User:Imroy

I'm a Wikipedia editor, where I go by the same username - User:Imroy.



Ideas
Some ideas for what I might be able to bring to RW from this side of the pond.

Conservative politics in Australia

 * John Howard: Our previous PM for 11 years. He was anti-immigration and anti-union. He won the 2001 election largely because of the post-September 11 terrorist hysteria, and won the 2004 election largely because of the boat people threat. See MV Tampa and "children overboard". His party seems to stand for the privileged elite and toadying to trade interests (e.g U.S. and China). Seems obsessed with the economy. With the recent introduction of anti-union, pro-big-business industrial relations reforms, he seemed to appeal to trickle-down economics (aka Reaganomics). He claimed that the best protection for workers' jobs was a strong economy and seemed genuinely surprised when a large abattoir laid off many of it workers mere days after the legislation passed.


 * Pauline Hanson: A racist, bigoted fool who has been simultaneously annoying and entertaining Australia for about the last ten years. Her maiden speech to parliament basically outlined her agenda of bigotry and idiocy with the use of the term "reverse racism". As public outcry over her racist sentiments built, she recorded a "beyond the grave" message that was later played on national television. It started "If you are seeing me now, I am dead...". Oh, please don't tease us Pauline! A number of years ago she reportedly joked that John Howard had hired her, because of the anti-immigration policies he was introducing. She gained some popularity by appearing on Dancing with the Stars and appears to be making a political come-back. She recently weighed into the issue of Muslim immigrants, saying that "Christian Muslims are OK". Right...


 * Shooters Party: Enough said.


 * Family First Party: I'm still not sure what to make of these guys. They use the word Family in their name, which in political contexts almost always means Christian. They've taken stereotypically Christian positions on many issues (e.g abortion, stem cell research, gay marriage, etc), but they also played an important role in opposing the former coalition on several issues.


 * Fred Nile's Christian fuckwit party: Yeah.

2007 Australian federal election
Johnnie lost the 2007 election twice - not only did the coalition lose a majority of the seats in the lower house, but he even lost his own seat! This was the sort of result I was hoping for in the last election (2004), but Kim Beazley (former Labor leader) just seemed so wishy-washy. Kevin Rudd was far more electable, now we will have to see how he and Labor runs the country.

A large part of the Labor victory is apparently due to the green vote - literally people voting for the Greens. Their preferences flowed to Labor and pushed them over the line in many close electorates. And the Greens should hopefully get a few more senators into the upper house. It seems the Greens are taking the place of the Democrats as the "other" party to hold the balance of power. But now that the coalition is out of power, I guess the Liberals/Nationals deal is over. It will be interesting to see what happens with the Nationals on their own now.

Update: The Liberal party has all but collapsed without Johnnie's leadership of his cult. Peter Costello declined the Liberal leadership; amazing, since Peter had long been gunning for the PM job and John had even promised to retire after a year or two and let Peter run the country for the rest of the term. But I guess being the opposition leader isn't the same as being PM.

Just as amazing is that the new Liberal leadership has dropped "Work Choices" (anti-union and pro-business legislation passed easily with control of both houses of parliament) and now support the Kyoto protocol, which our new PM Kevin Rudd signed recently, and saying 'sorry' to the stolen generation (aboriginal children forcibly taken from their families to be raised in "civilised" white society). All things that Johnnie had obstructed. Maybe it's just the change of government, or that I (generally) support the new Labor government, but John Howard's last one or two terms look remarkably dictatorial and resistant to change.