>So now that most workers know to believe the opposite of what he says,
>ya'll should be able to defeat the right, correct?
>> The lies are all pretty sickening. One thing that many, maybe even most
>> Australian workers know now: if Howard says X is happening, you'd best
> > undersand that as meaning that notX is happening.
Mike B lives in Western Australia, which is further removed from Australia proper (and everywhere else in the known world) even than Tasmania. So his prediction of how Australians will vote at this year's election is not entirely reliable.
But the thing is, just because most (if not all) Australians think John Howard is a lying rodent (and they do) doesn't necessarily mean enough will vote against him. The impression I get is that most people would dearly like to get rid of the rodent and have felt like that since even before the previous election. But the problem is a fear that the alternative might be even worse.
At the last election the other option was a joker by the name of Mark Latham. Famous for declaring that Howard's election eve bribe of $600 cash per dependent child (per annum) "isn't real". This despite the fact that the cold hard cash was staring up at Australian mothers from their bank statements even as he declared the money to be a fiction.
Voters found Latham to be a bit of a worry. Sometimes he could be quite entertaining as well of course, like his undiplomatic language about a "congo-line of suck-holes" and his frank assessment of GW Bush's intelligence. Great fun. But in the end, Australia is a small and weak nation, which can't really afford to elect political flakes. You Yanks can get away with that sort of thing, or at least you obviously think you can. Australians are a tad more realistic about the leeway they have, they seem to have baulked at Latham.
The other option this time is Phillip Rudd. He's polling extremely well so far, Howard hasn't been able to lay a glove on him. But frankly, there seems to be a hint of doubt there as well.
Rudd is not at all like Latham mind you. He seems a bit flakey as well, though his flakiness is at the other extreme of the spectrum. Whereas Latham was the kind of loose cannon that you never knew when it might blow up in your face, Rudd is a caricature of the prim and anal.
For example he recently demanded that the Australian Labor Party expel a Western Autralian union organiser for the offense of swearing on a building site. I kid you not. A few days earlier he demanded the resignation of another union organiser and sent back political donation from that union, after a video surfaced of the organiser swearing at a union meeting and bragging about bluffing a boss into paying a higher than necessary wage rise to the union's members.
Basically, the concern people that is starting to arise with Rudd is that the standards he is claiming to stand for are preposterously high, or just simply preposterous. This can't be for real they think. Please, let them not be for real, because that would be even worse. "Get real, please, don't make us vote for that lying rodent again, he turns our stomachs."
But its just possible Rudd might be for real. He does come from Queensland, after all. Steve Irwin came from Queensland too, remember? Australians didn't think he could be for real at first either. But it gradually dawned on us that his was no act, he was actually for real.
Hopefully, that won't turn out to be the case with Rudd. He's just pretending to be completely anal because that's what he thinks a Prime Ministerial aspirant is supposed to be like. If Australians can be reassured about that, Howard is doomed.
That's only my opinion though.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas