Word: rudds
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...Rudd embraced conservative policies with an ease that shocked Labor stalwarts. He supported the government's bill restricting marriage to one man and one woman; its intervention into dysfunctional Aboriginal communities; its sale of the final one-third of telecommunications firm Telstra; its takeover of the Murray-Darling basin; its use of antiterrorism laws to expel visiting doctor Mohamed Haneef, suspected of complicity in a British bomb plot. A scornful Bob Brown, leader of the Greens Party, continued the list. "Labor and the Coalition are exactly the same," he said, "on logging native forests, exporting more uranium, increasing coal mining...
...Rudd does have "fundamental differences" from Howard, he insists: one of his first acts as P.M. will be to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. He'll also withdraw Australian troops from Iraq and cancel the WorkChoices laws. But the first two items are largely symbolic. Though Howard kept Australia outside the Kyoto regime, it has already met its emissions targets. And on the question of a post-2012 successor treaty to Kyoto, Rudd in mid-campaign abruptly took the Howard position: no ratification of Kyoto II unless it requires China and India to limit their carbon emissions...
...Rudd was accused of "me too-ism," but a more accurate term might have been "me-me-ism." The election wasn't about Labor vs. the Coalition. It wasn't about socialism vs. free-market liberalism. It was about Rudd the new leader, who had a MySpace page with thousands of registered friends, vs. Howard the old leader, who was, well, old. Rudd was all over the new media; he talked often of his plan to roll out a national high-speed broadband network. The self-described "big fan of baroque" went on FM rock radio, said...
...didn't go quite that way. With his seat looking lost to Labor, on Saturday night Howard congratulated Rudd, thanked sobbing supporters and said, "There is no prouder job in the world that anyone can occupy than being P.M. of this country." He said he took "full responsibility" for the Coalition's defeat. On Sunday, Costello made the surprise announcement that he would not stand for party leadership and would quit politics at the end of his term. The double knockout was a reminder that for the conservatives this election is not just a single defeat; it means a coast...
...Rudd said his team would start work at once on implementing Labor's program. He also vowed to break with party tradition and appoint all ministers himself rather than have them selected in factional horse-trading. But while Labor and the trade unions - which poured more than $30 million into his campaign - are now in Rudd's debt for saving them from oblivion, there are doubts that he'll be able to hold off the factional bosses who run the party's federal Caucus. Laborites who think the unions have too much influence in the Caucus may not be consoled...