As you know Australia has a new Prime minister, Kevin Rudd, who swept into power last weekend and already is hard at work proposing a dizzying array of reforms and pledges such as the immediate signing of the Kyoto Protocol and as Roger Lamb’s diary mentioned earlier today, a sweeping revue of the homeless and their plight. Not bad for a day's work.
I remember clearly having conversations with Ms AAf on the lack of vision from GWB in his first year of office as we both wondered how such a man with scant intellect could govern a country as important as the United States in the years to come. Then of course came 9/11 to save his bacon, so to speak (his ratings then were in April 26, 2001 - 100 Days in office, 52 positive, 44 negative) Imagine for a moment what Al gore could have achieved in his first 100 days in office had he been not robbed of the election. Hence the comparison with Kevin Rudd in this diary.
Over the jump, if you will!
Mr Rudd, 49, a Mandarin-speaking former diplomat entered the political world in the late 1980s to become chief of staff to Labor’s Wayne Goss (Premier of Queensland from 1989 until 1996). He has enjoyed a meteoric rise to power since being made Labor leader just 11 months ago and has managed in a short time to win the election with a swing of over 6% thus decimating the horrid Liberal Party, John Howard and his sidekick, former Treasurer Peter Costello who many thought would be sworn in as opposition leader (he announced his resignation last Sunday).
Let's see what Mr Rudd is doing about governing Australia. Ms AAF and I sat quietly listening to his speech about reconstructing his country. First, as I've mentioned, is the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol closely followed by the withdrawal of all combat troops from Iraq, a move that will somehow affect GWB's coalition of, what, two, maybe three, if you count a certain Eastern European country of ill repute?
Rudd recognizes that education is the key to creating a globally competitive economy and as he says, failure to overhaul the entire education system at all levels will mean that Australia would become China's quarry and Japan's beach. His initiatives include that all pre-school kiddies will have access to 15 hours of quality learning per week for 40 weeks per year; in secondary school every student will have access to computers with broadband, annual fundings of quality curriculum, new programs in maths, science and languages, especially from Asia; AU$111 million will be provided to promote maths and science in universities, double the number of postgraduate research masters and PhD scholarships, all this is to be backed by a massive AU$ 4.7 billion investment to build a national high-speed broadband network, 40 times the current speed! Does this kind of thinking remind you of Al Gore? My head was spinning as I listened to his speech. Having spent 20 years in Sydney I marveled at this new kind of government.
And that is not all! He announced new initiatives targeting the environment, too numerous to detail now, but in brief let me tell you the important ones. Apart from protecting the Barrier Reef, he is about to take Japan to court over the unnecessary killing of the whales; he has allocated over AU$2 billion for wind farm schemes and to promote alternative energies (following, GWB?); AU$500 million is earmarked for a fund to promote and manufacture green fueled cars; a 20% renewable energy target by 2020; tax rebates (not the GWB kind) for solar power, solar hot water systems, rainwater tanks, rebates for landlords to install proper insulation and water saving measures; he has talked about a clean energy innovation center and an export strategy. And that is for starters. New child-care centers will be built, flexible working arrangements parents of pre-school children will be sought...the list is long, and yes, ambitious but he's the kind of man that can pull it off.
Already, Murdoch's Australian branch of Faux News is disseminating falsities about the newly named minister of the environment, Peter Garrett, the genial singer and leader of the seminal protest OZ band Midnight Oil.
We both got dizzy listening to his manifesto and again thought about Al Gore and how America would have prospered under his governance. Well, there's 08 coming up!