Tantō Liveblogging
It’s six a.m. in Sydney.
gulp
Long innings at the top
— John Howard is the second longest-serving Prime Minister in Australia. The longest-serving was Robert Menzies, right, who held office twice for a total of 18 years
— During his ten years in power, Mr Howard has outlasted five Japanese prime ministers, including Junichiro Koizumi – Japan’s longest-serving prime minister since the mid1980s
— He has also seen off four Italian prime ministers, among them Silvio Berlusconi – who himself spent longer in office than any postwar Italian prime minister Tony Blair entered office a few months before Mr Howard was elected, and Gerhard Schröder’s entire seven years in power as German Chancellor came during his rule
— Since 1997, Australia have won the Ashes five times and lost once.
— The population of the country has risen by two million since that year
— In the same period the England football team have had six head coaches: from Glenn Hoddle (1996-1999) through to Steve McClaren (2006-2007)
Telegraph - John Howard enjoys late surge in the polls
Doesn’t matter though, does it? Lots of losers have wandered around afterwards saying “yeah but we were on a winning trajectory!”
It’s 8.35 in Sydney.
It’s 8 a.m. in Perth.
More funfacts:
• More than 13.5m of Australia’s roughly 21m people are registered to vote
• Electors will choose candidates for all 150 seats in the lower House of Representatives and 40 of the 76 seats in the upper house, the Senate
• PM John Howard has led the conservative Liberal-National party coalition to four election wins since 1996 and is seeking a final term
• Kevin Rudd is taking the centre-left Labor Party to the polls for the first time as leader
• Election issues are the economy, environment and war in Iraq
Well, sort of.
It’s a quarter to eight at night in Sydney.
The Times - Party haunted by ghosts of 1969 hopes to give old play a new happy ending
The parallels with today’s vote are so stark that the author of Don’s Party, David Williamson, a critic of Mr Howard, said: “Many of the old baby-boomers, faint memories of the idealistic dreams of the Sixties not yet erased by Alzheimer’s, are hoping fervently we won’t see a rerun of 1969.”
Mr Rudd, 50, a former diplomat and China specialist who has led Labor for less than a year, has propelled the party to what some commentators regard as an impregnable lead in the polls.
Far from exciting the nation with the promise of risky policy adventures, he has revelled in his blandness, which is aimed at denying 68-year-old Mr Howard opportunities to elevate policy differences into fear campaigns. The most exciting moments of his campaign have involved Mr Rudd’s confession that he once visited a lap-dancing club in New York — he said he was too drunk to remember what happened — and television footage of him eating his earwax in parliament.
Gross. I never did watch that video. Avoided it, really.
The centrepieces of the Howard and Rudd manifestos are all but indistinguishable — tax cuts worth about $A34 billion (£14 billion). Mr Rudd sounded uncannily like Mr Howard this week when he said that he would cut Australia’s public service. He long ago adopted Mr Howard’s mantra of economic conservatism.
If he wins, I can’t wait for the press around here to start crowing about a repudiation of Bush’s evil warmongering cohorts etc.
Yet, should Mr Howard lose today, the new man in The Lodge, the Prime Minister’s Canberra residence, will be more reflective of today’s prosperous, optimistic Australia. The heart will be harder, policy adventures will be tempered. Predictability will be celebrated. That is the legacy of the Howard era.
Hmph. Funfacts:
Night of loss
— Don’s Party was set in a suburban household on election night 1969
— Labor under Gough Whitlam appeared set to sweep away two decades of conservative rule
— Young Australians hailed his promises to withdraw from Vietnam, open universities to all and restore Aboriginal land rights
— The euphoria turns to despair as victory slips away from Whitlam
— He lost by five seats to the incumbent, John Gorton, who went on to rule for two more years
Sky News - Exit Poll: Howard Loses Oz Election
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has lost his bid for a fifth successive term in power, a Sky News Australia exit poll predicts.
Oh here we go:
Mr Howard is a staunch US ally and had committed to keeping Australian troops in Iraq.
But Mr Rudd has pledged to withdraw combat troops from Iraq and sign the Kyoto Protocol, further isolating Washington on both issues.
Cute!
Where can I buy them?
Oy.
AAP - Bush puppet vs bookish diplomat, says media
THE Australian federal election has been billed in the US as a battle between “President George W. Bush’s “puppet” and a “a bookish former diplomat”.
As Australians ventured off to cast their ballots, some of America’s most influential newspapers today carried stories about the likely demise of Prime Minister John Howard, aka the “puppet” for his close relationship with the White House, and his expected replacement, Labor leader Kevin Rudd, whose spectacles and neat blond hairdo apparently led to the “bookish” tag.
ninme crawls under the desk
November 23rd, 2007 at 1:53 pm
They might be fun, but they aren’t facts.
Howard had already been PM for a year before Blair took office, and has been in power now approaching 12 years.
The “late surge” is characteristic of most of Howard’s wins because media bias drives opinion polls - suppressing the real strength of his support - but not the real polls. Fully one third of voters make up their mind on who to vote for on the day of the election.
Anyway, fingers crossed here!
November 23rd, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Tony Blair became PM: 2nd May 1997 John Howard became PM: 11th March 1996
You’d think they would at least check wikipedia.
(Sorry about the italics over-run)
November 23rd, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Really, I thought that fact sounded funny.
I think I’ll have some pie. Call it a nervous appetite.
November 23rd, 2007 at 3:19 pm
No point you being nervous - you’ll be asleep (and maybe I will too) before the result is known.