Labor Party wins in Australia
After 11 years in power, Australian prime-minister John Howard was turfed from power today and even lost his own seat. This was no surprise since despite the strong economy in Australia, people generally in most countries tend to turf a party after they've been in power too long. After all, the Liberals lost here in Canada on their fifth try and likewise the NDP in Saskatchewan also lost on their fifth time as well. In fact both Saskatchewan and Australia had a strong economy, which usually means the government is re-elected, but the public still felt it was time for change.
In terms of international relations, I definitely see this as a positive step as Kevin Rudd believes in good relationships with the United States, but not blindly following them on every issue like Howard did. He has promised to ratify Kyoto Protocol, which means Harper and Bush will be virtually alone in the developed world on the issue of climate change. He did oppose the War in Iraq and I hope he does pull Australia out as soon as possible. In fact, if he pulls the troops out of Iraq, this would free up more to go to Afghanistan, which he supports, and therefore we could use some of the Australian troops as replacements for Canada. On domestic policy though, I am a little less sure of whether this is a good thing or not. As a Canadian I am glad to see Howard turfed from office, but if I were an Australian I would have had to look a little more closely at each parties' respective platform before deciding how to vote. If the Labor Party is a moderate centrist party like the Liberals in Canada are, they would have gotten my vote. But if they are a socialist party like the NDP, I would have reluctantly voted for Howard, since as much as I dislike conservatism, I dislike socialism even more. I've witnessed a socialist government for ten years in BC and I can say that they were far worse than anything the Conservatives have done. Thankfully, federally those who don't like socialism or conservatism have another alternative. I generally agree with Howard on economic policy as I am very pro free enterprise and right of centre on economic policy. However, on pretty much every other issue, I disagree with him since I am generally left of centre on non-economic issues.
I wonder how Harper feels now that he has just lost a soulmate. After all, he has very few soulmates left since most centre-right governments in Europe tend to be more like the right wing of the Liberals as opposed to the Conservatives. Sarkosky is perhaps the only ally he might have, but even he supports Kyoto and opposed the Iraq War unlike Harper.
In terms of international relations, I definitely see this as a positive step as Kevin Rudd believes in good relationships with the United States, but not blindly following them on every issue like Howard did. He has promised to ratify Kyoto Protocol, which means Harper and Bush will be virtually alone in the developed world on the issue of climate change. He did oppose the War in Iraq and I hope he does pull Australia out as soon as possible. In fact, if he pulls the troops out of Iraq, this would free up more to go to Afghanistan, which he supports, and therefore we could use some of the Australian troops as replacements for Canada. On domestic policy though, I am a little less sure of whether this is a good thing or not. As a Canadian I am glad to see Howard turfed from office, but if I were an Australian I would have had to look a little more closely at each parties' respective platform before deciding how to vote. If the Labor Party is a moderate centrist party like the Liberals in Canada are, they would have gotten my vote. But if they are a socialist party like the NDP, I would have reluctantly voted for Howard, since as much as I dislike conservatism, I dislike socialism even more. I've witnessed a socialist government for ten years in BC and I can say that they were far worse than anything the Conservatives have done. Thankfully, federally those who don't like socialism or conservatism have another alternative. I generally agree with Howard on economic policy as I am very pro free enterprise and right of centre on economic policy. However, on pretty much every other issue, I disagree with him since I am generally left of centre on non-economic issues.
I wonder how Harper feels now that he has just lost a soulmate. After all, he has very few soulmates left since most centre-right governments in Europe tend to be more like the right wing of the Liberals as opposed to the Conservatives. Sarkosky is perhaps the only ally he might have, but even he supports Kyoto and opposed the Iraq War unlike Harper.
posted by Monkey Loves to Fight at 11:28 AM
11 Comments:
The Australian Labor Party tends to be centre-left on economic issues, centre-right on social issues (won't bring in gay marriage, for instance) and centrist on foreign policy.
Miles,
There are other allies for Harper. He gets along well with Merkel, Balkenende, and should have no problem with Rasmussen of Denmark.
Anon 12:52
Depends on who is leader. Hawke, Rudd, and Keating are from the right of the party as compared to Crean, Latham, and Whitlam.
Mushroom, if what you say is correct on the Labor Party than I guess I would have gone for it. As for Merkel, she seems a bit too centrist for Harper. She is pro-environment after all and never mind she has a coalition with the SPD which I doubt Harper could do. Rasmussen is hawkish on foreign policy, but he is pretty centrist on domestic policy, after all Denmark tends to be rather centre-left. I don't know much about Balkenende but I have a tough time believing some as right wing as Harper could win in a country as liberal as the Netherlands. The only issue that the Dutch are somewhat conservative on is immigration, but much of that stems from the fact most of the immigrants are coming from countries that are more conservative and the worry is that if they don't accept the more liberal approach in Holland, it could pull the country to the right. In fact all immigrants are shown a video with a person smoking a joint, two gay men kissing, and a topless woman and at the end it says if you cannot handle this, don't come here.
Anonymous - If that is the case, then that is not good as I am centre-left on social and foreign policy issues, but centre-right on economic issues. As for gay marriage, I should point out that only the NDP was actually for it prior to the court rulings. I hope I am wrong, but I somehow suspect we wouldn't have gay marriage today had it not been for the court rulings.
Miles,
Merkel will probably be a different leader next time when she forms a coalition with the Free Dems. Much more like Harper. Of course, the SPD may become irrelevant given the unpopularity of Agenda 20/20 among the party cadres.
Rasmussen is dependent on the Danish People's Party for confidence measures. I've blogged about them, they are a nasty piece of work. Same with Balkenende in his first administration.
This is Harper's paradox. Someone who is generally liberal on economic issues and immigration, hawkish foreign policy, and relatively conservative on social issues. All his colleagues from the centre right are interventionist on economic issues, hawkish on immigration, centrist on foreign policy, and liberal on social issues.
Certainly Rasmussen may have had to move to the right at times and the same with Belkenende although I have a tough time imagining either could be re-elected in both countries being as right as Harper considering how liberal the Netherlands is and the fact Denmark tends to be one of the more socialistic countries in Europe.
In the case of Angela Merkel, she might be more right on economic issues as the FDP is right wing there, but left of centre on social issues and foreign policy. In addition Southern Germany is really the only truly conservative part of the country and that tends to be more on social issues as opposed to economic.
In Europe, most Europeans generally support an interventionist role in the economy so with the exception of Margaret Thatcher, most centre-right leaders will be interventionist to some degree. Even Sarkosky is only talking about rolling back the excesses of the state. When he leaves power, the French state will still probably take up a larger chunk of the GDP than the state does in Canada.
On immigration, that is not just a left vs. right, but also somewhat a cultural thing. Europe doesn't have a history of immigration until recently and since citizenship is granted on the principle of jus sanguinis as opposed to jus soli in most countries, many of those with immigrant parents and even grand-parents are not citizens in their country so they cannot vote. Here in Canada, we are a nation of immigrants, so even if born here the majority of us probably have at least one great-grand parent if not grand-parent who was an immigrant. And since we use jus soli for granting citizenship anyone born Canada regardless of the citizenship of their parents can vote, never mind the fact most immigrants in Canada are citizens whereas most in Europe are not.
On foreign policy, a lot are hawkish which I find somewhat puzzling, however, since Europeans have seen war first hand, there is generally a strong reluctance to go to war. I find the Eastern European governments tend to be more pro-American and hawkish than the Western European ones.
On social issues, Europe tends to be socially liberal, but they do have many pockets that are socially conservative, although with the exception of a few countries such as Ireland and Poland, the non-religious population and athiest population is generally higher than Canada.
As for Harper he is generally pro free enterprise, but will support intervention if it will help buy him votes. On immigration he is mostly liberal there because the immigrant vote is too large a demographic to ignore as I explained above whereas in Europe, most aren't citizens so they can ignore them.
The 6 main parties in Australia and their general alignments:
Australian Democrats - Fiscally centrist, socially left, foreign policy centrist
Australian Greens - Fiscally centre-left, socially centre-left, foreign policy left
Australian Labor Party - Fiscally centre-left, socially centre-right, foreign policy centrist
Australian Liberal Party - Fiscally right, socially centre-right, foreign policy right
Family First Party - Fiscally centrist, socially hard right, foreign policy centrist
National Party - Fiscally centre-right, socially right, foreign policy right
Anonymous - I guess the Australian Democrats would be closest to my views, although mine don't match any of them. I am fiscally centre-right, socially left, foreign policy centre-left. Heck even here Canada no party really matches that as the Liberals are fiscally centrist, socially centre-left, and foreign policy centrist. While the Tories are centre-right on all three. The Old PCs I guess were the closest since they were fiscally centre-right, centrist on both social and foreign policy issues.
I'd say our parties are:
LIBERALS:
Fiscally centrist
Socially centre-left
Foreign policy centre-left
CONSERVATIVES:
Fiscally centre-right
Socially centre-right
Foreign policy centre-right
NDP:
Fiscally centre-left
Socially left
Foreign policy left
GREENS:
Fiscally centre-right
Socially centre-left
Foreign policy left
As for the old conservative parties, it depends on factions. The more Blue Tory PCs would conform with Conservative ideals, while Red Tories would be centre-left on both foreign and social policy.
And personally, I guess I would be fiscally centre-right, socially centre-left, and foreign policy centre-right.
BC Tory - For the most part I would say your descriptions are accurate. The Liberals are I guess fiscally centrist, although they were fiscally centre-left under Trudeau while fiscally centre-right under Chretien. As for the old Progressive Conservatives, it is true the Blue Tory faction was more to the right than the Red Tory faction, but the leadership of the party pretty much always came from the Red Tory faction. I should note too that the Liberals in the 90s had a strong social conservative element in their party and the only reason there are few left is most came from rural ridings in Ontario which have since gone over to the Tories.
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