News from the New Party

Bad news from Down Under

The defeat of Australia's long-serving Liberal prime minister John Howard in last weekend's general election is a cause for disappointment though not surprise.  After more than eleven years in power there was an evident appetite for change - deriving less from any fatal shortcomings in the government itself than with boredom - although the problems caused by long periods of entrenched one-party government are as evident Up Above as they are Down Under.

Whatever the reasons for his defeat, a true friend of the West and defender of freedom has now left the stage.  Melanie Phillips comments:

It was Howard who was the staunchest Prime Minister in the world against the jihad and who alone seemed to grasp its full dimensions. It was Howard who understood the way in which the anti-western intelligentsia was fatally weakening Australia from within, and how it needed to be fought to defend Australian values. It was Howard who stood alone among western leaders in defending his country's national identity against mass immigration, earning the inevitable label of racism and the undying enmity of bienmal-pensants everywhere. It was Howard who defended reason against irrationality, sentimentality and bigotry - and was branded a bigot for his pains.

We will watch with interest how Kevin Rudd, the new Australian premier, fares in the coming months.  Time will tell whether Australian Labour has found a Blair or a Brown.  In either case the successor to John Howard has a lot to live up to.