has not made any commitment whatsoever to withdrawing troops from Iraq, not withstanding the fact that they've been there almost four years in a deployment he said would last only a matter of months. We've got to send the right message to the Iraqi government – that is that we're not there forever, they need to get their own house in order and take responsibility for their own internal conflicts and send a very clear message that we're not there forever and we are very keen to get our troops out of harms way.

Interviewer: I'm not sure he said a matter of months, didn’t he say he didn't want to put a finite time on it but he hoped it would be a matter of months rather than years?

Fitzgibbon: he said he couldn't put a finite time on it and he expected it to be months not years and of course we're nearly four years down the track and of course the priority mission was to disarm Saddam from his weapons of mass destruction, weapons that apparently never really existed. The primary job has been done, democratic government is in place in Iraq. We need now to allow the Iraqis, with some assistance I hope from both the Syrians and the Iranians to get on with the job. We can’t afford to be bogged down in an ugly civil war.

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
Yes, but voting Labor isn't. Which was sort of my point.

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
Source

Makes you want to rush out to the polls and vote for them, doesn't it?

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Fitzgibbon: well no, Mr Howard has not made any commitment whatsoever to withdrawing troops from Iraq

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Originally posted by Vansterdam Kid:
An imperfect Labor government is better than a Liberal one.

In any case, I think the strategy that Ken highlighted is the best one for a left-leaning voter. Though it seems like the Socialist Alliance has been a fringe party, with few decent results, so for all in intents and purposes it would be more reasonable to vote for the Australian Greens before it would be for them. And at least this time the Australian Labor party isn't being so stupid as to preference the ultra-socially conservative Family First ahead of the Greens.

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Originally posted by Vansterdam Kid:
Comparing the Socialist Alliance to the NDP is a pretty big stretch.

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The SA is clearly a fringe party if you take a look at its electoral showings.

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If you must compare the two the Aussie Green Party plays the role of the NDP-like party in Australia.

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Besides, the Australian electoral system, for the lower house anyways, is a two-party system.

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Tell me, in what future century do you foresee that we will be allowed to vote for the parties we actually support, instead of holding our noses and voting for a party we don't like?

And why don't you take your own advice and vote for the Liberal Party of Canada?

[ 03 November 2007: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

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Nice tautology: it's a fringe party because few people vote for it. That doesn't mean people shouldn't vote for it.

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Call it what you want, but I believe that a party should have a reasonable chance to get some representation before I'd vote for it. You may enjoy voting for the Natural Law Party, you can do that all you want too (since apparently you've asked for 'permission') - I just think it's a waste of your vote (I am allowed to think that, right? Since we're asking for permission in a totally serious and non-sarcastic way). Forming government isn't necessarily that important to who I vote for. That said, because the SA isn't even likely to win a Senate seat, I wouldn't advocate that people vote for it as their first choice (or rank it highly when choosing who and what to rank).

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I don't know what "role" you are talking about. Nor do I know what point you are trying to make, given that you think it's smart to vote for the NDP in Canada but for the Labor Party in Australia

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I think it's pretty obvious. Since you insisted on comparing the Australian electoral system with the Canadian one, I said that the Australian Green Party is like the NDP in so far as it's a moderately progressive, left-leaning party that isn't likely to win government, but can win seats and thus act as a pressure group in parliament. Also, I wouldn't say it's like the Canadian "neither left or right" Green Party.

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Tell me, in what future century do you foresee that we will be allowed to vote for the parties we actually support, instead of holding our noses and voting for a party we don't like?

And why don't you take your own advice and vote for the Liberal Party of Canada?

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Perhaps if you weren't so cranky you'd realize that you don't have to be allowed to do anything, I'm simply voicing my opinion on the matter.

As I already stated, but probably need to rephrase since you don't seem to understand, Australia uses Instant Run Off preference voting for their house of commons and STV for their Senate. Thus if Canada had the same voting system as Australia I'd advocate, ranking the NDP as my number one choice in both the house of commons and the Senate. After that I'd advocate ranking other parties and candidates lower. That said I'd rank the Liberals above the Conservatives because even though both are bad I think the Liberals are slightly better than the Conservatives. That doesn't amount to a ringing endorsement of the Liberal Party, but I suppose that's "selling out" and I wouldn't want to be accused of being pragmatic. But as you can see, Canada does not have that type of voting system - if it did it wouldn't so much be that I'd be voting Liberal so much as ranking them amongst various other choices. Thus in Australia, where they do have this voting system, I'd advocate ranking the Green Party first and then various other individual candidates and parties, then ranking the Labor Party above the Liberal/National coalition (and various other objectionable far-right parties/candidates - ie: the ultra-conservative Family First, Pauline Hanson's xenophobic One Nation etc). This is not because I think the Labor Party is perfect, but if the choice between the Parties that are going to form government is between Labor and the Coalition I think that one should preference Labor above the Coalition (2nd ETA: and insure that one has a say in who forms government).

[ 04 November 2007: Message edited by: Vansterdam Kid ]

1. You must rank every candidate on the ballot or else your ballot is considered spoiled. So at some point if there are 10 people on the ballot, at some point you have to put a number beside the Liberal and Labour candidates and one has to be higher than the other.

2. The Australian Labour Party is the Australian equivalent of the NDP - as it would be if it was a major party that routinely won 40+% of the vote and as it is right now in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, BC and Nova Scotia. It is organically linked to the labour movement and many if not most of their candidates have trade union backgrounds.

3. They have STV for the Senate elections, but each state has 12 senators and only half (ie: 6) are elected at each general election. This basically means that a minor party needs about 16% of the vote to achieve "quota" and get a seat or else they have to have a "preference deal" with one of the bigger parties whereby they get that party's "excess" votes (ie: say that the ALP gets enough votes to elect two senators but not enough to elect three, those excess votes have to go somewhere.

Also, in Austrlian they have this phenomenon known as voting "above the line" or "below the line" for the Senate. If you vote "above the line" then you just place one x for the party you like and then your preferences flow automatically the way that your party wants them to flow based on whatever dals they have made with the smaller parties. If you want to have your own say in how your preferences go, then you vote "below the line" and that means that you have to rank every single solitary senate candidate (typically there are over 100 and the ballot is the size of a beach blanket). If you fail to rank anyone, your ballot if spoiled.

4. They have a lottery to see what order the candidates names appear in on the ballot - so you get no automatic advantage from having a last name starting with the letter "a". It is estimated that between 2% and 5% of Australians vote "donkey ballot" menaing they just rank the candidates 1, 2, 3 ... from top to bottom. This means that if the ALP candidate is higher than the Liberal candidate on the ballot in a given riding - it can be as much as a 5% advantage.

Keep in mind that since voting is compulsory - a lot of people vote who have zero interest in politics and who given the choice would not vote.

[ 04 November 2007: Message edited by: Stockholm ]

[ 04 November 2007: Message edited by: Stockholm ]

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Originally posted by Vansterdam Kid:
Call it what you want, but I believe that a party should have a reasonable chance to get some representation before I'd vote for it.... I wouldn't advocate that people vote for it as their first choice (or rank it highly when choosing who and what to rank).

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You apparently view elections as some kind of sporting pool, wherein voters try to predict which parties will win, and vote for the likelier ones.

I have an entirely different conception of voting - one that must seem very strange to you: I believe in voting for the party that you most want to win. That requires not just tallying up opinion poll results but actually looking at the ideologies and programs of the parties. I know that sounds like a lot of work, but anything else is truly a waste of one's vote.

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You may enjoy voting for the Natural Law Party...I just think it's a waste of your vote.

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What exactly do you think TC Douglas was talking about with his white cats/black cats metaphor, anyway?

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Forming government isn't necessarily that important to who I vote for.

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I said that I think the Australian Green Party is the best one, therefore I'd advocate ranking them first. I think the SA is a) a fringe party, and b) looking at their policies I don't even like them enough for them to be my first choice because I don't think they're that realistic/practical. Since you keep on insisting on bringing the NDP as third party metaphor into the discussion, I don't think the NDP is a fringe party and I do like their policies, therefore I would/do vote for them. Interesting though that you didn't address anything to do with the type of electoral system that Australia has and the complete difference there is between it and Canada's - leading to completely different strategies when it comes to voting. Essentially you get multiple votes that determine multiple things, therefore you may as well make them all count. I mean jeez, you're blowing a gasket over a secondary point that isn't even applicable to Canada. What you claim I think is "everything" - ranking the Labor Party in preference above the Coalition (and other right-wing parties I've mentioned), as opposed to leaving the preferences blank seems like a bit much, even for someone as pleasant as you. But whatever, keep telling me what I "really" think. It's soooo important after all, since we get a say in this election.

[ 04 November 2007: Message edited by: Vansterdam Kid ]

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More Australian voters would like to see Labor Opposition leader Kevin Rudd naked than their current prime minister, John Howard, a poll showed on Sunday just two weeks out from a hard-fought general election...."No one wants a prime minister who doesn't look good naked," Zoo editor Paul Merrill was quoted as saying.

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Canadians do, it would seem.

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We encourage voters to Vote 1 The Greens, and make up their own mind about their preferences. For those who prefer our guidance, you can download our Australia-wide "How to Vote" guide below. It’s been put together by State, and by Electorate.

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Originally posted by Vansterdam Kid:
They're calling him a small-c conservative, and they can be large-L Liberals.

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Originally posted by Aristotleded24:
How to vote Green:

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Originally posted by Aristotleded24:
How to vote Green:

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Parties all put out "how to vote cards" that they give to their supporters that include a sample ballot with all the candidates ranked the way the party would like you to rank them.

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Australian prime minister John Howard's faltering re-election campaign was badly damaged yesterday by a last-minute scandal in which supporters were accused of a dirty tricks campaign that sought to show the opposition as terrorist sympathisers.
Two days before the general election members of Howard's Liberal party were caught distributing bogus pamphlets falsely linking the Labor party with Islamic terrorists. The flyers, purporting to be from a fake organisation called the Islamic Australia Federation, were posted through letterboxes in the marginal seat of Lindsay in suburban Sydney. They suggested that the Labor party approved of forgiving the men involved in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings which killed more than 200 people, 88 of them Australian. There was a forged Labor logo on the leaflet and the phrase Allahu Akbar, God is Great, had been misspelled as Ala Akba.

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I also made the discovery of the best riding name ever...there's apparently an Australian constituency called Batman. How cool is that?

[ 24 November 2007: Message edited by: Doug ]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/24/2100243.htm?section=justin

Howard has conceded his government's defeat, and says he's probably lost his own seat as well.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
John Howard was Stephen Harper's best political friend in the world and his mentor.

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Howard's reign ends.

[ 24 November 2007: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

The ALP is not exactly what I'd call a particularly left-wing party, but Howard has been a practitioner of a particularly odious brand of right-wing, xenophobic politics. I'm glad to see him humiliated.

ABC is projecting 86 Labor, 52 Liberal and 10 National, with 2 others.

However, on the AEC site, they've declared 83 Labor, 47 Liberal, 9 National and 2 others, with 9 too close to call. Of those 9 doubtful seats, the Liberals are the incumbents in 7, with Labor and National in 1 each. Labor is leading in 6 of those 9 doubtfuls, and barely trailing in the remaining 3. If things go the right way, Labor could end up with 92 seats, which would be huge rout.

[ 24 November 2007: Message edited by: ghoris ]

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The ALP is not exactly what I'd call a particularly left-wing party

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They have different factions that are quite formally organized under names like "ALP Right" and ALP Left".

The Greens are more of a clear leftwing alternative to the ALP than is the case with the quixotic so-called Greens in Canada.

For the last 20 years at least, though, Labor Unity has been in the ascendancy. Rudd is firmly in the Labor Unity camp, as were previous leaders Kim Beazley, Mark Latham, Paul Keating and Bob Hawke. Labor Unity has a majority on the national executive and most of the state premiers come from this wing of the party as well.

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The November 24th Australian election has resulted in a sharp defeat of the neoliberal pro-US John Howard government, and a victory for the slightly less neoliberal and pro-US Kevin Rudd of the Australian Labor Party. But what has not been much noticed in global commentary on the result is the intense class struggle atmosphere in which the election took place.

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A couple of election ads are at the following link. The first one is a slick, anti-union ad by the then governing Liberals. The second ad is from the ACTU.

Class Warfare and the Australian Elections

Where are all those babblers who claim that classes don't exist, that class struggle is a load of hogwash, and that discussion of such issues is a lot of Marxist propaganda? Someone should have told Liberal loser John Howard. Apparently, he didn't get the memo.

[ 25 November 2007: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

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In the Australian Capital Territory, a high profile campaign failed to elect Greens senator Kerry Tucker instead of Liberal Gary Humphries.

From July 1, the Australian Democrats will not exist at federal level.

Of four Democrats in the old parliament, two seeking re-election lost and the other two won't be replaced.

In Victoria, Leader Lyn Allison came nowhere near a quota, while in Brisbane former leader Andrew Bartlett was outpolled by Pauline Hanson.

NSW Greens Senator Kerry Nettle also will not be back. But The Greens did pick up one new Senator in South Australia and another in WA, taking their number of senators to five.

That will likely leave the Coalition with 37 (previously 39), Labor 32 (previously 28), Greens 5 (4), Family First 1 (unchanged) plus independent Nick Xenophon in South Australia.

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No more centrist Democrats holding the balance of power. In claiming a definite five seats in the Senate with a chance for two more, the Greens have also seen off the Democrats, whose four senators all lost their seats.

[ 28 November 2007: Message edited by: Wilf Day ]

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Peter Garrett will be Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, and have a spot in cabinet, Mr Rudd said.

Penny Wong will be the Minister for Climate Change and Water.

"When I attend Bali in just a couple of weeks time, I will be attending that conference with Peter and Penny," Mr Rudd said.

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http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/rudd-gives-his-reasons-why/2007/11/29/1196037047516.html

I've noticed only a few policies, however, I hope others can point out more.

1) Education spending to be increased.

2) Environmental concerns to be addressed.

3) A more non-interventionist foreign policy to be implemented.

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Originally posted by Peppered Pothead:
Is anyone else inspired by this election result?

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NDP Leader Jack Layton is rushing today to align himself with newly elected Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, promising an NDP platform in the next federal election that will closely follow the Aussie Labor leader's moderate formula.

Jack Layton says "Our cousins in the Labor Party just defeated Stephen Harper’s political soul-mate John Howard."

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Now Australia has a government that is serious about climate change. A government that believes in respecting the Kyoto Protocol and the UN process.

That’s one less ally for the Harper Government.

The new Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has ambitious plans for his country. His “Skilling Australia” initiative and a plan to fight climate change were central to the Labor campaign that promised a Strong Economy and a Fairer Society. Prime Minister Rudd’s proposal to curb climate change includes a comprehensive plan to retro-fit 200,000 existing homes through low-interest loans. A plan that will create green-collar jobs – for construction workers and technicians – at the same time as it will reduce CO2 emissions.

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Originally posted by aka Mycroft:
The NDP wishes to model itself after the Australian Labor Party. I'd like to note that the ALP recruited Midnight Oil lead singer Peter Garrett to be an MP a few years ago and he looks likely to be appointed to Cabinet as Environment minister.
If the NDP is following the ALP's lead can we hope for a Sarah Harmer candidacy? (I'm for it!)

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I remember that band ! "Beds are Burning", "US Forces", etc. , and Peter Garrett's benevolent approach to the issue of Aboriginal rights ! They were very innovative songwriters / performers, especially WRT their lyrics, instrumentation, and complex chord patterns / harmonic elements. He (Garret) was/is a very tall, intense looking bald guy with uniquely raw vocals, and TONS of political activism.

And thanks to Wilf Day for the stuff on Layton's reaction. I'm doubly inspired. Errr, make that 'cautiously optimistic', heh heh.

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But it would be good if we could somehow ascertain the relative poltical paradigm in Australia, and the relation of their Labor party in political policy proximity to the previous Howard Conservatives.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/aus2007

It may be accurate, inaccurate, or somewhere in between, I really don't know.

Btw, for comparison, here's some Canadian placements.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/canada2005