While you guys in the US are finishing turkey leftovers and are slowly returning to your blogs, Australians have gone to their polling booths and finally - finally! - said goodbye to Prime Minister John Howard.
To be honest, after so many news polls over the last year pointing to solid victory for Labor leader, Kevin Rudd, I was still sick to my stomach thinking there remained a small possibility no change would occur.
I thought the news of the victory would unleash my tongue and I would snarl and snipe at Howard, dancing gleefully on his political grave. Hilaire Belloc pretty much summed up where I stood.
Here, richly, with ridiculous display,
The Politician’s corpse was laid away.
While all of his acquaintances sneered and slanged
I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.
[Quoted by Jeff Sparrow, the editor of Overland (the one journal I have been published in), as part of the final words from the commentariat at Crikey.]
Instead, I’m just relieved.
I can’t say I’m unhappy that the victory was so emphatic, even historic, and I can’t say I’m unhappy with the extra salt poured on the wound by the almost certain loss of the Howard’s own seat, Bennelong, which will make him only the 2nd sitting PM in Australia’s history to lose his seat in an election. I can’t say that I’m not drinking my champagne with a little bit of schadenfreude. But…
It’s over.
Perhaps it seems a little odd for a philosophical anarchist to have such an investment in the outcome of an election but as imperfect as the political system is, it is what we have. For years I did not vote on principle, in spite of Australia’s legal requirement for me to do so, but so much of the last 11 and a half years has been intolerable. Indeed, shameful.
So I welcome the change and hopefully we will see some of the social injustices perpetrated by the Howard government set to rights. I won’t say I expect the new government to live up to my standards - government is fundamentally incapable of that - but I am hopeful that the Ruddslide will give us some politics that are a little less regressive, a little more inclusive, a lot less destructive, and that exhibit at least a modicum of integrity, something which has been noticeably absent for too long.
That’s not a hard ask, considering.
And in Julia Gillard, we now have our very first female Deputy Prime Minister elect, the highest political office a woman has ever held in this country. With the exception of one doofus politician who called her “deliberately barren” and considered her unfit for her position because she was childless, her sex was a non-issue throughout the campaign. What more could a feminist want?
So…
Friends, tomorrow, the work begins…You can have a strong cup of tea if you want, even an Iced Vo-Vo on the way through. But the celebration stops there.
[Kevin Rudd’s Acceptance Speech]
Er, actually… I’m still celebrating.
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