Chris,
I read the Reuters report on Howard's defeat and thought it was an excellent summary of his reign. Howard was good for the economy in that he retired foreign debt, which is always step 1, but he unequivocally took a hard line with Unions, as many conservative leaders do, and he went too far. He gave us the worst Industrial Relations laws in the western world, with one sided employment contracts and no penalty rates for shift or weekend work. This has particularly affected the young. At a time of relative prosperity (based on two incomes for the family, I might add) job security significantly diminished and exploitation in the workplace markedly increased; people soon realised this was not acceptable, particularly as mergers and acquisitions seemed to intensify, notably in the food market. His low interest rates were in fact low across much of the world, particularly at our trading partners like Japan and China, and I give him little credit for that, but low rates drove up housing prices and now a family home is the least affordable it's been in thirty years. This has been a cruel twist, as many baby boomers realised that they would have to help their children buy homes, digging into their retirement savings. His slavish emphasis on the booming economy, largely driven by mining companies in Western Australia, hid a terrible neglect of our Universities, Schools, and notably the hospital system, which he suggested would resolve if only people bought private health insurance and students worked as they studied.
Our health system is in transition between a largely publicly funded model to one increasingly dominated by the private options, which are very expensive. Until now, this has made Australia a good country to get sick, but now things are approaching the US model and people here resent having to pay $2500 a year for hospital cover when many of the private hospitals lack equipment and good nurse care anyway. The alternative, particularly for elective, age-related surgery like bypasses, joints and hernias, is to stand in line for up to five years, facing much discomfort and possible death. The University system is now a 'learn now pay later' system, introduced by a Labor government in fact, but such has been Howard's distrust of the University system that he has deliberately underfunded it bringing it to its knees in several cases and forcing a full fee paying model for wealthy overseas students seeking an English language education. However, it's now overpriced, with a medical degree from our best Universities costing around $US250K in fees alone (Melbourne University), more than a wealthly family from Asia would pay from a US Ivy League...... And now, an academic career is relatively poorly paid and low status compared to twenty years ago.
Howard was very badly let down by the Dept of Immigration, who kept deporting the wrong people whilst letting in the least appealing to the population, many with no English or work skills. The Wheat Board scandal was pretty much overlooked by the voters, and probably in hindsight an inevitable part of dealing with Iraq whilst at he same time engaging with the US in large scale military intervention; but what is worse is that one of his ministers appears to have benefited. And the handling of the privatisation of our biggest Telecoms provider was botched badly, with many small investors quite badly burned by what has turned out to be a poorly run enterprise.
He did some good things; paid off foreign debt, tightened up the gun laws to a point where almost no one in this country holds weapons (as an ex-soldier, I applaud that), and united conservative politics in this country, but his determination to promote the entrepreneurial spirit as he saw it brought penalties for workers, greatly diminished influence of unions, and stripping back of welfare, education and health. All these factors reduce wages, social mobility and the heighten the insecurity of ageing, and for that he has been roundly punished.
The new prime minister is one Kevin Rudd, who speaks passable Mandarin and is married to a very wealthy woman who made her money finding work and training for the unemployed. How he shapes up is a complete unknown; he ran almost a one horse race, with little contribution from his front bench (whose appointments has has been vague about until very recently), and there is some evidence that his honeymoon will be brief and he may have a hostile Senate (cf. Congress) just like Bill....... We shall see.
Cheers,
Hugh
