| | Hi Martin,
You said: "So to say that the 'Australia just voted on this issue' as if that is the only issue Australians were concerned about is not accurate at all. Howard won on domestic issues."
That was really part of my my point, I guess, although I was perhaps a little hasty in making it without the necessary argument. Every election in wartime is about War - unlike the situation in the American election , or the earlier Spanish election, in this election the war was a largely a non-issue suggesting an overwhelming endorsement of Howard's actions to date in supporting Bush and the War on Terror.
As an issue in the Australian election the war was pretty much a non-starter, or as one report called it a "sub-text." Labour said they would have the troops home by Christmas; Howard said they would come home when the job was done. Labor's Latham decried Bush as "the most incompetent and dangerous president in living history"; Howard is two-hundred percent behind Bush. When the embassy building in Jakarta was bombed, Labor's poll rating went down - an indication that Australians for the most part agree with Howard's handling of the War. Labor tried to raise it as an issue, but found no real traction with it.
By not being an election issue it seems to me that Australians were saying: "We agree with Howard's actions in supporting the War on Terror - that's a done deal. Let's talk about the issues here at home." And in the final analysis, the result was a landslide.
There are alternative views of course, e.g: www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11033737%255E2702,00.html
(Edited by Peter Cresswell on 10/10, 9:49pm)
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