Australia's new PM

Trade ya Bush, Bonzi, 2008 first, and cash?

 

Rudd has a son in law of chinese descent. Gore has a son in law of chinese descent.

These parties generally show support for each other Liberals(Aus)-Republicans(US), Labor(Aus)-Democrats(US).

Even though Gore hasn't thrown his name as a candidate for the US elections. I wonder if it's going to play out where we have these trivial coincidences.

 

What I do not get is are places like Australia, Canada, and so on countries of their own or not? I see that the Queen of England is the monarch or head of state so does that mean you belong to them or what?

 

actually they all belong to the same monarchs (of banking)

 

Interestingly, Kevin Rudd speaks perfect Mandarin because he was a diplomat in Beijing according to this NYT article

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/world/asia/25australia.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

 

Maybe in some small way it's a sign that anti-Asian racism in Australia is lessening, or this will be an opportunity to make improvements in that area.

 

I heard him talk today in Mandarin on TV, he speak extremely well, with no accent.

 

I'm curious what's so bad about Rudd?

I haven't followed your election very much but Rudd doesn't sound very bad and might be very good for Australia. Australia's future is clearly with the countries of Asia and Rudd seems like the guy to led that. At the sametime his Global Warming seems to be an important issue to Aussies which Rudd represents much better than Howard.

On a tangential issue is there still any interest in making Australia a republic?

 

i believe she's independently the queen of canada/australia.

 

The Queen acts as the Head of State. It is purely a ceremonial role and in practice has no real influence in the domestic political process.

There was a vote on moving to become a Republic in 1999 but was defeated mostly due to debate surrounding alternative systems.

The Government which Rudd has displaced have been very good economic managers which may be the source of some of the doubts.

Or it could be this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ipvdBnU8F8

 

I don't follow Australian politics much at all, but didn't Howard say some pretty inflammatory things about Muslim immigrants a while back? How much did that play into this?

 

I don't know if it was Howard but during the election apparently some members of Howard's party ran some inflamatory ads about Muslims.

 

It’s just a historical and traditional thing. We have our own constitutions and the Queen has no real power in our countries, and hasn’t had for well over a century in the case of Canada. We’re both members of the Commonwealth of Nations, though, and this is largely what our connection to the Queen and the former members of the British Empire is about today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations

 

I think you’re better off with Howard gone. Just my opinion. I don’t understand this recent push to get rid of the monarchy, though, given that it has no real power anyway. What’s the downside to staying in the Commonwealth?

 

Not really, it was leaflets and in a single electorate/few suburbs. The leaflets were of a fake extremist party giving thanks to the Labor party for supporting the Bali bombers and allowing Sheikh al Hilali (this guy is a disgrace) to enter the country way back when ASIO (CIA eqiv) brought up info/objections.

 

Obviously Howard wasn't involved in the above.