Politic

The last week of the year for the parliament was an action-packed one to say the least – the like that goes “one week’s a long time in politics” was shown to be quite true.

Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard replaced Beazley at the top of the Labor party, something which I would consider just about the smartest move made by the Labor party over the least 5 years. Beazley had lost it somewhere in his mumbles, and someone who’s lost that many times just within his own party was never going to be a serious contender against the master of Australian politics that is John Howard. Rudd started the week with a couple of strong lines against Howard, willing and able to drudge up the 22% interest rates from when Howard was Treasurer.

The electorate in general is adopting a wait-and-see approach so far. Rudd doesn’t have the down-to-earth populist appeal that Latham originally had, but he’s got savvy and, more importantly, he knows the areas in which he can pitch battles. To put it briefly, he’s about 10 times more likely than Beazley to have an impact. In a world where China is steadily growing in influence, Rudd’s ability to speak Mandarin (fluently, apparently) should hold him well in the future, should he get past Howard.

Rudd also comes in with a strong running mate in Gillard, making it much less of a one man show. I sincerely hope that this makes things interesting in Australian politics. For much too long, we haven’t had a worthy opposition, and many things which should have been more genuinely debated weren’t, especially given that Howard often forced voting along party lines as opposed to conscience vote. I’d say conscience votes should be compulsory if anything.

Speaking of, the Stem Cell bill that passed this week (by a comfortable margin) in a conscience vote, a move that sets Australia at the forefront of medical research, giving hope to many. Opponents have raised moral qualms about it, and I’ve had the occasional question too, but I think it’s a perfectly good use of the spare eggs from IVF treatment. Ethical questions remain about the source of the test material, but I think appropriately regulated issues such as women selling their eggs to research for a bit of money would go away. It remains to be seen whether this will actually result in any advances to medical science, but now there’s no excuse (in Australia at least).

I’d say the election next year is going to be a close one; I’m unwilling to put it one way or the other, but I’d like to think the Australian people have some remorse for putting the Coalition in charge of both houses of parliament, and even if there isn’t a sufficient win, a “strong loss’ may finally do the trick.