(Promoted from the diaries. Thanks to tis for a good summation of the state of play in Oz. This is a really important election, as the Howard government has been taking a serious toll on the education and health systems of Australia, and another Liberal term would be disasterous. Also, for all you Instant Runoff Voting fans -- and for those who wonder how well it works in the real world -- the Australian electoral system provides a good demonstration of IRV. --Trapper.)
John Howard has called the Australian general election for October 9th.
For a foreign audience to have any chance of understanding the election, you need to first realise that the ruling Liberal party (actually the senior partner in a permanent coalition with the rural National party) is conservative.
Going into the campaign, the opposition Labor party have a small lead, but then again, they were ahead at the last election, three years ago.
John Howard is running on a platform of stability, strength, and low interest rates (the election will probably be won or lost in the mortgage belts around the major cities, especially Sydney; aspirational lower middle class, often socially conservative). Mark Latham is running on education and health, especially health (the decline in availability of 'bulk billing' - general practitioners paid directly by the government - is a key issue).
Latham famously described Bush as being the most dangerous president ever, but has since backed off on his anti-Bush rhetoric a bit, with Labor supporting the US-Oz free trade agreement. He is, however, still pledged to bring Australian troops out of Iraq by Christmas, but to provide logistic and financial support for rebuilding Iraq (Labor opposed the Iraq war throughout).
Issues:
- Interest rates are at record lows, and Australians have record high levels of debt.
- Economy - the Australian economy is actually going pretty well, which the Liberals claim credit for (although most economists share the credit equally with the reforms of the last Labor government)
- Credibility - it looks more and more like Howard has been caught having lied about major issue just days before the last election (the 'children overboard' affair), but then Australians expect politicians to lie... This issue is probably the reason Howard has called the election now, to avoid having to return to parliament next week and face questions.
- Will Howard stay? John Howard refuses to commit to serving out a full term if he wins. His obvious sucessor, Costello, is far less popular (socially more liberal, but very conservative economically).
- Iraq really isn't a very big issue; with no Australian casualties Latham won't make a lot of the 'bring them home' line because he risks being painted as anti-American again, and Australians feel safer believing that they are valued allies of the USA. One liberal candidate even said, in so many words, that the war was wrong, but if America was going to invade, it was in Australia's national interest to go along with it...
So who will win? And do Americans really care?
