Tomorrow's Australian Election

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Friday October 08, 2004 · 6:18 AM PDT

2004/10/08 · 06:18

Tomorrow is the Australian Election and the next day I fly to Nevada to work on the Kerry Campaign.

I will be working hard for the Green Party tomorrow in the hope's that they can gain the balance of power in the Federal Senate. This is critical for 2 major reasons and a host of minor reasons.

If Labour wins either alone or in Coalition with the Greens, the Australian troops will be pulled out of Iraq by Christmas. If the Conservative Coalition stays in, they will keep troops in Iraq indefinitely.
If Labour wins either alone or in Coalition with the Greens, there will a moratorium on the logging of Tasmania's ancient, old-growth forests. If the Conservative Coalition stays in, these grand forests are doomed.

See more in Extended Entry:

An interesting possibility is that the Conservative Coalition wins the House, but the Greens hold the balance of power in the Senate with Labour. This has never happened and would be an interesting situation as neither group could really move without getting major concessions from the other side.

The election, similar to that in the United States, hangs on a knife's edge. To the credit of the Conservative Coalition, they have managed the economy very well in their last 8 years in power, and Australia is one of the envies of the Free World in terms of economic prosperity, The Australian Stock Market is one of the world's fastest growers and has been at records highs for the last many months.

However, their social, environmental and labour agenda has been utterly dismal, and the Iraq quagmire has been bad although the current Australian Government has handled the whole thing much better than the Blair Government in the UK, and been far more measured and clever about it all.

However, it is time for the Greens and their totally awesome leader, Bob Brown, to get hold of power and start to take Australia back down a road of social and environmental integrity even if we sacrifice some of the economic glory as a result.

I will keep everyone posted as the election unfolds tomorrow. I will be down at the polls at 7:00 or else the Conservatives will take all the best spaces with their ugly pictures.

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