Road Trip - Canberra - Australian Politics as I understand them

Road Trip – Canberra, the Capitol of Australia and Australian Politics
The next morning we made our way to Canberra. Canberra, (pronounced Canbra) is the capital city of Australia. It’s about 280km southwest of Sydney and 660km northeast of Melbourne, and is Australia’s largest inland city. It’s about the size of Austin with a population of about 345,000. The site was chosen as a compromise between Sydney and Melbourne, Australia’s two largest cities. This and more historical information on Canberra can be found on Wikipedia using the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canberra .

Jack and I took a tour of Australia’s Parliament House. It was opened on May 9, 1988 by Queen Elizabeth II. Paraphrasing from the Self-Guided Tour brochure, “the building combines art and architecture to represent the unique country and the parliamentary system which governs it.” The very modern architecture of Parliament House represents the history of Australia, from its ancient beginnings to current times. The building itself is, in our opinion, ultra-modern in design, and we couldn’t help but compare it to the Texas State Capitol building on our tour. While we appreciated the very thoughtful approach to the design of the building, we didn’t get a sense of history from it as we do when we’re in the Texas capitol. The building is pretty new, however, and will eventually get some interesting history behind it. Here is a link to an article that explains the legislative process in Australia. http://teachit.acreekps.vic.edu.au/cyberfair2002/parliamenthousecanberra.htm . We liked Canberra a lot and found it very interesting.

Politics in Australia have been pretty fascinating since we have been here. The night after our arrival, all hell broke loose. Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister, held a press conference around 10:00 pm, and announced he was calling a meeting to hold a confidence/no-confidence vote on him continuing as the Prime Minister. So, at 9:00 am the next day, the Labor Party ministers met, voted him out, and voted in Julia Guillard, the first woman PM. From what I can tell, Mr. Rudd was having some popularity issues regarding various policies that were implemented during his tenure, and regarding a mega-tax on the mining industry. Upon being sworn in, Ms. Guillard immediately began reversing some of those troublesome policies, and renegotiated the mining tax to what seems to be a more reasonable level.

About two weeks ago, she called for new elections to be held on August 29th, so she could be elected Prime Minister by the people, in her own right. Now the campaigning has begun. The campaigns seem to be a lot like the campaigns at home. Her opponent from the Liberal Party, Tony Abbott, says “With her you’ll get this…… and then this will happen.” Then she says “He has a bad record, don’t trust him, He doesn’t respect women”, etc., etc. The big difference is that campaigns only last about 30 days or so. Yes, that’s right, 30 days.

During the time since she became PM, some interesting facts have come into the public forum about Ms. Guillard. She is 48 years old, single, never been married, and has no children. She lives with her boyfriend, who, if elected, will move into the official residence with her. And, she is agnostic, and will not claim a faith that she doesn’t have. There has been a little bit of disapproving talk about her personal life on the morning shows, but no one is horrified, or really even sees these things as issues. I believe this would cause endless, endless debate in the US, and probably derail any serious discussion on the issues. What do you think?