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Australia's new opposition leader, Tony Abbott, brings a history of social and economic conservatism to the job that could drag Australia's political system to the right if he is able to consolidate his power base. After defeating former Liberal Party leader Malcolm Turnbull by the slimmest of margins -- 42 votes to 41 -- in a vote held Tuesday morning, Mr. Abott is set to quickly undo some of the main opposition party's more centrist policy positions. He has committed the opposition to deferring or voting against a high-profile plan proposed by the Australian government to curb the country's greenhouse...

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has made a surprise visit to Australian troops in Afghanistan. The secret diversion was made as Mr Rudd travelled to India and was kept under wraps because of security fears. Mr Rudd stayed with the troops in Tarin Kowt overnight and marked Remembrance Day with them in a ceremony. The Prime Minister's visit came just hours after an Australian soldier was wounded by a roadside bomb near Tarin Kowt. Australia currently has about 1,500 troops in southern Uruzgan province. Mr Rudd used the Remembrance Day ceremony to praise the sacrifice of the 11 Australian soldiers who...

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is expected to discuss Australia's policy on asylum seekers with Indonesian officials when he visits Jakarta on Tuesday. Mr Rudd is making the trip to attend the inauguration of the Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The Opposition has criticised Mr Rudd's decision to ask Indonesian authorities to stop a boatload of Sri Lankans reaching Australia last week. Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard has told Channel Nine that Australia and Indonesia are cooperating well on people smuggling. "I don't want to give the impression that somehow nothing is happening now. "There is very close cooperation with Indonesia...

Kevin Rudd likes to talk about showing moral leadership for the world on climate change. But the better example for other governments to follow is the Australian Prime Minister's backtrack on a costly emissions trading scheme. Mr. Rudd announced on Monday that he will delay implementation of his trademark cap-and-trade proposal until at least 2011. With luck, that will be after the clouds of a global economic slowdown have started to clear and -- more important for Mr. Rudd's Labor Party -- after the next parliamentary election. The draft Mr. Rudd floated in March would have imposed total carbon permit...

Whole world Needs A Leader Like This! Prime Minister Kevin Rudd - Australia Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia , as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks.. Separately, Rudd angered some Australian Muslims on Wednesday by saying he supported spy agencies monitoring the nation's mosques. Quote: 'IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT. Take It Or Leave It. I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali , we...

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ADELAIDE - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has proposed an Asia-Pacific community by 2020 that would include among others the United States, China, Japan and India and be capable of canvassing security, political and economic matters. He unveiled his brand new idea in a speech last week that he gave to the Asia Society AustralAsia Center in Sydney. >>> China obsession Even before Rudd became prime minister there were apprehensions in the region that his Asia foreign policy would revolve around China. Rudd studied China at university and speaks fluent Mandarin and spent considerable time in the Middle Kingdom both...

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has offered US Democrat presidential contender Hillary Clinton help with her campaign as the pair met in Washington before she headed to Pennsylvania to fight for her political survival. The New York senator took time out from her heavy campaigning schedule to meet Mr Rudd after he delivered a foreign policy speech to The Brookings Institution this morning Washington time. He is likely to speak to Democrat front runner Barack Obama on the telephone - he is already in Pennsylvania and a meeting couldn't be arranged - some time today and will meet Republican nominee John...

Today President & Mrs. Bush welcomed Australian Prime Minster Kevin Rudd & his wife Therese to the White House. After meeting in the Oval Office, Prime Minster Rudd and President Bush held a joint news conference in the East Room and took a few questions from the press. The hot topic was, of course, Iraq—specifically the situation in Basra.(Transcript) President Bush: … Basra has been a place where criminality has thrived. It's a port, a lot of goods and services go through there. And there was -- from the beginning of liberation, there have been criminal elements that have had...

IT happened sooner than expected. The so-called progressive Left has given Prime Minister Kevin Rudd his riding instructions. Conveniently gathered in a single book entitled Dear Mr Rudd, Australia’s leading left-wing voices offer a blueprint of what they expect from the Rudd Government. On climate change, the economy, human rights, the republic, water and so much more, each letter to Rudd is, according to the blurb, “passionate and imaginative”. No doubt true. One hates to be the bearer of bad news, but the left-wing letter writers are destined for disappointment. So disappointed that in three years they will be joining...

THE latest Chinese blockbuster is not about a boy wizard, although the hero of the tale looks a bit like him. Appropriately, for the Chinese Year of the Rat, it's about a politician - Lu Kewen, better known here as Kevin Rudd. Fujian Education Press is so convinced the "legendary life" of Lu Kewen will run off the shelves it has ordered its biggest ever print run. The introduction to the biography gives readers a hint of the excitement to follow: "This book will fully interpret the legendary life of Lu Kewen. How he was born in a poor family...

Sean Hannity, the conservative Republican commentator who takes on such controversial issues as Hillary Clinton's legal work in a communist law firm, could be on his way out of the Fox News Channel as a result of Rupert Murdoch's decision to turn the company over to his liberal son James. James Murdoch, 34, who buys into global warming hysteria, has in recent days been labeled the "News Corporation Heir" and "Son King" because of changes in the company that have dramatically increased his power. The Fox News Channel is one part of Murdoch's News Corporation. While James Murdoch is based...

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....

In about minutes, polling booths across the eastern side of Australia will close, and counting will begin in the 2007 Australian election. I - and anybody else - who wants to become involved - will be posting in this thread updates based on Australian TV concerning the count.

PRIME Minister John Howard is still in the race to win a fifth term, but a new poll predicts Kevin Rudd's challenge will narrowly succeed in Saturday's federal election. An exclusive Galaxy poll conducted for the Sunday Herald Sun in the campaign's fifth week showed a tighter race for The Lodge. Labor would win 18 seats -- two more than it needed -- with a 5.5 per cent swing in 20 of nation's key marginal seats, the poll found. The surprising poll results emerged as the Opposition Leader revealed he would take advice from Mr Howard were he to become...

This evening, Australian time, in about two and a half hours, the only Leaders debate of the Australian Election campaign will be held between Prime Minister John Howard and Leader of the Opposition Kevin Rudd. The election will be held on November 24th. Back when I joined Free Republic in 2004, I was somewhat surprised at the interest shown in Australia's Federal Politics, and one of the earliest things I was involved in was a live thread on Australia's election night. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1239827/posts I intend to be involved in a similar live thread on election night this year, but I thought...

SO that's it then. The wind-up of the 41st parliament of Australia, probably the end of the Howard Government. No niceties, no faux goodwill. The Prime Minister's final address to the House of Representatives, which wound up at 4.11 on Thursday afternoon, accused Kevin Rudd of being weak, gutless, thin-skinned, brittle and hypocritical. The Labor leader's departing words pegged Peter Costello as "Captain Arrogance" and asserted, without a skerrick of proof, the Liberals had been hawking round Rudd's medical records to raise doubts about his health and durability. Get used to these sorts of frenetic exchanges during the next two...

A LEAKED letter from Kevin Rudd to Prime Minister John Howard shows the Opposition Leader backed Australia's involvement in Iraq after the invasion. The 2003 letter gave a detailed briefing on how Mr Howard could win in Iraq. The letter appears at odds with Mr Rudd's current position that Iraq is "the greatest failure of national security policy since Vietnam". ..... Yesterday Mr Rudd accused Mr Howard of positioning to withdraw troops after warnings to his Iraqi counterpart that support for the war in Australia was waning. He tried yesterday to play down the private letter and accused the Prime...