This is Julie Bishop. She will probably be the deputy leader of the Howard Hating Liberal Party by Friday morning. If you don't behave, there will be consequences. Dire consequences.

I'm sure she's actually a very nice person. The men in Parliament will be shrinking in terror when Bishop and Labor deputy Julia Gillard go at each other across the big desk.

Gillard To Challenge Rudd For Leadership Of Labor Party

I just wanted to be the first to put that into a headline. If Rudd makes a meal of his leadership, The Australian will be running headlines like that by March, 2009.

Now deputy prime minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, had some very nice and very respectable things to say about defeated PM John Howard :

"This is a man who devoted his entire life to public service, you've got to admire that, and I do," Ms Gillard said.

"He's led the nation through some difficult periods.

"I did admire the Prime Minister when under very difficult circumstances he achieved better gun laws in this country - it was obviously divisive amongst his own support base, and he stood up and did it.

"There have been times when this nation's obviously faced great tragedy, like Bali, and John Howard's led the nation in mourning, so once again I would acknowledge that.

"I think John Howard will be remembered ... with respect and, I suspect, some affection as well."

It's a shame that due to the absurd nature of Australian politics and media that Gillard couldn't have said such things about Howard before today.

Hopefully the nasty, sanctimonious nature of politics and media in Australia will change in the immediate future, off the back of a Rudd Labor government. But probably not.

The Liberals attack pack, with Costello at the helm (for now) will be even more savage and vile in opposition than they were in government.

The conservatives will have to change their attitude, nature and culture if they can even hope to have a fighting chance in 2010 or 2011.

Tony Abbott : What A Scumbag

Health Minister Tony Abbott must have been very displeased to have recently learned he is one of the most unpopular senior politicians in Australia. Yesterday he set out to ramp up his unpopularity even further, by launching a foul, insidious attack on the woman who is set to become Australia's deputy prime minister, Julia Gillard.

Tony Abbott told the Sydney Daily Telegraph :

"It would be a lot easier for her to realise her ambition if there was evidence of a broader lifetime experience."

"The average person would look askance at such a political animal," he said.

"The thing about (Ms) Gillard is that she is very bright, just uber-professional and a formidable debater," Mr Abbott said.

"It's very hard to be a leader in a democratic society if your life has been consumed by the job."

Incredible stuff coming from Australia's most vicious political animal himself. A man obsessed with his own power and image, who still appears morosely uncomfortable in the presence of female politicians, and someone who was, and remains, so determined to fulfill his role as the 'executioner' of Australian federal politics that he once teamed up with 'the enemy' to destroy the rise of a popular and viable third party choice, that being the 'peoples' movement' of Pauline Hanson.

Abbott's attack is yet another sign of the panic now eating away at the front bench of the federal government, as they try to deal with the reality that the tide of public opinion has finally turned against them, and they will soon be thrown out of power.

But Abbott's attacks on Gillard are all the more bizarre because it was his own government that transformed the lives of millions of Australian families by forcing through the reality of 'working families', where mothers are encouraged to park their children in childcare before they can even walk, so they can 'embrace' the opportunities of our so-called 'economic miracle' by taking jobs they didn't necessarily want, or even need.

It was Abbott's government that launched a psychological war on Australian women, through propaganda and mind-numbing TV ads, that created the mindset that any mother who stayed home to look after the children was somehow less than worthy, was not pulling her weight, or was refusing to actively engage in Australian society.

Julia Gillard, who now enjoys some of the highest poll numbers for any Australian female politician in history, responded to Abbott's vile attempt at character assassination :

She responded by questioning whether Mr Abbott could have succeeded in politics if not for the fact that his wife had brought up their children while he pursued his career.

"Could Tony Abbott have been at the same stage of his political career if he'd been the mother of his three children, rather than the father of them?" she said.

And she predicted her rise to the top in the Labor Party will pave the way for other single women - and men - to enter parliament as part of a "diversification" of politics.

In the latest sign the election will become a brutal war of words, Mr Abbott said voters were seeking a "bit more humanity" from their political leaders.

If Abbott means his kind of "humanity" then he truly has lost the plot.

Abbott, naturally, then tried to withdraw his remarks. But he meant every word he said. Of course he did. He just thought that he could get his attacks into the papers, and into the headlines, and that a day or so would pass before Julia Gillard fired back.

It didn't work out that way.

"I should not have said anything that could be construed by anyone as a personal attack on Gillard," Abbott said, when he realised he had monumentally fucked up. Yet again.

Yes, but you did say all that, didn't you Tony? And you meant every word. And now your government will have to pay the political price for it.

Does the Howard government even want to win the election? Sometimes it's hard to believe they do.

Tony Abbott : Voting Against The Howard Government Could Result In "Very Dire Consequences"

Culture Wars? Who Cares?

We Want The Australian Renaissance

Endless editorials, opinion pieces and book reviews have filled Australian newspapers in recent months spilling boring, irrelevant twaddle about the Australian 'Culture Wars', and whether or not 'The Left' have outlived their usefulness.

Firing back from 'The Left', whatever that is supposed to be in this day and age of wide ranging, non-traditionally aligned political and social views, comes equally boring and pointless counter-attack and self-defensiveness.

None of it, from 'The Left' or 'The Right' means much to the vast majority of Australians. Few of the people involved in rehashing decades old arguments have any real relevance to the generations moving out of high school into the workforce and those entering their second decade of mortgage payments.

It's all from another age, and it's all so old and tired. You read some of these editorials and it sounds like nothing more than a bunch of 5o-and-60-somethings trying to drag themselves, and their old enemies, back into the spotlight of today's headlines and coffee table chat zones. They're all still stuck there, back in their student days of the 1960s and early 1970s, and they dwell in the illusion zone that the unresolved conflicts from their leisurely free-education days actually mean anything anymore. Something about Marxists, something else about arts grants, something else about commies, something about 'balance' at the ABC.

Like so many of the Howard-era politicos and media, they're used to people sitting up and listening when they get down and get into it. But they caught the national attention, and agenda, in the days when Australia was relatively isolated, and incubated, from the outside world, and when the daily newspaper and the ABC News and current affairs ruled the national attention span.

It's an age already long gone. Few care about their nostalgia trips.

Prime minister John Howard tried to thrust the 'Culture Wars' into the national arena, and the majority attention zone, when he gave a fiery speech at the 50th anniversary of Quadrant magazine. The Culture Wars are worth fighting, Howard said, because Australia needed to be pulled from its Leftie-socialist past, as though he hadn't noticed it happened years ago.

When it suits the Howard government, they will trawl back through three decades old political positions of all-but-forgotten one-time Labor Party heroes, and bore international visitors to the Australian Parliament senseless all the way through Question Time, when they're not demanding praise and attention for doing the jobs they should feel honoured to be doing.

But ask Howard's boys about the lies and distortions that led to the Iraq War, the AWB scandal, or why they didn't tell the voters about Workchoices before the 2004 elections and they will tell you we mustn't dwell in the past, "let's look to the future".

But what is the Howard future? Where is it? All they talk about is the past. Thirty years ago, 12 years ago, nine months ago.

90% of Australians couldn't give a tinkers about the 'Culture Wars'. Most don't even know what it is, or what it is supposed to be a war over. They are concerned about climate change and how much their children are going to be paid, and what sort of conditions they might have to work under, because these are issues about what awaits us in the future.

Australians want to look to the future, and in many ways we can't wait to get there. The fact that Australia's boom economy is based around a two thousand year old power source and we have internet speeds that are laughed at by nine year old kids in South Korea are two examples of how far behind we are in a world rapidly speeding up, and moving ahead. We know we are being left behind, and it's making us edgy.

But we don't get much in the way of vision statements or inspirational future dreaming from the federal government. All we hear about is how they are desperately trying to patch up the holes in all the promises they made, but never delivered on, while their bulldogs shout at us from Parliament via the evening news about how we've "never had it so good."

While many Australian journalists and opinion writers pretend to be mystified as to why the Labor Party remains so high in the polls, long after the Rudd honeymoon was supposed to end and Howard Corp. was to get their supposedly long overdue surge, Australians are anything but confused.

They want to know what the future holds. They want to know what's coming, and not just how good their broadband may or may not be in three years time. They want to feel like somebody is making the big plans, dreaming the big dreams and thinking of the long-term future, not just how to win the next election.

Don't tell me what you've done, Mr Howard. Tell me what kind of Australia we will be living in in ten years time, in twenty years time, in fifty years time.

The Labor Party has won a lot of support in the past eight months because its front benchers, from leader Kevin Rudd, to deputy Julia Gillard to environmental Buddha Peter Garrett, are not shouting about the past, or wailing about how unfair those across the Parliament are being, but because they keep coming out with speeches, interviews and sound bites that talk about where Australia is going, how we can get there and who we can be, if we aren't afraid to undergo some reinvention and vision-making, and are willing to shake off the old prejudices and 1950s-era 'values' thinking.

The latest Labor vision statement comes from Julia Gillard, and it's not a bad one. Why can't Australia have a cultural Renaissance, she asks. Aren't we all due for a creative overhaul? A fresh start on the world stage that continually shakes its collective head in disbelief at the extraordinary quality of the actors, writers, directors, musicians, painters, sculptors and dramatists this country produces, but who are always forced to go overseas to make their dreams come true.

Here's some excerpts from a speech Julia Gillard gave last night :

Instead of leading a culture war, our Government should be leading a great Australian cultural renaissance - one that celebrates excellence and encourages all our people to understand the importance of our culture to our future.

We need to get a real conversation going between our cultural producers and the public. This isn't just about elites; it involves all of us. It's time to end the culture wars.

...this isn't just about governments. It's a challenge to all sorts of cultural decision makers - newspaper editors, radio station managers, heads of our arts and research funding bodies, vice-chancellors and the heads of publishing houses - to invest in cultural production.

There are encouraging signs that outside the Howard Government many Australians are putting their money where their mouths are and backing great cultural ventures.

This great Australian cultural renaissance could be one of the most important national investments we could make, because Australian culture is ideally suited to the challenges of today. As we confront global economic competition and inequalities, our idealism and resourcefulness are what the world needs.

We should never forget Australia's indigenous culture is one of the longest-surviving cultures in the world and we should never forget to be proud of that fact. We can also learn from it. Climate change is giving us an urgent interest in doing so.

We need to develop a new respect for the reality of our harsh physical environment and adapt to its changes. Aborigines were never passive occupiers of the land. As we have, they moulded the land as it moulded them.

Our culture, and the advantages it gives us, is endangered. I find it bizarre that when our culture has so much to offer our country, some want to undermine it through a vindictive, short-sighted and imported culture war.

Their attempts to denigrate such people as our philosophers, artists, writers and even climate scientists as out-of-touch, inner-city elites, and to claim our egalitarian values are unsuited to new economic necessities, risks subsuming us into the blancmange of an emerging global monoculture.

Let me end this call for an Australian cultural renaissance by referring to one of the great contemporary Australian cultural figures: the Academy Award-winning producer, George Miller, who has had a huge effect on world culture, from TV series such as Bodyline to movies such as Mad Max and Babe. Most recently he's given us Happy Feet.

You might think I'm pulling a long bow in drawing conclusions from an animated film about a dancing penguin named Mumble. But Mumble is a man - or should I say, a penguin - for our times. He won't conform. Instead of singing like everyone else, he dances. And along the way he uncovers some important truths about the need to change our ways.

Australians are a bit like Mumble. In terms of world culture, we're unique: young, unusual, at times exotic and usually undermining authority. We can choose our path. We shouldn't feel we have to sing along in harmony with the rest of the world to have a positive effect on it. But we can dance like no one else. The last thing we need is culture warriors trying to force us to conform.

And that's it right there. C0nformity. The Howard-era media and politicians don't want to know what Australia will become, or is already becoming. They want it to stay the way it was, when they were young. They are still fighting to reshape the nation into what they wanted it to be when they were 23 years old. The 'Culture Wars' are locked in an almost forgotten era of Australian history, because that's the only era these 'warriors' really understand.

Whoever wants to declare victory in the 'Culture Wars' may as well go ahead and do it now. Nobody, but the tiniest percentile, will care, and it will be a hollow victory. The rest of Australia has already moved on.

We want to know what's coming. Who will be be in 20 years? Where will be? Who's going to give us the future we're dreaming of now?

A federal election should always be about the future, but right now we're not getting much from Howard & Friends on that front.

Gillard all but gave the federal government a plan to win back some of their lost disciples. But are they visionary enough to realise it?

Gillard Tries Her Hand At Stand Up Comedy

And Lands Some Hilarious Blows On Howard & Co.

While prime minister John Howard, and his senior ministers, desperately try to shake off the post-traumatic stress resulting from the worst poll numbers of the 11 year reign of the coalition, federal deputy opposition leader Julia Gillard has been having some fun. At their expense.

The Howard government were publicly humiliated, by themselves, yesterday when they tried to remove the stench-laden word 'WorkChoices' from their vocabulary. Problem is, it's their word for their deeply unpopular changes to the working lives of most Australians. Now they don't want that word used at all anymore.

They seriously think Australians are dopey enough to not realise that the same legislation will be the same legislation, even if it gets a sparkly new name, and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars thrown at its new marketing campaign.

The government burned up more than $44 million of taxpayers money, earlier this year, in an advertising blitz to sell WorkChoices as the best thing since convict workgangs were cut free from their chains. They bombarded us mercilessly with WorkChoices ads, full of happy-smiley people telling us why we were all so lucky to be losing overtime and weekend pay rates.

And it was all for the good of the Australian economy, of course.

During a speech yesterday, Gillard seized on the government's attempt to wipe away the WorkChoices mud and blood, and went in hard.

Most Australian politicians are notoriously bad at cracking jokes, or even saying anything that raises a hearty laugh, so Gillard was skating the thin when she decided to drop a flurry of one liners during a speech in front of diners from the finance and banking industry. From what we've heard so far, she succeeded.

Let's hope there's more laughs, and blitzing one liners like these, during the rest of what is sure to be a bitter, and blood-soaked (from the desperate ranks of the coalition government anyway) federal election campaign :

"It has become clear today that John Howard has now banned the use of the word Work Choices," Ms Gillard told the group.

"I just want you to understand that John (Howard's) changing of the language isn't going to stop there.

"We will no longer refer to the Iraq war, that will be referred to as the Iraq peace.

"Helen Coonan will no longer be the Minister for Communications – she will be referred to as the minister for truth.

"At the same time the Treasurer (Peter Costello) will now be renamed as the minister for plenty.

"And further tax cuts will be referred to as Pete's plenty payments.

"And, unfortunately, your industry is not exempt, you will be required to go through long documents and paperwork and after the word 'interest rates' you will need to insert 'at record lows due to the Howard Government' ... "

That final blitzer from Gillard is right on the money. The Howard government still doesn't understand just how infuriated most Australians feel when they get home from a 12 or 14 work day, turn on the TV and see John Howard, or the Treasurer, Peter Costello, gloating and ego-tripping about how it is due only to their sheer brilliance and masterful ways that the Australian economy is doing so well.

Never a word from either to acknowledge that the majority of Australian workers now work harder, and longer, than their parents or grandparents did. Never a word of thanks from the prime minister to all those working families who barely get to spend any time together any more.

In the fantasy world of John Howard and Peter Costello, Australia's workers have nothing to do with the strength of the economy. It's all thanks to them. And they'll spend millions more dollars in advertising to tell us all how good we've got it, and how they are at giving us back our own money.

And they're mystified as to why they're plunging in the polls?

Get a clue.

John Howard said, a few months back, that because the economy was going great guns, Australians have never had it so good. It's a statement that is already coming back to haunt him, and will likely be used by the opposition government during the election campaign to show just how out of touch, and uniformed, John Howard is to the very tough times being experienced by millions of working Australian families, many of whom are struggling to hold on their homes, while others are struggling to find a home they can afford to buy.

At least, Howard, and Costello, are now getting an idea what it's like to be hitting the hard times.

Have no doubt, for the federal government the good times are now officially over.

They are hastily rebranding, rewriting, reshaping their key policies and desperately trying to win back the support of the Australian public, while the front ranks of the opposition, like Julia Gillard, are cracking jokes at their expense and clearly enjoying the self-demolition of the coalition government.

There is something extremely Orwellian about the way the Howard government brands and re-brands their messages and policies. And Gillard nailed it in her jokefest. In Howard's newspeak, war is peace, no choice is choices and tough times are good times.

Even the good news from the government, like most of the recent federal budget, comes coated and sly talk and sticky with spin. Most of it completely unnecessary. The good news is lost in the head-thumping demands from Howard and Costello for us all to recognise how kind they have been to us. Australians are clearly sick of this "Don't thank you, thank me" mind game from the government. And they're telling the pollsters exactly that.

Why they see a constant need to treat Australians like morons who don't understand what's going on is beyond me. Other governments have fallen into this trap before, and paid the price. Australians were legendary around the world for most of the 20th century for not tolerating bullshit, and railing against hypocrisy.

Have we changed so much that we now don't mind when the leaders of our nation try to put one over us? No, we haven't. Of course we haven't. The bullshit detector is still active in most of us, and the Howard government is setting off its shrill alarm at least once or twice every day now.

That wouldn't have mattered so much in the past - we are smart enough to know that politicians twist the truth like dogs like their own balls - but Howard and his crew now struggle under the burden of a solid decade of lies, distortions, scandals and gnawing spin. Children overboard, the Iraq War, AWB, WorkChoices...the list is long, and there's something in it for every Australian to be disgusted and dirty about.

If there was ever a time for Howard to plug the flow of lies and spin, now is that time. Actually, that time is well past overdue. But, as the rebranding of WorkChoices shows, he still doesn't get it.

The more Howard, and his senior ministers, treat us like a bunch of idiots, the lower the government drops in the polls.

You'd think at least one of Howard's 60 or more advisers would have gotten in his ear by now and told him that just because someone is willing to smile and shake his hand, or give him a wave in the street, doesn't mean they don't walk away muttering, "What a tool, what a phony, there's no way in hell I'm going to vote for that clown again."

Is This Australia's Sexiest Woman?


Come November, Deputy Leader of the Australian Government, Julia Gillard.

Poll Shock : Kidman Out, Gillard In

Possible Future Prime Minister = Absolute Hornbag

FHM Magazine runs one of the more popular, and well read, 'Australia's Sexiest Women' polls.

This year, Nicole Kidman didn't even make the cotender list, but the deputy leader of "alternative government" is up there in the rankings.

Could it be true? Is Julia Gillard Australia's Sexiest Woman?

Considering the absolute multitudes of brilliant, beautiful, funny and talented women in Australia, she might have some trouble making the Top Five. Competition is fierce.

But, voting is still open.

Gillard is the rising star of Australian politics, and the old-school, pigheaded blokeworld ministers of the Howard government are clearly troubled every time they have to face her in parliment. She takes no prisoners, and she can be funny as hell.

And Julia Gillard has a better shot than most of the current crop of parlimenarians at becoming a future prime minister of Australia.

Can't wait.

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

While Ms Gillard made a list of 87 contenders for FHM magazine's "50 Sexiest Aussie Babes" survey, another well-known redhead Nicole Kidman missed out.

The list of contenders includes the usual array of soap stars and supermodels.

But convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby makes the cut along with fellow one-time Bali prison inmate Michelle Leslie.

Kidman might have been excluded, but Australians on the list with a Hollywood profile are represented by Naomi Watts and Toni Collette.

FHM deputy editor Ben Smithurst said: "Australia has the most beautiful women in the world, as well as the most talented."

Gillard Makes Top 50 List Of Australia's Sexiest Women

JOHN HOWARD'S CHIEF STRATEGY FOR 2007 ELECTION REVEALED

BE A COMPLETE BITCH

GILLARD CLAIMS HOWARD'S BEST DAYS ARE "BEHIND HIM"


The 2007 Australian federal election is going to be a blood-soaked affair. The prime minister, John Howard, began the real fang fighting yesterday. He tried to burst the bubble of his more popular political opposite, the self-titled 'alternative' prime minister Kevin Rudd with a bizarre and somewhat creepy rant.

Howard claimed that Rudd accused his government of "fostering an ethos of selfishness in the Australian community...to the detriment of the common good."

Howard then asked, "Is that it?"

As though being accused of encouraging selfishness, "to the detriment of the common good," no less, means nothing at all.

Like it isn't something most Australians are concerned about. He has clearly not been listening.

Howard didn't seem to understand that Rudd had not accused Australians of being selfish, simply that the prime minister had transformed the country in a way that encouraged Australians to shift away from "a fair go for all" to looking after number one with increasing priority.

Howard quoted Rudd's bruising accusation as though he believed most Australians would think the argument, like he did, to be completely baseless. Howard tried to make a joke of it, but he botched it.

For a prime minister to be accused of doing anything that was "...to the detriment of the common good..." is bad news. To remind people of it yourself is worse. Howard still seems to believe that Australians view him as a trustworthy bloke who would not, could not, do anything that would be "...to the detriment of the common good..."

Is that it? Howard asked.

Most Australians would say, "Isn't that enough?"


From 'The Australian' :

Labor's new leadership team hit back last night. Deputy leader Julia Gillard said Mr Howard's attack proved his "best days (are) behind him".

And she said Mr Howard, who is seeking a fifth term in office, was "clearly rattled" by Mr Rudd's solid start and Labor's rise in public support.

"Australians aren't going to give him a tick for making shallow criticisms of the Opposition Leader."

Rudd wasn't stupid enough to fall into Howard's trap. Howard wants Rudd to react emotionally. He wants and needs Rudd to hit back with a Latham-like fury. People want to know if behind the Rudd visage of a small town pharmacist there dwells a seriously angry man.

If Howard can crack Rudd and make him unleash some verbal flame, Howard can then grind on for all of 2007 about Rudd's problems with anger, knowing that if he can only make the claim enough times, he can probably make it stick.

But Rudd won't bite back. If he doesn't know every detail of Howard's catalogue of political weapons of character destruction then he shouldn't be leading the Labor Party.

It's not Rudd's job now to be the master blaster.

This is the job of Julia Gillard.

'his best years are behind him'

She's been using the line for weeks, but it's been effective in making Howard appear older, and more frail, that he actually is.

Whether he does it now or in 2007, Howard will use Gillard's claim that his best years are behind him to build an image of a Labor Party that thinks anyone over 60 is over and done with.
We will see Howard play his remarkably synthetic Mock Outrage character, when he speaks in a low, quiet voice, sounding hurt, with slightly moist eyes about how unfair Rudd and Gillard will be towards the millions of baby boomers, like him, who will heading into retirement.

Well, some will be heading into retirement earlier than the rest. It is unlikely Howard will be putting in long hours when those boomers he will now try and champion are celebrating their 75th birthday in the middle of a busy work wee.

It will be extraordinary if Rudd and Gillard allow Howard to auto-reply he will stay prime minister as long as the Liberal Party wants him to be.

He must be held to commit to serving a full term as prime minister, regardless of what the party may, or may not, want in the next few years.

They can hammer the realistic scenario that Howard will handover power to some lesser mortal if he wins the election before kicking back in the United States, taking time to reflect on past 'glories' with old mates Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.

There must be a Rudd Vs Howard live debate. Not a staged, tightly controlled in-the-studio television production, but a live debate in a public space, where the time normally filled by questions from journalists can come from the floor, unscreened.

We are in a time of war, as Howard, Blair and Bush continually remind us. If that is so, then we need a war-time leader. Someone who can face the public, and can honestly answer real questions about the reality that lies outside the bubble of federal politics.

MORE TO COME

HOWARD & CO. NERVOUS AS THEY FACE NEW, YOUTHFUL LABOR PARTY LEADERSHIP

RUDD & GILLARD HEAD INTO 2007 ELECTION AS HOWARD BEATERS

The Australian Labor Party has a new leadership, and it's one that has a good shot at knocking the Howard government out of office after more than a decade.

Polls today reveal that the Labor Party has stormed ahead of the Liberal Party as the preferred government. The foul corruption of the AWB scandal and the calvacade of outright lies and distortions that fuelled Australia's involvement in the 'War On Iraq' are clearly taking hold of Australia's conscience.

Kevin Rudd & Julia Gillard are being hyped by Labor's spin machine as "youthful" "energetic" and "fresh". It's a positive change from The Fear surrounding terrorism pushed by the warpig conservatives.

Howard's notoriously negative media machine will hit back hard at Rudd & Gillard claiming they are inexperienced, that the Labor Party is split over the new leadership and that the radical Left has quietly gained control of Opposition.

The problem for Howard & Co is that most Australian voters appear to think that Rudd & Gillard are winners regardless.

It's not been a good year for the Howard Government.

Even though they were cleared, by proxy, of criminal neglect over their failure to notice that the Australian Wheat Board had been packing suitcases full of cash off to Saddam Hussein's regime for years, the stench of corruption has been hard to disperse.

Meanwhile, back in Iraq, events on the ground have grown only more bloody and brutal, with the body count of the civilians the war was meant to liberate growing each and every week since mid-year.

Prime Minister John Howard and his government have been failing to gain ground in more than a year's worth of polls, on the back of the horrific failure to calm down post-war Iraq, incredibly controversial reforms to the working lives of most Australians and Howard's failure to notice, or blind disregard towards, the worst corruption scandal in Australia's history as the AWB kickbacked $280 million to Saddam and his cronies, even though the United Nations, American senators, Australian soldiers and the New York Times knew what was going on.

More than 88 percent of all Australians now believe that Howard & Co lied about whether or not they knew an Australian company was bribing the genocidal Hussein regime, even as Australian troops went into Iraq to remove him from power.

According to new polls, today's elected leader of the Labor Party, Kevin Rudd, and deputy leader, Julia Gillard, have the makings of an election winning team. And by a substantial margin.

Propelling former Midnight Oil frontman, Peter Garrett, to head the Labor Party's environment and anti-global warming portfolio will only add to the opposition party's popularity.

But there is a deeper, more essential groundswell developing which centres around the immediate future of Australia as it finds its place in a world where the power and influence of the United States is crashing and burning, and China and Indonesia are soaring.

It is in China, and South East Asia, that Kevin Rudd has a handful of winning cards.

John Howard is tolerated by Chinese and South East Asian leaders, they don't particularly like him, nor do they respect him, but Australia has what they want - plenty of coal, good universities and, in the future, more uranium mines to fire their nuclear reactors.

But Howard's Foreign Affairs minister, Alexander Downer, is despised across the region, viewed generally as a wuss, an arrogant remnant of the colonial past and a flat-out liar.

Rudd & Gillard, meanwhile, have found their profiles rising steadily in China and SE Asia over the past few years, where they are generally viewed as positives for Australia's future, and do not have the stigma of being seen as closely aligned to the Bush's America as Howard & Co.

This perception will no doubt work to their advantage with Australian voters as well, where anti-Bushism is spreading like wildfire as every week brings new revelations of the lies that led to war and the shocking corruption and death tolls that have since followed.

China, Indonesia and South East Asia in general is waiting for Australia to sweep away the heavy arm of the United States from its shoulder and embrace its place in the world's new power centre.

Kevin Rudd as leader of the Opposition will be able to repair some of the damage done to Australia's image amongst our Asian neighbours by our involvement in the Iraq War, the sickening, brutal spectacle of the Cronulla Riots and the heavy-handed face smacking Australia has been dealing out to East Timor, the Solomon Islands and Fiji ; all countries where China is building new industry, new business and new influence at a rate that we can only gape at, dumbfounded.

However, it remains to be seen exactly what Rudd & Gillard, and Peter Garrett, are planning to do to transform Australia in the years ahead (should they win power). For now the talk of "fresh", "new" and "energetic" will buy some time, but not much.

Australians are growing increasingly nervous about their workplace futures, the effects of global warming, how the 'War On Iraq' will end, the monstrous drought and looming water and food shortages.

Rudd & Gillard have been given a vaulting shot at positive change and transformation, but Australians will only be so patient.

Now they have to deliver.


Meanwhile, ousted Opposition leader Kim Beazley was surprisingly chipper in his goodbye as leader. As sad as he may have been to not lead Labor into the next election, it was hard for him to hide the relief that he did not have to play the shallow, gut-knotting game of Liberal-centric politics for much longer.

In an emotional farewell, Beazley thanked his wife and family and then paused for almost ten seconds as he struggled to hold back sobs. Shortly after the vote that ended his career, Beazley was told his brother had died of a suspected heart attack.

Taking questions, Beazley was asked if he had any regrets after his long career in politics.

Beazley laughed, seemingly dumbstruck by the question.

"Regrets after 25 years in politics? Only about 4322 of them!"

Where that figure comes from, who knows?

For Beazley, retirement is set to be sweet. He can look forward to some choice defence industry board roles, and kicking back in Perth, the new boom city. It's been some hard-mucking years for Beazley (before and after his short break a few years back). He picked up the pieces after the Keating government's hammering at the 1996 election when John Howard was swept to power, and he was back mopping up the mess again after Mark Latham failed to oust Howard at the 2004 elections.

For now, at least as far as the message and comment boards go on Australia's major media websites, there is an overwhelming feeling of excitement and expectation at the Rudd & Gillard leadership of the Opposition, and their chances of winning the 2007 federal election.


More from Tim Dunlop's Blogogracy

Kim Beazley's Black Monday - Loses Leadership And His Brother

Australia's Labor Party Elects New Leader

Liberal Party Name Calling : Gillard & Rudd Are 'Mongoose And The Cobra'