Congratulations to Australia for making the right choice. But I must ask if Howard's party is conservative, how come his party is called Liberal-National? Can some Aussie Freeper or someone who knows alot about Australian politics explain. I like more information on that.
I imagine the Autralian liberal-national can be compared to our conservative
Actually, Howard belongs to the Liberal Party. National is a seperate party that they are colalitioned with (since they are in a multiparty parlimentary system, and since one party rarely has a majority, they join up with a 'minor party' to have control over the government [unlike here where we pretty much only have two parties due to our winner take all system, Democrats and Republicans).
As for why it is called Liberal, it is because they were named for 'classical liberalism'. Before our current bred of idiots stole the term and twisted it, classical liberalism is the belief of more freedom, period. Specifically, in terms of capitalism (the original liberals were capitalist). This is also why Japan's conservative party is also, the Liberal party (I think they call themselves Liberal Democrats).
Slimmy's given a pretty good answer.
Basically the Liberal Party of Australia was established at the end of World War II by a merging of a number of small and large conservative parties. At the time it was formed, Australia had one of its most significant left-wing governments in power - Labor has always been socialist, but its socialism goes in waves, sometimes mild, sometimes strong. During World War II, it was fairly strong (fortunately it was also dedicated to helping to win the war, and while I don't like the man's politics, our Prime Minister of the day, John Curtin, remains one of my political heroes because he stood the test in war). But by 1944, it was clear we were going to win the war, and Labor's plans for peacetime were quite scary. They were going to turn Australia into a socialist utopia, by placing significant controls on what people were and were not allowed to do.
To oppose this, the conservative parties combined under the idea of preserving peoples fundamental freedoms - their liberties, and they adopted the name Liberal in imitation of similar parties of the 19th century.