"Australia’s conservatives sweep to election victory; Labor Party out amid tax protest, ailing economy" by Rod McGuirk | Associated Press, September 08, 2013
CANBERRA, Australia — Australia’s ‘‘unelectable’’ and gaffe-prone political leader, Tony Abbott, confounded critics Saturday by becoming the country’s latest prime minister, leading the opposition to a sweeping election victory and ending six years of Labor Party rule.
Australia's Reagan/Bush regime?
Abbott, the leader of the conservative Liberal Party-led coalition, rode a wave of public bitterness over a hated carbon emissions tax, worries about a flagging economy, and frustration over government infighting to win the election.
Australians don't care about saving the planet from global warming by creating a carbon credit market that record profit banks will use to create more money out of thin air with another tax? Bad enough they get a cut of everything sold or shipped in this world.
The result was a stunning turnaround for Abbott, a 55-year-old former Roman Catholic seminarian and Rhodes scholar who has never been particularly popular and was once dubbed unelectable by opponents and some of his own supporters.
He emerged victorious thanks, in large part, to the frustration of a country fed up with Labor and its once-popular leader, Kevin Rudd, who had engaged in a years-long power struggle with his former deputy, Julia Gillard.
That seems to be an epidemic sweeping the planet.
Gillard, who became the nation’s first female prime minister after ousting Rudd in a party vote in 2010, ended up losing her job to Rudd three years later in a similar internal party coup....
With more than 90 percent of votes counted, official figures from the Australian Electoral Commission showed the Liberals ahead 53 percent to Labor’s 47 percent. The coalition was on track to win 91 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, and Labor 54.
For a range of reasons, Abbott has been dismissed by many critics as not being prime minister material. A supremely fit volunteer lifeguard, he is often parodied in the media for wearing the red-and-yellow cap and brief swimwear worn by Australian lifeguards.
I'm liking him already.
So where does he stand on Israel?
Abbott’s approval ratings recently improved in polls, but he remains relatively unpopular, particularly among women voters.
Uh-oh.
‘‘All those ridiculous people who said he was unelectable should understand how foolish they were to underestimate him,’’ former conservative Prime Minister John Howard, who promoted Abbott to his Cabinet during an 11-year reign, told Seven Network television Saturday.
Abbott was regarded as a competent minister. But his aggressive politics, social conservatism, and knack for igniting controversy raised questions about his suitability as a potential national leader.
He was elected party leader by his Liberal Party colleagues in late 2009 by a single vote majority.
His coalition was narrowly defeated in 2010 elections after a campaign in which Abbott made some conspicuous deviations from policy.
He came under fire during the campaign over an interview in which he drew a distinction between what he sometimes says ‘‘in the heat of discussion’’ and ‘‘an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark.’’
In the latest campaign, he was criticized for listing a female candidate’s ‘‘sex appeal’’ as a political asset, then defending himself by calling it a ‘‘charming compliment.’’
Isn't it, even for the ladies? They like a handsome man, right?
In another incident, he accidentally drew laughter during a speech by saying that no one is the ‘‘suppository’’ of all wisdom, when he apparently meant to say ‘‘repository.’’
Tony W. Abbott.
But the drama between Rudd and Gillard, combined with Labor reneging on an election promise by imposing a deeply unpopular tax on the nation’s biggest carbon polluters, proved deadly for Labor’s reelection chances.
Oh, Labor ran up again$t powerful intere$ts as well as the people, huh?
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Yeah, that's what happens.
Related:
"Julian Assange runs for Australian Senate" by Matt Siegel | New York Times, July 26, 2013
SYDNEY — Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, formally inaugurated a political party bearing the name of his antisecrecy organization Thursday and declared his own unorthodox candidacy for a seat in the Australian Senate in national elections later this year -- a campaign from the Ecuadoran Embassy in London.
Many think the WikiLeaks Party is a vanity project for Assange, although several polls conducted since plans to set up the party emerged this year suggest it could fare better than some initially suspected.
I'd say his psyop site has.
The Australian Senate has a history of successful protest candidates, said John Wanna, a political science professor at Australian National University. Assange probably hopes to trade on name recognition and follow in the footsteps of other rabble-rousing, single-issue senators, Wanna said....
And nobody, I mean nobody, like a troublemaker!
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Wikileaks (imho) was born from the Israeli spying operation, and it's mouthpiece media organs selectively use them against the enemy of the day or whatever. That's a key tell. Wikileaks is a trap. Once you dump your load or log on there, the intelligence agencies got you!
I hope you weathered this post well enough, readers.
UPDATE:
"106 rescued off Australian coast" Associated Press, August 21, 2013
SYDNEY — Rescuers pulled more than 100 suspected asylum seekers to safety on Tuesday after their boat sank in the Indian Ocean.
The boat sank about 140 miles north of Christmas Island, where Australia operates a detention camp for asylum seekers. An Australian navy ship hurried to the scene after the Australian Maritime Safety Authority received a call for help on Tuesday morning. When the navy ship arrived, the boat was partially submerged and passengers were struggling in the water.
Rescuers plucked 106 people to safety, the Customs and Border Protection agency said in a statement. Two people had minor injuries.
The search-and-rescue effort was continuing Tuesday afternoon, though it was unclear whether more people were missing....
Christmas Island, located 310 miles south of Jakarta, Indonesia, is a popular destination for asylum seekers who crowd into rickety boats at Indonesian ports and pay smugglers to take them to Australian shores. Hundreds have died while attempting the journey in recent years.
Australia is trying to discourage such risky journeys and announced last month it would no longer accept asylum seekers who arrive by boat. Instead, it is evaluating their claims and resettling verified refugees in Papua New Guinea or the tiny Pacific island nation of Nauru.
The rescue came as government officials from 13 countries met Tuesday in Jakarta to discuss ways to better cooperate on the asylum seeker issue and stop smugglers of people. In a final declaration, they agreed to review visa policies, enhance coordination, and exchange information to deny entry and cancel the visas of smugglers and traffickers.
It said the countries of origin, transit, and destination are committed to working together to develop an early-warning system and share information and intelligence among diplomatic, immigration, border, and law enforcement officers....
Any excuse to get the global surveillance grid up and running.
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