A Tangled Web

The Wonderful Wizard of Aus



Congratulations go to Australia's Liberal Party leader, John Howard, on his victory in today's General Election. We must surely thank the Australian people for having the good sense not to vote for a man who pledged to leave the Allied Forces in Iraq bereft of antipodean assistance should he win what was predicted to be a close contest.



On the day, however, Howard's right-of-centre alliance won a comfortable majority over Mark Latham's Labor Party. Although we are now guaranteed the continuing input of Australian army personnel in Iraq, this was not a central theme in the election battle. The economy, stupid, was the prime motivating factor for the country's 13 million voters. In the last few years the economy under Howard's stewardship has become the unrivalled powerhouse of the southern Pacific. When Howard first came to office in 1995, Australia had a GDP 40% higher than that of its closest economic competitor, New Zealand. It now has nearly double the GDP levels of its neighbour across the Tasman Sea.



For George W Bush, the Australian result provides a welcome fillip in advance of the US Presidential Election next month. Not only has the Australian nation re-elected a government committed to strong economic growth and the maintenance of the monarchic link, it has also shown that it would not allow itself to be cowered in the way Spain was by Islamic terrorist attacks against its citizens.