Re: [-empyre-] conservatives relected in australia

[Henry Warwick <henry.warwick@sbcglobal.net>]

The Voices in my Head tell me that on 10/9/04 8:34 PM, Melinda Rackham at
melinda@subtle.net wrote:

> one result for one of those 54 democratic elections held around the world
> this month..
> 
<snip>

Sad, innit?

I wrote a very good friend of mine (American ex-pat) in Sydney about this,
and his response, which I found interesting, follows, with personal info
edited out:

Hi Henry-


>I thought he was going down.

That's what the polls showed six weeks to a month ago.  They have been
closing, and showed the Liberals winning by the end.  And they did.

>You're there - what happened?

This country collectively decided that they want more of the same.  In
order to take government, Labor had to win 13 seats from the coalition.
Instead they lost a few.  The whole country showed a swing to the
Liberals in the primary vote, not just after preferences.  Idiots.

The war was simply not  seen as an issue at all.  It was all domestic
policies, principally economics, as most elections everywhere are.  The
economy is strong right now, much stronger in relative terms than the US
economy, and the Liberals of course take credit for it and managed to
whip up fear of Labor causing high interest rates and higher taxes.
Labor came out with some progressive but flawed policies.  The government
found the flaws and exploited them to the full.  For example, Labor's tax
policy, which attempted to provide some relief for the middle class and
incentives for job creation, ended up taking money _away_ from a single
mother in the lowest bracket.  The liberals jumped on that and hammered
away at it.  Made Labor look like rank amateurs, with some reason.  The
fact that that very single mother is significantly worse off today than
when these creeps took power and proceeded to gut public funding for
child care is seen as ancient history which doesn't seem to get through.

Let's hope things go better in the USA on Nov. 2.  I've already sent in
my absentee vote.