Posted on 10/13/2007 7:03:10 PM PDT by naturalman1975
Official announcement by Prime Minister John Howard on now. Parliament will be prorogued noon tomorrow, Parliament will be dissolved noon Wednesday, election 24th November 2007.
It's on.
I’m lost
It’s pretty simple. Australia will have an election to decide who governs the country on 24th November.
The choices come down to the current government - the Liberal/National coalition which is moderately conservative, lead by John Howard.
Or the opposition - the Labor government which is moderately socialist, lead by Kevin Rudd.
Is this good or bad for Howard?
The coalition lead by Howard is considerably behind in the polls - so an election will be hard for Howard to win.
But an election has to be called by January 19th next year anyway.
Howard has chosen to go now, with a six week official campaign in the hope he will be able to pull back Labor’s lead in the polls and retain office.
Personally, I think he’ll do it. But it’s going to be close.
Sure hope Howard pulls this out!
Must be nice to only have 6 weeks of politicking pre-election, instead of 2+ years, as we Americans do.
Well, six weeks is just the official campaign.
The unofficial campaign started late last year.
It’s not two years - but we generally do have about a year of campaigning.
Queen Elizabeth II, through her Governor-General, is who Howard had to ask to dissolve Parliament, correct? (Just asking to confirm I’ve got the politics / protocols right)
I wish Howard and the Aussies well, I hope he wins for all their sakes.
He asks the Governor General, Michael Jeffery, and he makes the decision without reference to Her Majesty.
The Queen appoints the Governor General, and the Prime Minister could ask her directly for a dissolution of Parliament, but all of her powers are delegated to the Governor General and he is not required to consult or report to her.
She could, of course, replace a Governor General who had acted inappropriately.
The distinctions are relevant because back in 1975, when Sir John Kerr, as Governor General, made the decision to dismiss the Whitlam government, great pains were taken to make it clear that the Queen was not consulted, and was not involved in the decision.
What’s “on” WTF is going “on?”
Obviously this is more complicated than I thought.
An election date for Australia has been announced. An election to determine the makeup of the next Parliament, and therefore who holds government and who is Prime Minister will be held on 24th November.
The official campaign is on.
I was living in Australia at the time, and have vivid and fond memories of the day Sir John Kerr sacked the the prime minister (Whitlam) and appointed the opposition leader (Malcolm Fraser) to lead the government. As I understand it, if Whitlam had known what Kerr was going to do, he (Whitlam) could have fired Kerr before Kerr fired Whitlam.
It was high political drama, to be sure.
“Obviously this is more complicated than I thought.”
The headline sounds like a special election had to be called or something.
Oh I see.
No - this is a routine election - but as it could have been held at any time from August onwards, up until January next year, and it’s the Prime Minister decision as to when it is called, considerable speculation and tension developed as to when it would be called.
If John Howard loses, perhaps he can come here and run on the Republican ticket. He’d be a breath of fresh air.
-PJ
“Must be nice to only have 6 weeks of politicking pre-election, instead of 2+ years, as we Americans do.”
The Brits go that way too. There is nothing that can be said in 2 years that can’t be said in 6 weeks!
Alexander Downer is one of the most important Foreign Ministers in the world today. He gets it. If the Howard government goes on the 24th of November, I will miss him dearly. I hope Australians realize who Alexander is in terms of what he believes and or represents.
I went to school with Alex Downer. He used to get me into a lot of trouble. Even back then, he wouldn’t tolerate others doing things he saw as wrong.
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