So we have Labor with a comfortable majority in the lower House and we have potentially the Greens with five seats in the upper House almost holding the balance of power. We will see if the Greens are as responsible in the Senate toward good governance as the Australian Democrats were.

The tragedy of this election has been the removal of the Australian Democrats from national politics. They were by far Australia's most liberal and republican party. Their Senators were also the Senate's best performers staying diligently within the liberal democratic tradition of parliament. Something that the major parties often do not bother with.

The polls for Labor had been flat within statistical variance for a long time. The other issue was that the government had been flaying about like a chook with its head cut off. It did not inspire confidence.

It is fashionable to say people are stupid and voters are dumb, but Australians are one of the most sophisticated and highly educated electorates in human history. Australian democracy tends to get it right. The Howard Government was no longer conducting itself in a manner consistent with good governance.

Good governance gets rewarded by Australian voters; bad governance gets punished. The Howard Government deserved to be thrown out embarrassingly. We will see how the Rudd Government conducts itself.

Update

Overseas sites such as Andrew Sullivan, Daily Kos and Talking Points Memo are interpreting the result through the prism of Howard's relationship with Bush. That is a mistake in my opinion.
Cam Riley: South Sea Republic. Freedom, liberty, equity and an Australian Republic.

Comments
  • Guy . # . 1/1
    A sad day for the Democrats. But overall, a good day for the country, I think, and one that offers some hope again for reform at a federal level. One worries about the state of democracy if we continue to have a complete set of incompetent Oppositions from the conservatives at both state/territory and federal level.

    I think you are right about the Bush angle - the relationship between Bush and Howard was not really raised a great deal during the election campaign.
    • cam . # .
      Guy, Yeh the Liberals are going to do it tough for at least six, if not nine years. Hopefully Turnball guides them back to liberalism and makes, if not the next election competitive, then the one after. It is a shame that they can't pull competent people from the state level. They do not have strength at that level currently.

      I think it will be temporary. I expect a couple of states will end up Liberal soon and we will probably back to competitive politics again at all levels of government.
      'Sworn to no party, and of no sect am I.' Frederick Vosper's republican motto.
      • I voted solely on one issue - AWB - and I hope Downer and the liberals are made to suffer a meticulous and painful inquiry into Downer's gross negligence.

        Beyond that, I hope Andrew Bartlett finds a home somewhere that will allow him to continue doing good work and - somewhat selfishly, I admit - blogging. To think that lightweight Kerry Nettle is going to survive and Bartlett is lost to us. Bah!
      • Felix the Cassowary . # . 1/1
        I gather the Labor government isn't doing so well in Western Australia, and I think they're the next state up for an election, sometime between mid-2008 and mid-2009. It'll probably last longer than the wall-to-wall Liberal governments we apparently had some time ago, because I wouldn't expect a government in trouble to hold the election early unless they were forced to...
  • Vee . # . 1/1
    Just adding that I too am saddened by the passing of the Australian Democrats.

    I do not expect that the Australian Greens will be able to behave as responsibly as their forebearers.

    I do agree that it is a mistake to view Howard's loss through his association with Bush - as with most elections, it was the domestic agenda that won the public over.
    • Felix the Cassowary . # . 1/1
      I address this both to you, Vee, and to Cam:

      Why do you try to judge the Greens by the Democrats' standard? The Greens are not the Democrats. They have not claimed to want to "keep the bastards honest". They do not pretend to be a centrist party. Voters chose them (I hope!) because they are a left-wing environmental party. I fully expect to vote and bargain as a left-wing environmental party, and sometimes to block things which are only symbolic and won't do any good (considering what they want), exactly as they do at a state level.

      If they acted the same as the Democrats, then they wouldn't be "behav[ing] as responsibly as their forebears" because they and their forebears were elected on completely different platforms! If the Australian people wanted the Democrats, why, then we'd've voted for the Democrats!

      In any case, the question is, I think, moot. Unless there's an upset in the Victorian count, then after the Coalition lose their majority in 2007, they'll still have a blocking majority along with Fielding, who'll never side with the Greens. Labor will still be bargaining with the Coalition and not the Greens. And there will be a double dissolution before the end of the term: In 2004, I said that when (not if) Labor won in 2007 there would be a double dissolution, and I've believed it ever since.
      • cam . # .
        Felix, Because good governance trumps party. If the Greens do hold the balance or power, or a marginal balance of power with FF, then they are going to have exactly the same internal debates as the Democrats did when they first entered the Senate and later when the GST passed. Basically, "What is your policy on governance?"

        I have no problem with the Greens being an environmental party, they have had my votes in state elections in the past for it, I also have no problem with them being in the 'left' part of the spectrum. I don't really care because good governance is the goal, and it is why we rotate through governments and place minor parties in the balance of power in the upper houses. Howard lost on governance. It is that simple.

        I am not sure I trust the Greens to govern well. I am willing to be surprised and I hope they don't go feral. If they do govern well, however, I will expect them to become a powerful third party in the lower house as well, like the Liberal Democrats in Britain. I think they will be able to make that transition because of their political brand which the Democrats were unable to.

        It goes both ways. But the Democrats were awesome in that role and I think we owe a lot of the good government that did occur during their tenure as a political party on the national stage to their policies and efforts.
        'Sworn to no party, and of no sect am I.' Frederick Vosper's republican motto.