:: Australia elections go the way of Great Britain, Italy and Spain: defeated by Bush's war, Al Gore, and Climate Change ::

In the greatest defeat in Australian history (well damned close), “the man of steel” and one of Bush’s greatest allies in his war farce, John Howard turns over the reins to Labor Progressive Kevin Rudd. I bet my friend Kryten is happy!

This weekend, Australians went to the polls and delivered an emphatic victory for Labor leader Kevin Rudd, while handing the party of conservative Bush ally John Howard its “worst election defeat in its 63-year history.” Howard “suffered the additional ignominy of losing his own constituency seat” in addition to the prime minister’s seat, the first time since 1929 that an Australian prime minister has been voted out of parliament. Rudd, a Chinese-speaking former diplomat who made combating global warming, strengthening workers’ rights, and redeploying from Iraq key priorities in his campaign, ”swings Australia toward the political left after almost 12 years of conservative rule.” The incoming prime minister has wasted no time implementing his new vision for Australia. Yesterday, he convened a meeting with government officials to discuss the mechanics of signing onto the Kyoto pact on global warming, and he announced that he will attend a U.N. climate change conference in Bali next month. Rudd soon plans to begin negotiations with the Bush administration over the withdrawal of Australia’s 500 troops from Iraq. “Today Australia looks to the future,” Rudd said. “Today the Australian people have decided that we as a nation will move forward.”

… More than 60 percent of Australians want forces out of Iraq within a year, and Rudd pledged that Australian troops would leave by mid-2008 after consultations with the United States and the United Kingdom. Analysts noted that Bush “was a little more isolated in the world Sunday” after the loss of his close Australian ally.

I love this guy and know zero about him, other than the above. Interestingly enough, a magnificent Al Gore went to the White House as the Nobel Peace Prize winner (a hell of a rematch) for An Inconvenient Truth and chatted with Bush regarding, wait for it…… Climate Change! I suspect it went in one ear and out the other. With his other, powerful, naysayer pal Howard out of the way and Rudd’s intent to sign the Kyoto Accord, I hope this will now put more pressure on the U.S. to buck up and get on the train or get left behind.

CLIMATE CHANGE DENIAL LOSING STEAM: For many years, Howard was one of the world’s foremost climate deniers, tag-teaming with the Bush administration to remain the only major industrialized nations to stay out of the international agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Until a few months ago when Howard moderated his climate change rhetoric for political reason, he and his ministers frequently “pooh-poohed the climate-change doomsayers.” When former vice president Al Gore traveled to Australia in September to deliver a speech on the climate crisis, Howard prohibited his party members from attending the event. With Australia mired in the midst of the worst drought the country has faced in a thousand years, Howard’s climate change denial put him in a political position isolated from his countrymen. The majority of Australians viewed climate change as the number one external threat to the country, and Rudd delivered what Australia wanted to hear. “I am determined to make Australia part of the global climate change solution — not just part of the global climate change problem,” Rudd said during his campaign.

Life is grand when it backfires on nasty people and gives the good people their due.

tag: gore, udd, howard, bush, labor, preogressive, election, nobel peace prize, kyoto accord, australia, climate change, iraq, war, peace