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His Excellency the Governor-General of Australia, Major General Michael Jeffery was farewelled today, in a parade by the Australian Defence Force (ADF). Arriving at Sir Thomas Blamey Square in Canberra, the Governor-General was met by Chief of Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, Secretary, Mr Nick Warner, Vice-Chief of Defence Force, Lieutenant General David Hurley, Service Chiefs, the Federal Guard and the Royal Military College Band. Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston paid tribute to the outgoing Commander-in-Chief and his wife, Her Excellency Mrs Marlena Jeffery. Air Chief Marshal Houston thanked him for his courage, determination, intelligence, leadership and compassion...

IT may seem like the perfect opportunity to score a political point - the Labor Government recommending John Howard, the architect of the GST, for Australia's highest honour for his services to politics and the economy - but the former prime minister is playing a straight bat. Fresh from watching the Australian cricket team play in the West Indies, and travelling to England, Mr Howard wasn't interested in playing games. Nor did his right-hand man Arthur Sinodinos -- the soul and direction of Mr Howard's office for 10 years, who has also been honoured in the Rudd Government's first Queen's...

NASIRIYAH, Iraq (AFP) — The 550-strong Australian contingent in Iraq withdrew from its bases in the south of the country on Sunday as most of the troops prepared to head home, Iraqi and Australian officials said. The soldiers left following a flag-lowering ceremony at the Imam Ali airbase west of the city of Nasiriyah, the capital of Dhi Qar province, governor Aziz Kadoum Alwan said. "The Australian soldiers left today from Dhi Qar and Muthanna provinces," Alwan said. In Sydney the Australian Defence Force said in a statement that the "Overwatch Battle Group and the Australian army training team formally...

- Australia, a staunch U.S. ally and one of the first countries to commit troops to the Iraq war five years ago, ended combat operations there Sunday, a Defense Department official said. ADVERTISEMENT Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was swept into office in November largely on the promise that he would bring home the country's 550 combat troops by the middle of 2008. Rudd has said the Iraq deployment has made Australia more of a target for terrorism.

JOHN Howard is earning tens of thousands of dollars each time he trumpets his former government's achievements to American audiences. The former PM yesterday continued his farewell speaking tour of the US with a speech at Harvard University. Celebrity publicist Max Markson said American organisations were being charged $50,000, plus travel and accommodation costs, to hear Mr Howard speak. He is represented by the Washington Speakers Bureau, which also has comedian John Cleese and former British PM Tony Blair on its books. Mr Markson said the speaking fees earned by Mr Howard in the US were reasonable, given his international...

JOHN Howard says he has left Australia with a stronger, less ambiguous sense of national pride than before the Coalition won government in 1996. "I think we were having a pointless debate about our identity in the early 1990s," the former prime minister said after a speech to Harvard University students yesterday. "I think we've shed that. We have now got a very positive view of Australian history and Australian achievement. I think our sense of national pride is stronger now than it was in the 1990s and less ambiguous. And that's tremendously important." Mr Howard, who in Washington last...

JOHN Howard has broken his post-election silence from the other side of the world, defending his ousted government and attacking his successor before an audience of leading US conservatives. The former prime minister was in Washington DC to receive a top conservative honour, and used the platform to say he was "disappointed" Australia was withdrawing combat troops from Iraq. He said now was not the time to abandon the Iraqi people, who needed space to capitalise on the advances made by the US troops' surge strategy in Baghdad. "It would be a tragedy if those gains were surrendered now by...

FORMER prime minister John Howard could be in line to join one of Britain's most prestigious orders. Speculation is mounting that Mr Howard has been personally selected by Queen Elizabeth to receive the Order of the Garter, the most senior and oldest British Order of Chivalry. A spokeswoman for Buckingham Palace refused to confirm or deny the speculation. "We have made no announcements on that whatsoever and we wouldn't speculate on who is in line to receive one," she told AAP. "It's a great honour and a rare one." Mr Howard will have to wait until April 23 to discover...

MOST of the former members of the Howard government are trying to distance themselves from their former leader. Yet in the US the former prime minister is being welcomed into the conservatives' mosh pit like an ageing rock star. He is going to the US late next month for several weeks in a long farewell. He has agreed to address at least four prestigious audiences, with more appearances yet to be arranged. He is scheduled to speak to a private gathering of Republicans in Las Vegas. In Boston he will be hosted by Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of...

FORMER prime minister John Howard has signed with the prestigious Washington Speakers Bureau, which represents world power brokers including former British leader Tony Blair. .... "John Howard's leadership, determination and vision are hallmarks of a career navigated during an era of unprecedented prosperity and change,'' the website said. "As prime minister of Australia for four terms, John Howard provided a global approach to leadership. "He delivered economic vision and strategies for international security that raised Australia's profile on the world stage while gaining the respect and gratitude of the world." The agency says Mr Howard will discuss the role of...

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 owes John Howard a lot; he may also prove to be a success AS ANY sports fan knows, Australia loves a winner. So to the outsider it is a shock that its voters on November 24th so decisively turfed out the government led for more than 11 years by John Howard (see article). Much the most successful prime minister of modern times, he had led Australia into what will be its 17th consecutive year of economic growth—probably of more than 4% this year. Moreover, the Labor opposition to him seemed, not that long ago, a shambles—divided, old-fashioned and...

ACCORDING to my Oz-watching pals in Britain and the US, John Howard is not a failure but a victim of his own success. He made Australia safe for the Labor Party: or, at any rate, safe enough that a sufficient number of bored electors were willing to take a flier on a house-trained Labor on the short leash of a quasi-Blairite leader. ...I regret Howard's end. True, I object in principle to Australia's gun laws, and I regard much of the Aussie economy as embarrassingly overregulated after a decade of supposedly conservative rule. But, as the former prime minister put...

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Conservative Prime Minister John Howard suffered a humiliating defeat Saturday at the hands of the left-leaning opposition, whose leader has promised to immediately sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and withdraw Australia's combat troops from Iraq. Labor Party head Kevin Rudd's pledges on global warming and Iraq move Australia sharply away from policies that had made Howard one of President Bush's staunchest allies. Rudd has named global warming as his top priority, and his signing of the Kyoto Protocol will leave the U.S. as the only industrialized country not to have joined it. Rudd said...

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has conceded defeat in the national election as the Labour Party assumes control of Parliament. Perhaps America's staunchest defender of the global war on terror among world leaders, Howard now gives way to Kevin Rudd, and may find himself out of government altogether. Howard may be the first PM to lose his own seat in almost 80 years: Australian prime minister John Howard's 11 year reign has ended with a landslide election victory for the opposition Labour Party. Kevin Rudd, the former diplomat, was set to become Australia's 26th prime minister, less than a year...

PRIME Minister John Howard has called Labor leader Kevin Rudd to concede defeat in the federal election.

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 has kicked off election day with his usual walk along Sydney Harbour. Dozens of people including journalists, film crews, well-wishers and protesters gathered outside Kirribilli House before Mr Howard emerged about 6.30am (AEDT) today. One Liberal supporter asked Mr Howard to sign a copy of his biography, John Winston Howard, as other supporters, holding a sign which read John Howard Forever, wished him luck today. One described Mr Howard as the Rocky Balboa of Australia, ``the comeback king''.

KEVIN Rudd and Labor are the frontrunners in the 2007 election race but a late voter surge to John Howard and the Coalition has turned the poll into a tight contest. As both leaders blitzed the key battleground of Queensland yesterday, the election became a real contest in the last 72 hours of a gruelling six-week campaign. The final Newspoll survey of the election shows the Coalition virtually equal to the ALP on primary votes, 43 per cent to 44per cent, which is the Government's best performance in more than a year. The Newspoll survey, taken exclusively for The Weekend...

THE 2007 election has become a real contest in the final 72 hours of a gruelling six-week campaign. After he was written off as a ‘has-been’, John Howard’s last week of campaigning will give the Coalition hope of pulling off a miraculous victory tomorrow. Labor is still in front and favourite to win the 2007 election but the latest Newspoll survey is showing a late surge to the Howard Government, particularly in Queensland and Western Australia. Newspoll’s two-party preferred figure, based on preference flows at the 2004 election, has the Labor Party in front by 52 per cent to the...

FINALLY, the contest -- between a man we barely know and a man we know too well -- is drawing to a close. ..... Australians don't like to eject governments; voters have done it only four times in the past 58 years. In each case there's been a very real sense that those administrations -- McMahon in '72, Whitlam in '75, Fraser in '83 and Keating in '96 -- had run their race; worse, that a continuation of their policies would actually do damage to the nation. We don't get that sense about the Howard Government. True, its fourth term...

A LATE swing away from Labor has put tomorrow's election on a knife edge, an exclusive poll shows. Labor's lead has closed to 52-48, according to the respected Herald Sun/Galaxy poll taken on Tuesday and Wednesday. A similar result tomorrow, with a uniform national swing of 4.7 per cent since the last election, would see Labor win 15 seats – one short of the 16 it needs to form government in its own right. This would leave Federal Parliament in turmoil and the prime ministership in the hands of "kingmaker" independents. The Galaxy poll shows the major parties level on...

JOHN Howard is ending a bruising final week of the campaign within striking distance of a stunning fifth election victory. Labor is narrowly ahead after the allocation of preferences, 52 per cent to the Coalition's 48 per cent, according to authoritative pollsters Galaxy Research.

THE Coalition's election hopes have been bolstered by a poll putting it closer to Labor than any time during the election campaign. The Galaxy poll reportedly has Labor with a primary vote of 52 per cent and the Coalition with 48 per cent. ... Liberal sources insist that the electorate’s mood is more uneven than the headline polls have indicated until now and that the election is closer than thought. John Howard told the National Press Club today that he still believed the Coalition could win, and then promptly jumped onto a plane to blitz marginal seats in Queensland. Kevin...

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...

JOHN Howard enters the final week of his last campaign facing defeat as Kevin Rudd and Labor hold their election-winning lead in key marginal seats. According to the latest Newspoll survey, covering both parties' election launches this week, the Coalition has failed to peg back Labor's lead in the Government's 18 most marginal seats in NSW, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia. On primary votes in the 18 seats, Labor extended its lead in the past two weeks to five points -- 47 per cent to the Coalition's 42per cent -- to give the ALP a two-party preferred lead of 54...

A PROTESTER tried to rush at Prime Minister John Howard in Adelaide today but was stopped by bodyguards. Mr Howard had just begun making an address at the Adelaide Convention Centre when a man stood up from the audience and ran towards the stage. The man – who was carrying an object that appeared to be a basket - was tackled by Federal Police just metres from the stage.

THIRTY-FIVE years in public life and Janette Howard has only ever been portrayed two ways. The less flattering is the portrait of a politics-obsessed woman pulling her husband's strings and urging him on and up. The flip side is that of a woman who has forged a strong marriage and raised healthy, normal children who seem to genuinely like their parents. But if Mrs Howard is frustrated by either portrait, she is not going to admit it. Not today, not in the middle of what is proving to be a particularly tricky election campaign. It makes her arguably one of...

JOHN Howard has fought back in key marginal seats in NSW and Victoria, giving the Coalition at least some new hope of winning the election, although Kevin Rudd has forged ahead in Queensland and South Australia. A special Newspoll survey of the 18 most marginal Coalition seats in four states reveals Labor can achieve its winning target of taking an extra 16 seats -- three or four in each of NSW, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia. But the survey suggests the extent of the Coalition's losses will be between eight seats -- which would allow it to easily retain government...

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...

JOHN Howard has slashed Kevin Rudd's poll lead in a tax cut-fuelled fightback confirming the election will be a hard fought contest after all. The Herald Sun/Galaxy poll - the first conducted since the $34 billion tax cut was unveiled on Monday - reveals the Coalition has halved Labor's two-party preferred lead from 12 per cent to 6 per cent in just under four weeks. While a Rudd-led Labor Party would still be swept comfortably to power with a uniform 6 per cent swing, the poll confirms the early tax gamble has paid off, giving Mr Howard control of the...

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.

Prime Minister John Howard is at Government House in audience with the Governor General - believed to be asking for the dissolution of Parliament to call for a General Election

PRIME Minister John Howard has left Kirribilli House for Canberra, where he could finally head to Government House tomorrow morning to call the election. A spokesman for Mr Howard said the prime minister had left his Sydney residence a short time ago for Sydney airport and flight to Canberra. With politicians scheduled to return to Canberra for parliament on Monday, speculation was peaking that Mr Howard would call the election tomorrow. That would point to a poll on November 17 or 24.

JOHN Howard is set to call a November 24 election tomorrow, riding on the momentum of his dramatic Aboriginal reconciliation turnaround, and his record on economic management and national security. The Prime Minister is expected to visit Governor-General Michael Jeffery this weekend after yesterday releasing a five-point value statement to guide his policy planning. Mr Howard also finalised a series of administrative decisions and appointments to clear the decks for the formal campaign. As Kevin Rudd attacked his Government as stale and out of new ideas, Mr Howard stoutly defended his decision to propose a referendum to provide constitutional recognition...

A FEDERAL election will be held by early December, Prime Minister John Howard says. But Mr Howard said today he intended to keep governing and "doing things" before triggering the election. "(The election) will be held some day between now and early December," Mr Howard said on ABC radio.

A new poll shows a slight narrowing of the Opposition's lead over the Coalition, but a majority of voters prefer Labor's leadership team over the Liberals' John Howard and Peter Costello. The Galaxy poll published in the Herald Sun newspaper indicates the Coalition has trimmed Labor's lead by two points. But the ALP is still ahead by six points in the primary vote and by 12 points - 56 per cent to 44 per cent - on a two-party preferred basis. Forty-six per cent of voters said they preferred Labor's leadership team of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, while 41...

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 MAN has been arrested after a flaming shoulder bag was thrown over the fence of the Prime Minister's Sydney residence, Kirribilli House. Local police were called at 11.48am (AEST) after the man allegedly lit the woven cotten bag and threw it over the gate, a NSW police spokeswoman said. AFP protective services personnel put out the fire and detained the man, in his 30s, until police arrived. He was taken into custody and was being questioned at North Sydney police station.

JOHN Howard is considering calling the election within three weeks amid evidence of a patchy recovery for the Coalition in regional areas, the key state of Queensland and among older voters. Newspoll analysis, prepared exclusively for The Australian, also shows Western Australia remains the redoubt for the Coalition as the only state where the Government leads Labor. As parliament yesterday finished its two-week sitting with a rowdy session, Peter Costello declared it would be the last question time of the fourth Howard Government. Mr Howard, who held a strategy meeting yesterday, has not ruled out parliament returning on October15. However,...

The Newspoll to be published in tomorrow's The Australian newspaper shows the Federal Government has made 8 per cent on Labor since the last poll, a fortnight ago. The last Newspoll figures spooked the Government, and led to Cabinet members considering a leadership change. MPs have been on edge waiting for tomorrow's poll and the result will ease some Coalition tension. It shows Labor leading the Coalition by 55 per cent to 45 after preferences, but that is significantly closer than the 18 per cent lead Labor held two weeks ago. The Coalition leadership is resolved and this result will...

PUBLIC support appears to be swinging back behind Prime Minister John Howard with an eight-point recovery for the Coalition in tomorrow's key Newspoll. The poll, to be published in The Australian, shows Labor still heading for an election win, leading the Government 55 per cent to 45 on a two-party preferred basis. But Labor's support has dropped four points and the Coalition's has risen by the same amount from the last Newspoll a fortnight ago, when the opposition had an 18-point lead. That poll sparked panic in Government ranks, with Mr Howard forced to stare down senior ministers who had...

PRIME Minister John Howard has reaffirmed his leadership after fresh rumours he will stand down as early as this week. Speaking after visiting the Armenian Cultural Festival in Sydney, Mr Howard rejected speculation he will announce his retirement on Tuesday. “Well, that's news to me,” Mr Howard said. “My position was outlined last week and you know me, it hasn't changed.”

PRIME Minister John Howard will finish his 30 years in politics on the backbench if re-elected later this year. Mr Howard today announced he would serve a full three-year term as the member for the northern Sydney seat of Bennelong. "If I'm returned and the Government's returned at the coming election I'll serve my full term as the Member for Bennelong, the full three years and I won't be inflicting a by-election on the people of my electorate,'' Mr Howard told reporters at Carlingford in his electorate today. His announcement short-circuits a Labor campaign which questioned the point of voting...

HOWARD radiates an implacable will, but the question must be how long the body can stand up in this debilitating leadership crisis, Andrew Bolt writes. By god, that John Howard is tough. So tough that for a few hours on Wednesday I thought he might actually get away with it. Hand it to the bloke -- his are made of brass and clang when he walks. The polls now show three in five voters want him gone. Yet he doesn't even blush. His ministers tell him he'd best be off. He refuses to budge. Instead, he glared down the TV...

HERE is a leader honoured in the world, determined in war, skilful at diplomacy, successful at home, universally respected, enormous electoral triumphs to his name, and about to suffer a crushing, humiliating defeat. Who am I talking about? John Howard today? No, the leader I have in mind is George H.W. Bush, the father of today's US President, in 1992. The paradox at the heart of Howard's dilemma is obvious. The economy is roaring ahead, the nation has never stood higher in international esteem, no one could argue the PM is physically or mentally not up to the job. And...

JOHN Howard will quit as Prime Minister and hand the party leadership to Peter Costello part way through his next term if he wins the looming federal election. Mr Howard's admission that he will not serve a full term as leader will fuel Labor's campaign pitch that a vote for Mr Howard is a vote for the Treasurer. But as part of yesterday's decision by the Prime Minister, the Treasurer will campaign by Mr Howard's side to a greater extent than in previous elections as part of a Coalition plan to dismantle Kevin Rudd's pitch to voters, with the duo...

PETER Costello will be prime minister in a week and Kevin Rudd PM by the end of the year, Kim Beazley says. The former Labor leader said Mr Howard had lost the confidence of his cabinet and his caucus and that a "push" on his leadership was no longer in the planning stages, it was actively under way. Mr Beazley said Mr Howard’s team had effectively turned on him. "I think that’s what’s happening now. It’s a manifestation of the Liberal party pushing," Mr Beazley told The Australian. Mr Beazley, himself a veteran of numerous leadership stoushes, said he "tilted...

Something is on in parliament house. John Howard’s office is denying the PM has been urged to quit by close friend Alexander Downer and prominent minister Malcolm Turnbull, but the smell of death is almost palpable in the corridors. Most MPs I’ve spoken to this morning are confused, excited, depressed or a mix of the three after a Sky News report that Howard has lost his Cabinet. Canadian PM Stephen Harper addresses MPs at 10.30am, then he’ll appear in a joint press conference with Howard. I suspect there won’t be an awful lot of questions about a free-trade agreement between...