For those in the UK that aren't keeping an eye on Australian politics, there's a new prime minister and an election on over here. It's been a politically interesting last few months.
Setting the scene the previous prime minister (Kevin Rudd) was voted in in 2007 as head of the Australian Labour Party - it was a landslide vote that trumped John Howard and the conservative Liberal Coalition party in a way that was very similar to Blair's election in '97. All was going relatively smoothly (with the inevitable minor upheavals) until the ALP attempted to tackle the mining industry. Mining is HUGE business over here and one of the things that allowed Australia to weather the global financial crisis, and Rudd made the mistake of suggesting that a larger proportion of the profits made by digging out large chunks of the Australian landscape and selling them on to China should be passed on the Australian people. It was an interesting scheme - the increased taxes were on profit not income, so smaller Australian operations could be encouraged to take a risk knowing that if they didn't make any money they government would also take a 40% chunk of their losses - but it was a very bad fight to pick.
The big mining companies reacted with outrage. Presumably the billionaire board members were under the hammer - perhaps a youngest daughter wouldn't accept a used Ferarri as her second car, possibly the cost of Polynesian islands was on the up or it may have been as simple as an anticipated spike in the cost of truffles & foie gras. Whatever the reason they came out swinging with a $100,000,000 campaign against the ALP. Rudd stood firm but because the ALP had been in power for three years an election was looming and from what I can see the powerbrokers behind the scenes of the ALP blinked first. A leadership challenge quickly eventuated as one of Rudds greatest supporters, Julia Gillard, broke ranks and made a bid for the top dog position.
It was all over in a day or two. Rudd realised that the party was against him and handed over the mantle of leadership with grace and a tear or two. Gillard re-sheathed the knife & took the helm promising a brave new world for Australia. As an unmarried atheist woman choosing to live with her partner and not have children she could possibly bring a new approach to governance, and as a welsh-born red-head she certainly brings a whole new gamut of jokes to the party. However after living through Thatcher raping & butchering the industrial heartland of the UK to provide economic snuff movies for London bankers I realise that the concept of 'a womans touch' in politics is as irrelevant as it is patronising.
The first thing that Gillard did was to 'negotiate' with the mining companies. She agreed on a deal that would give them back $1.5 billion dollars of potential taxation if they stopped running the negative ad campaign. That's $1.5 billion dollars that has been taken back from the Australian people and pumped into the coffers of some of the most profitable multi-nationals on earth to give them the privelage of strip-mining the Australian wilderness. I guess the price of power is never cheap but Julia was prepared to spend a lot of taxpayers money to stop the miners saying nasty things about her. At least we can sleep soundly in our beds knowing that Isabella has both a prancing horse and a new car smell in her city runabout, that truffle pigs will be sniffing with their noses on the grindstone and that French geese will be tucking into full nose-bags with only a slight suspicion of what is to come.
Her second move has been to declare that she has negotiated a solution to the problem of handling refugees & boat people with East Timor. Unfortunately she seems to take a more colonial view of 'negotiation' than the parliment of East Timor, who rejected the suggestion out of hand.
An election date of 21st August has now been announced. Unfortunately my citizenship only comes into effect on 28th July, which means that I become Australian about a week too late to take part in this election. Still, since I'm not on the board of a multi-national mining company I guess that I will have as much say as any other Australian over who runs the country.
Setting the scene the previous prime minister (Kevin Rudd) was voted in in 2007 as head of the Australian Labour Party - it was a landslide vote that trumped John Howard and the conservative Liberal Coalition party in a way that was very similar to Blair's election in '97. All was going relatively smoothly (with the inevitable minor upheavals) until the ALP attempted to tackle the mining industry. Mining is HUGE business over here and one of the things that allowed Australia to weather the global financial crisis, and Rudd made the mistake of suggesting that a larger proportion of the profits made by digging out large chunks of the Australian landscape and selling them on to China should be passed on the Australian people. It was an interesting scheme - the increased taxes were on profit not income, so smaller Australian operations could be encouraged to take a risk knowing that if they didn't make any money they government would also take a 40% chunk of their losses - but it was a very bad fight to pick.
The big mining companies reacted with outrage. Presumably the billionaire board members were under the hammer - perhaps a youngest daughter wouldn't accept a used Ferarri as her second car, possibly the cost of Polynesian islands was on the up or it may have been as simple as an anticipated spike in the cost of truffles & foie gras. Whatever the reason they came out swinging with a $100,000,000 campaign against the ALP. Rudd stood firm but because the ALP had been in power for three years an election was looming and from what I can see the powerbrokers behind the scenes of the ALP blinked first. A leadership challenge quickly eventuated as one of Rudds greatest supporters, Julia Gillard, broke ranks and made a bid for the top dog position.
It was all over in a day or two. Rudd realised that the party was against him and handed over the mantle of leadership with grace and a tear or two. Gillard re-sheathed the knife & took the helm promising a brave new world for Australia. As an unmarried atheist woman choosing to live with her partner and not have children she could possibly bring a new approach to governance, and as a welsh-born red-head she certainly brings a whole new gamut of jokes to the party. However after living through Thatcher raping & butchering the industrial heartland of the UK to provide economic snuff movies for London bankers I realise that the concept of 'a womans touch' in politics is as irrelevant as it is patronising.
The first thing that Gillard did was to 'negotiate' with the mining companies. She agreed on a deal that would give them back $1.5 billion dollars of potential taxation if they stopped running the negative ad campaign. That's $1.5 billion dollars that has been taken back from the Australian people and pumped into the coffers of some of the most profitable multi-nationals on earth to give them the privelage of strip-mining the Australian wilderness. I guess the price of power is never cheap but Julia was prepared to spend a lot of taxpayers money to stop the miners saying nasty things about her. At least we can sleep soundly in our beds knowing that Isabella has both a prancing horse and a new car smell in her city runabout, that truffle pigs will be sniffing with their noses on the grindstone and that French geese will be tucking into full nose-bags with only a slight suspicion of what is to come.
Her second move has been to declare that she has negotiated a solution to the problem of handling refugees & boat people with East Timor. Unfortunately she seems to take a more colonial view of 'negotiation' than the parliment of East Timor, who rejected the suggestion out of hand.
An election date of 21st August has now been announced. Unfortunately my citizenship only comes into effect on 28th July, which means that I become Australian about a week too late to take part in this election. Still, since I'm not on the board of a multi-national mining company I guess that I will have as much say as any other Australian over who runs the country.
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