Australia Thrashes Bush-ite Coalition: But What Next?
By Dr Gideon Polya
26 November, 2007
Countercurrents.orgAustralia voted in the 2007 Federal Elections on Saturday November 24, 2007. The result was a Labor party thrashing of the incumbent Bush-ite Coalition Government under the “Little Bush” John Howard, who is likely to lose his seat.
The principal opponents, the Major Parties, were the incumbent, Bush-ite, Liberal Party-National Party Coalition Government versus the timid, “me-too-but”, unprincipled, poll-driven Labor Party Opposition. On the side-lines were Minor Parties, most notably the highly principled, pro-Planet, Pro-Humanity, pro-Peace Australian Greens and the Australian Democrats. Labor has gained Government with a possible majority of 24 seats in the House of Representatives. The Australian Greens got an excellent vote of the order of 10%, are expected to make significant gains in the Senate and made a major contribution to Labor’s victory through its “preference voting” as explained below.
Australia’s voting system involves compulsory voting and there is a system of “preferential voting” – if your #1 choice fails to get 50% of the vote, your #2 preference is counted. Realistically, only the extreme right-wing Bush-ite Coalition or right-wing Labor could form the New Government. However Australia’s preferential voting system allowed people with a fine conscience about the Environment, the Planet, Peace, Planet and Human Rights to vote #1 Green and give their #2 preference to Labor ( cowardly and unprincipled but vastly better than the war criminal, climate criminal Bush-ite Coalition). When a Green candidate failed to get a majority in an electorate their votes were transferred to the #2 preference, who was typically the Labor Candidate.
Decent, anti-War, anti-greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution, anti-racism Australians could thus “have their cake and eat it too” – their #1 preference vote for the Greens and #2 for Labor effectively meant a #1 vote for Labor.
THE RESULT has been a crushing victory for the Australian Labor Party led by Kevin Rudd (see the reports in the leading Australian newspaper, The Age, : http://www.theage.com.au/news/federal-election-2007-news/historic-win-for-labor/2007/11/24/1195753376406.html ) . The key features of the election victory are as follows: Labor had a national swing of 5.7%; Labor will have a likely majority of 24 seats; ousted Prime Minister, staunch Bush ally John Howard, is trailing badly in the vote count for his OWN seat of Bennelong and may indeed lose his seat to former Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) journalist Maxine McKew; for the first time Labor now holds government in every state, territory AND at Commonwealth level; and for the first time a woman, Julia Gillard, will be Deputy Prime Minister of Australia.
Crucially, there was a roughly 10% vote for the Australian Greens (indeed many Labor candidates won because of Green preferences) and there may be much greater Green representation in the Australian Senate. However for the next 6 months the Senate will still be “hostile” to the new Labor Government. And, unfortunately, the very ethical and humanitarian Australian Democrats were demolished in this election.
Kevin Rudd deserves full praise for dispatching the horrible Coalition monster, for his political acumen involved in uniting the Labor Party, and for steering a very careful, conservative, “me-too-but” path to this great victory.
However, despite huge Australian opposition to war, greenhouse gas pollution and racism, it must be realized in the cold, hard, post-election light that the following dreadful realities will obtain under Labor, certainly for the short-term and variously for the long-term.
1. Labor voted for the suspension of the 1975 Racial Discimination Act in relation to Indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory (annual death rate 2.4% as compared to 2.5% for Australian sheep). Northern Territory Indigenous Australians will continue to die at roughly the same rate as SHEEP and be denied the right to buy, see, read, transport or consume all kinds of things available to Other Australians. Their land has been compulsorily seized and residents can be kicked out of home and community without recourse to the courts. Indigenous infants will continue to die at over 3 times the rate of White infants. Indigenous Australians, and most appallingly Indigenous Australian CHILDREN, will continue to be denied basic services taken for granted by White Australians. About 9,000 Indigenous Australians will probably continue to die avoidably each year under Labor as under the racist Bush-ite Coalition.
2. Labor will "negotiate with the US" before withdrawing from Occupied Iraq (post-invasion excess deaths 1.5-2.0 million; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths 0.6 million; 4 million refugees) i.e. our active complicity in the Iraqi Holocaust, the Iraqi Genocide will continue (see “Iraq: Genocide”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17066/42/ ).
3. Labor promised to INCREASE troops to Occupied Afghanistan (post-invasion excess deaths 3-6 million; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths 2.2 million; 3.7 million refugees) (see "State Terrorism": http://mwcnews.net/content/view/18122/42/ and http://www.countercurrents.org/polya081107.htm ) i.e. our complicity in the Afghan Holocaust, Afghan Genocide will continue.
4. Labor supports the Tasmanian Tamar Pulp Mill and massive destruction of Tasmanian forests.
5. Labor supports taxpayer funding of the child-abusing brainwashing of children in religious schools (Biblical literalism, anti-Science creationism, homophobia, opposition to safe sex, opposition to life-saving stem cell research).
6. Labor supports imprisonment of non-European refugees in the Indian Ocean island concentration camps (albeit not on Pacific Ocean islands);
7. Labor is committed to selling uranium to nuclear terrorism states (the US (and thence Apartheid Israel), UK, Russia, China, and France) and to supporting US nuclear terrorism (Australia has a key role in US nuclear terrorism-related spying, supplying, communications, bases and port facilities).
8. Labor is committed to coal exports (Australia is the world's #1 coal exporter) and its goal is a grossly insufficient 60% reduction in greenhouse gases (GHGs) by 2050 (Australia is one of the world's worst annual per capita GHG emitters) (see “SUMMARY of the Summary for Policymakers of the Synthesis Report of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4)”: http://green-blog.org/2007/11/21/summary-of-the-summary-of-the-2007-ipcc-ar4-synthesis-report/ ).
9. Labor will continue with egregious Anti-terrorism Laws that allow for imprisonment and interrogation without charge; imprisonment for 5 years for anyone publicly protesting such actions; and 15 years to possible life imprisonment as punishment, for example, to a Palestinian Australian who gives alms (zakkat) to a hospital in the Gaza Concentration Camp.
10. Labor will continue to allow Racist Zionist (RZ) terrorists and war criminals to come and go from Australia as they please and the financial support for war crimes by Apartheid Israel in gross violation of International law. Australia will continue to support Racist Zionist crimes against Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese, including such dual citizenship Australians or relatives of Australian citizens.
11. Labor will not uphold International Law in relation to gross violation by Australians of the Geneva, Rights of the Child and Genocide Conventions e.g. UNICEF (see: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html ) estimates that 0.5 million under-5 year old infants die each year in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories, that’s ONE EVERY MINUTE, 90% avoidable and largely due to deliberate, sustained, INTENTIONAL refusal of US Alliance Governments (including the Australian Government) to provide life-sustaining food and medical requisites unequivocally demanded of an Occupier “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” by Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm .
12. Labor - like the Bush-ite Mainstream media and politicians in Australia and elsewhere in the US Alliance - is committed to entrenched LYING BY OMISSION e.g. in the Election campaign both Labor and the Bush-ite Coalition followed the British John Clease (Basil Fawlty) “Fawlty Towers” injunction "don't mention the war". The highest estimate of post-invasion Iraqi deaths quoted by Rudd (to the best of my knowledge) is “61,000” - as compared to the horrendous reality of 1.5-2 million post-invasion violent and non-violent excess Iraqi deaths (see "Iraq: Genocide": http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17066/42/ ).
I repeat, Kevin Rudd deserves full praise for trouncing the awful, Bush-ite neo-cons in the Australian Federal Election. However as the dozen items above show, there is much to do in Australia whose reputation and rights have been trashed by the Bush-ite Coalition. Unless decent folk around the world INSIST under threat of Sanctions and Boycotts, I fear that most of these items will not even be discussed in Australia, let alone addressed by the new Rudd Labor Government.
Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He has just published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/
and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ).
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