America lost a good friend today as the Labor Party in Australia defeated John Howard's Liberal-National Coalition.
Kevin Rudd will be the next prime minister of Australia.
Howard was gracious in defeat, telling supporters, "I accept full responsibility for the Coalition's defeat in this campaign."
Still, the sting of defeat must be bitter for Howard, as not only will he no longer be the prime minister of Australia, he apparently has lost his parliamentary seat, a Labor challenger is leading in Howard's New South Wales district.
Saturday's vote was not a referendum on the War on Terror--sorry anti-war folks--but rather a referendum on Howard, who has been the leader of Australia for eleven years. Many Aussies felt Howard should have stepped aside and handed over party leadership to Peter Costello, the nation's treasurer. Interestingly, the environment and an ongoing drought down-under was a key issue. Rudd has pledged to sign the Kyoto Protocol, not that signing it will make it suddenly rain, of course.
If you don't believe me, surf some Australian news sites, you'll see.
But Rudd has pledged to remove Australian troops from Iraq.
Howard leaves behind an Australia with a much stronger economy than what was in place when he assumed power--and the Land of Oz can rightfully be called a world power. Well done, Mr. Howard.
Pajamas Media has more, as does Michelle Malkin.
UPDATE 11:00PM: Australian friend-of-the-blog John Ray has his take here.
Technorati tags:
politics
election 
Australia 
John Howard 
Kevin Rudd 
australian politics 
Iraq 
war on terror 
economy 
Kyoto 
environment
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