Tuesday, October 05, 2004
It's - Time to Go John!
Since I have a few blog readers from the USA, I thought you might be interested in our political process. Over here in the land down under, we are struggling with very similar issues to those in the USA. We have an election coming up this year too; in fact, it's happening next Saturday.
With our election system, we don't vote for a president or in our case prime minister, we vote for his party, which means he will lead the Australian government. At the same time, we vote for our senate.
We have two major parties (like you). Ours are called the Liberal/National Party (conservative) and Labor (supposedly the party of the workers/ social conscience but in reality, only marginally dissimilar to the conservatives). There are several minor parties that will take senate seats and perhaps one or two lower house seats, the Greens (as the name suggests) are the most potent of these, followed by the Democrats (environmentalists-social conscience).
The issues the major parties have been pushing are: Liberals - who can you trust to be fiscally responsible to keep the budget in surplus and interest rates low, and national security (this party followed George W into Afghanistan and Iraq and has a very hard-line attitude to refugees). They have been in power for about 8 years and are led by our present prime minister, John Howard. Labor has a new, younger leader, Mark Latham. He is pushing education (public education funding has been sadly neglected under Liberal), Health (ditto) and trying to convince us he too is fiscally responsible. We've heard a lot from both parties about who you can trust.
Tonight I saw a film - a collage of 15 short films by Australian film-makers - entitled "Time to go John" that puts all the lies and antisocial attitudes of this man of the 50s into perspective in todays world.
...and for me, as I've said before on this blog, I'm not out to get the best pension deal, or cheaper child care, or pay a few dollars less in tax - I just can't forget that John Howard told us lies about refugees that played on people's insecurities and fears and used them to win the last election. I remember that 80% of the people in Australia didn't want to go to war in Iraq and marched across the country to get that point home - and he took us to war, allegedly because Saddam had WMD trained on the free world, when there was no credible intelligence to support that theory and now he conveniently forgets that and tells us it was to overthrow an evil dictator. Gee I bet the people of Iraq feel things have really improved now! And the families of the 1,000 US servicemen and women killed there - I bet their families feel real comfortable with that theory too. I can't forget that he has lifted not one finger to help the Australian citizens held without charges in a US military prison for years - not once has he asked his great mate George W to allow him to bring them home and deal with them here.
So, on Saturday, whether he is fiscally responsible or not, whether he has the experience he needs to stride the world stage, I'll be voting for Labor and Mark Latham because he is the only alternative we've got and ...It really is 'Time to Go John!'
Whichever leader or party we end up with, we'll always be great friends and allies of the USA - we share so many values in common - but we are an independent nation and should act on our own conscience when it comes to some things...and besides, I'm pretty sure the government led by George W doesn't represent the wishes and feelings of most Americans any more than little Johnny reflects ours.
With our election system, we don't vote for a president or in our case prime minister, we vote for his party, which means he will lead the Australian government. At the same time, we vote for our senate.
We have two major parties (like you). Ours are called the Liberal/National Party (conservative) and Labor (supposedly the party of the workers/ social conscience but in reality, only marginally dissimilar to the conservatives). There are several minor parties that will take senate seats and perhaps one or two lower house seats, the Greens (as the name suggests) are the most potent of these, followed by the Democrats (environmentalists-social conscience).
The issues the major parties have been pushing are: Liberals - who can you trust to be fiscally responsible to keep the budget in surplus and interest rates low, and national security (this party followed George W into Afghanistan and Iraq and has a very hard-line attitude to refugees). They have been in power for about 8 years and are led by our present prime minister, John Howard. Labor has a new, younger leader, Mark Latham. He is pushing education (public education funding has been sadly neglected under Liberal), Health (ditto) and trying to convince us he too is fiscally responsible. We've heard a lot from both parties about who you can trust.
Tonight I saw a film - a collage of 15 short films by Australian film-makers - entitled "Time to go John" that puts all the lies and antisocial attitudes of this man of the 50s into perspective in todays world.
...and for me, as I've said before on this blog, I'm not out to get the best pension deal, or cheaper child care, or pay a few dollars less in tax - I just can't forget that John Howard told us lies about refugees that played on people's insecurities and fears and used them to win the last election. I remember that 80% of the people in Australia didn't want to go to war in Iraq and marched across the country to get that point home - and he took us to war, allegedly because Saddam had WMD trained on the free world, when there was no credible intelligence to support that theory and now he conveniently forgets that and tells us it was to overthrow an evil dictator. Gee I bet the people of Iraq feel things have really improved now! And the families of the 1,000 US servicemen and women killed there - I bet their families feel real comfortable with that theory too. I can't forget that he has lifted not one finger to help the Australian citizens held without charges in a US military prison for years - not once has he asked his great mate George W to allow him to bring them home and deal with them here.
So, on Saturday, whether he is fiscally responsible or not, whether he has the experience he needs to stride the world stage, I'll be voting for Labor and Mark Latham because he is the only alternative we've got and ...It really is 'Time to Go John!'
Whichever leader or party we end up with, we'll always be great friends and allies of the USA - we share so many values in common - but we are an independent nation and should act on our own conscience when it comes to some things...and besides, I'm pretty sure the government led by George W doesn't represent the wishes and feelings of most Americans any more than little Johnny reflects ours.
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