Ruddy Bewdiful!

I woke up this morning to great news that Australia FINALLY has a change of government. After 12 years in power, John Howard and his liberal cronies can fade into the past and Australia can move on with important things like ratifying Kyoto and getting our troops out of Iraq. Now all we need is the Democrats in power in the US next year and all will be sweet.

OK, that’s enough of my own personal political views. Everyone’s entitled to their own views, its the bedrock of democracy and all that, I just had to express my pleasure at a change in direction for my country.

It’s strange being so far away from home when there’s an election on. I access a lot of news from Australia online and probably get a more balanced dose of current events than I would if I lived in Perth and only read The West Australian, as I used to do. I was up late last night and thought I’d check how the counting was going on the ABC Election site before going to bed. The seat count was a bit mesmerising so I’m feeling a bit bleary eyed today. You know you’re getting old when you stayed up late following the election, not partying till the wee hours. Even though I’ve read a lot of news stories about the election campaign in the last few months, I still feel very removed from it. I didn’t even get the chance to vote, which was pretty disappointing. We “fell off” the electoral roll last year when we sold our house in Australia and moved to Mexico and didn’t manage to get back on the roll in time for the election. I don’t think our vote would have made much difference though since our future electorate (ie the one we’ll be in when we move back home) is a safe Liberal seat.

We hear a lot about the US elections here, with a lot of exposure to US news. I can’t get over the difference in the process, although I guess its not surprising. The US campaign machine is an enormous beast and even though the election is a year away there is a truckload of money being spent by candidates, and only a couple of them will even end up in the running for the presidency. Its incredible to me how much goes into the campaign just to be the nominee for each party (is nominee the right word?). It seems like such a waste for all those billions of dollars to be spent on a candidate who isn’t even chosen by his/her party to run for President. Its an interesting time in American politics, though, with a woman and an African American emerging as frontrunners for the Democratic Party.

By contrast, the Australian elections are very low-key. The parties have been unofficially campaigning for a while now, but the official campaign was only 6 weeks long. Even after that short period everyone must be thoroughly sick of election talk! I can’t imagine if we had to put up with it for another year.

Well, that post gave the old mother’s brain a bit of workout - I can hear it creaking now! Might have to post something about the kids or food or something next, just to even it out