A look at Australia, where despite a strong record in governance, Prime Minister of eleven years John Howard was voted out of office. His replacement is Labour Party leader Kevin Rudd, a former diplomat who has promised policy change on the environment and Iraq while pledging continued stability in the economy.
John Howard, such a familiar face and distinctive character among world leaders, has misjudged the Australian electorate for the final time and must now pack his bags for home. He lost not only the country, but also, rather pitifully, his own seat of Bennelong in Sydney in an election where his Liberal Party garnered only 36% of the votes to Labour’s 44%.
Hoping to seal his fifth consecutive election victory, Mr Howard was in fact trailing in a hard-fought election campaign when, at the last, fatal scandal engulfed his Liberal Party. In the days prior to voting, Liberal Party activists were discovered to have distributed leaflets in the marginal constituency of Lyndsay, Sydney, purportedly from an Islamic terrorist group thanking Mr Rudd’s Labour Party for its sympathy with the Bali bombers. Despite assertions from Mr Howard - “It was not authorised by the Liberal Party, it is no part of our campaign” - the move was perceived by many Australians as sleazy at a critical time in the election.
For the record, Mr Howard will be perceived as a strong Prime Minister who presided popularly over many notable successes. These include sustained economic growth, the phenomenal Sydney 2000 Olympics and the widely applauded intervention force sent to East Timor to stop widespread looting and violence by pro-Indonesian militias.
The former Prime Minister, famous for his love of cricket, endeared himself to many Australians with his common touch and conviction leadership. The man who stopped the Australian cricket team traveling to Zimbabwe, calling President Robert Mugabe “this grubby dictator,” openly weeped on television when speaking about the death of Australian TV personality and Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin earlier this year.
But John Howard’s vision was conservative, sometimes controversial and it is now clear that he outstayed his political welcome. Mr Howard had refused to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol, arguing as does the United States, that the economy should not be sacrificed when major polluters such as China and India are not subject to the treaty. Like his political contemporary Tony Blair, John Howard provided staunch allegiance to the Americans when they requested it on the Iraq incursion, now considered so disastrous and morally bankrupt. On aboriginal rights Mr Howard showed little enthusiasm during his years in office, stating that a full apology for past treatment by white settlers would “only reinforce a culture of victimhood and take us backwards.”
His successor, newly sworn-in Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, seems to have wasted no time in breaking from the old. He has promised to withdraw the Australian contingent of 550 combat troops from Iraq by the middle of next year. He has also promised an apology to Aboriginal groups, and within days of his appointment, Australia agreed to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol, leaving the Americans as the only developed nation outside of the pact.
Mr Rudd’s new cabinet includes Julia Gillard as first ever female deputy PM, and Penny Wong, Australia’s first Asian-born minister. Peter Garrett, former lead singer for rock group Midnight Oil becomes environment, heritage and arts minister. Mr Rudd has called this a rejuvenated government that will bring fresh ideas to the country.
In the wider world, the political landscape is on the brink of important change at the end of 2007. With conservative stalwarts such as John Howard and US President George W Bush ultimately rejected in the court of public opinion, people are now searching for new ideas on Iraq and climate change in particular. And whereas Tony Blair somehow managed to escape a very public downfall, his heir Gordon Brown may not. In many ways the British PM is seen as the architect of the Blair years, and currently finds himself knee deep in scandal with accusations of mismanagement seeming to stick. It entirely possible that Brown, like Howard and Bush, will be seen as a relic of the past and rejected by an electorate clamouring for a change in direction.
