Minority Labor Government Formed in Australia

I watch Australia politics particularly keeping a gimlet eye on the Aussie Government's dingo policies. In the first place Australia does not use the British spelling of "labour" but uses "labor," so it is the Labor Party, if you please.Be that as it may, this election cycle was breath taking for its ups and downs. Just three years ago, Kevin Rudd lead the Labor Party to a large victory. By the time his mandate was up and he had to face the electorate in 2010, he was as popular as a social disease in a bordello. The Labor Party panicked and dumped Rudd replacing him with Julia Gillard. She started out with a nice rebound in Labor's popularity and then dissolved parliament and called an election.Labor's polls immediately went South, and after the smoke cleared, Labor and the Coalition on the other sided both won 72 or 73 seats out of 150 in the body and so nobody had a majority.The matter dragged on for days and then into weeks. First of all it takes Australia about ten days to co... Read more

Australian politics has been turned upside down since the resignation of Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister this past July, ushering in Julia Gillard as PM. It is shocking primarily because up until a few short months ago, Rudd was sailing high in the polls. Elected in the wake of the unpopular conservative Howard government, Rudd was very active in his handling of various policy questions. The first issue that he had to deal with in 2008 was the global economic crisis. He responded by boosting social and infrastructure spending. The banking sector, historically very conservative in Australia, managed to avoid the worst of the financial crisis. They also benefited from exports of raw materials to China's rapidly growing economy. Unemployment in Australia remains among the lowest in the world, at about 5%, GDP has grown consistently during his tenure, his popularity held firm throughout, until a few months ago. Rudd made a few moves that upset the monied interests within his count... Read more