Posted on 11/24/2007 1:51:16 AM PST by naturalman1975
Kevin Rudd is on track to be prime minister of Australia.
Labor powerbrokers, including deputy Julia Gillard, Tony Burke, Stephen Smith and Robert Ray said that they believe they have secured victory.
'I'm a cautious type, but on these numbers so far I think we have enough to form government,' Labor deputy Julia Gillard said at about 8.10pm EST.
Ms Gillard made her declaration following strong swings in Queensland to Labor, further strengthening its grip as the polls shut in Western Australia.
Early counting in the battleground state shows the Labor Party is set to pick up around six seats.
Bonner, Blair, Longman, Petrie, Flynn and Moreton look set to fall to Mr Rudd.
If the Labor Party takes the seats it would suggest a swing is on to Labor in Queensland of about 7 per cent.
However, the swing does not appear to be uniform, with the Government likely to hold the seat of Herbert, which sits on a margin of 6.2 per cent.
Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke called the election a victory just after 8 o’clock but many pundits were still waiting for more results before chancing the arm.
Shortly after Bob Hawke’s call on Sky News, former Queensland premier Peter Beattie called a victory for Kevin Rudd.
The bell-wether seat of Eden Monaro in NSW appears to have fallen to Labor’s Mike Kelly, a retired army colonel, up against minister Gary Nairn.
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.news.com.au ...
Labour and Liberal usually mean the same to me. Are they both socialists?
I’m sorry to see another friend to America go.
No, the Liberals are a conservative party.
kind of a dis-jointed report to say the least.
Labor’s hardly a leftist party, either, to be honest. Howard’s probably lost, and I’m sorry to see him go, but it’s not the same kind of disaster America would face with a Democrat President. Unless Rudd does a complete about-turn on most of his policies (which, given his track record, doesn’t seem all that unlikely), we’ll still have a fairly conservative government in power.
what do you suppose it means to be “line-ball with one percent counted?” I just mean, please translate.
The problem isn’t Rudd. He isn’t that far to the left, I agree.
But Labor is a very factionalised party, and parts of it are very left wing. And Rudd has to work with them, and deal with them.
So it depends on how much he can do what he wants, and how much he has to cater to other elements of his party.
On this basis, I’m glad he has apparently achieved a reasonably majority. It gives him more clout.
If we have to have a Labor government, far better it’s him that somebody like Latham.
Line-ball with one percent counted, means 1% of the vote has been counted, and at the moment, things are really, really close.
If the left gets in, they will welcome the head-choppers with open arms. That will be the end of Australia.
is it a rugby term?
I would have thought more from tennis than rugby.
There is a ‘line-out’ in Rugby, I suppose it could have come from, but tennis would have been my guess.
o.k., thanks, not as unfamiliar as I was making it out to be.
SkyNews makes this point: Rudd has pledged to withdraw troops from Iraq and sign the Kyoto Protocol, further isolating Washington on both issues.
Was there a Clinton "war room" veteran helping Rudd?
Long story short, Rudd’s also declared that he doesn’t want to sign Kyoto unless more restrictions are placed on developing nations.
Just like Howard.
He’s also pandered to the anti-Iraq crowd by withdrawing combat troops, but our support contingent will remain there, and it’s likely they’ll just be redeployed to Afghanistan. A minor gain for the left, not a crushing victory, by any means.
Not to quibble mate, but that does mean that they will NOT remain there in Iraq.
Reality.
No, the bulk of our troops will remain in the Iraqi theatre.
Those that are withdrawn (about 500 troops) are the ones that will be redeployed to Afghanistan.
It’s on the Drudge Report. Labor has won and says it will pull Australia’s troops out of Iraq and sign the Kyoto protocol.
The Aussies have gone wobbly on us, mate!
How many troops are there again?
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