Australians are upside down. The bad guys are called the Liberal Party, which can be a bit confusing. The good guys are the Australian Labor Party (ALP), and they’ve been out of power for eleven years. But, no more. The Australians went to the polls yesterday, and the ALP needed 16 seats to take control of the government. They gained at least 24. Most projections had them picking up about 20 seats, so the victory was larger than expected. I watched the returns come in in the middle of the night. It was immensely enjoyable to watch the SkyNews lackeys report on the total destruction of their reactionary ruling majority. They became more and more despondent as the night wore on.
The results are a huge blow to the Bush administration. Losing Tony Blair was bad enough, but John Howard didn’t just lose the prime ministership, he lost his own seat to an up and coming woman, named Maxine McKew (results).
The new prime minister will be Kevin Rudd. You can see him in action here, defending the honor of the American Democratic Party and Barack Obama.
It looks like the Australian Senate is deadlocked at 38-38, but that is a much better result than expected.
We shouldn’t think that these election results are primarily about Iraq. But there is no question that John Howard suffered from his decision to be Bush’s lapdog. When we swear in a Democratic president in 2009, they will have a friendly government down under ready to work with us.
It’s great news. The coalition of the defeated continues to grow.
