Labor Party Wins Big in Australia - World on The Huffington Post: "Saturday at the hands of the left-leaning opposition, whose leader has promised to immediately sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and withdraw Australia's combat troops from Iraq. Labor Party head Kevin Rudd's pledges on global warming and Iraq move Australia sharply away from policies that had made Howard one of President Bush's staunchest allies. Rudd has named global warming as his top priority, and his signing of the Kyoto Protocol will leave the U.S. as the only industrialized country not to have joined it. Rudd said he would withdraw Australia's 550 combat troops from Iraq, leaving twice that number in mostly security roles. Howard had said all the troops will stay as long as needed."
Labor sweeps to victory in Australia election: "Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd swept to power in Australian elections Saturday, ending an 11-year conservative era and promising major changes to policies on global warming and his country's role in the Iraq war. 'Today Australia has looked to the future,' Rudd said in a nationally televised victory speech, to wild cheers from supporters. 'Today the Australian people have decided that we as a nation will move forward ... to embrace the future together, to unite and write a new page in our nation's history.' The win marked a humiliating end to the career of outgoing Prime Minister John Howard, who became Australia's second-longest serving leader - and who had appeared almost unassailable as little as a year ago. Howard concedes defeat, may lose seat"
John Howard concedes defeat - Federal Election 2007 News - Federal Election 2007: "Mr Howard then appeared at Sydney's Wentworth Hotel to address Liberal Party faithful. 'My fellow Australians, a few moments ago I telephoned Mr Kevin Rudd and I congratulated him and the Australian Labor Party on an emphatic victory,'' Mr Howard told the crowd. Mr Howard said he harboured no ill will to Mr Rudd. 'I wish him well in the task that he will undertake,'' Mr Howard said. 'We bequeath to him a nation that is stronger and prouder.'' Mr Howard spoke of the economic prosperity Australia had enjoyed under the coalition. 'I've led a government that has taken this country from deep debt to strong prosperity,'' he said. 'I've led a government that has never shirked the difficult decisions. 'I've led a government that has reformed the Australian economy and left it the envy of the world.'' 'Can I say to all of you it has been an immense privilege every day of my life over the last 11 and half years to have been prime minister of this beautiful country,'' Mr Howard said."
View from Jarkarta
A loss in Bennelong would mark a mortifying end to Howard's political career, making him only the second prime minister to be dumped from the legislature. The first was the largely forgotten Stanley Bruce, in 1929.
McKew, a charismatic former television journalist recruited to oust the 68-year leader, declined to claim victory as the results rolled in, saying the count was still "on a knife edge."
"The result is not clear, but what a wonderful, wonderful campaign this has been," she told throngs of cheering supporters at her campaign headquarters. "Bennelong will never, ever be taken for granted again."
Formerly a safe area for Howard's Liberal Party, Bennelong has seen its loyalties gradually shift over the years as immigration and redistricting have changed the face of the electorate there.
Once a typical cross-section of Anglo-Saxon Australia, Bennelong is now a multicultural mix of Presbyterian churches, Indian supermarkets and Vietnamese noodle houses.
According to census bureau statistics, only 56 percent of Bennelong residents were born in Australia, compared to the national average of 71 percent. A language other than English is spoken in more than two-thirds of Bennelong homes.
Immigrants in Australia are generally Labor voters. Before the election, Howard was the only Liberal Party member to hold a district with that level of ethnic diversity.
At a community center in the leafy Bennelong suburb of Epping, Kenya-born Brendan Mudanya, 32, lined up with hundreds of voters outside a community center that usually serves as a meeting place for a South Korean tae kwon do academy, a Scottish highlands dancing club and an Indonesian church group.
Upset at Howard's steadfast support for the war in Iraq, Mudanya said his decision was more "a protest vote" against Howard's Liberal Party than an endorsement of Labor.
"I just felt the Liberal government wasn't honest," said Mudanya, who recently became an Australian citizen. "A lot of the leadership seemed quite arrogant, almost as if they took Australians for granted."
Wendy Wang, 40, a recent immigrant from Beijing who runs a cleaning service, said she voted for Labor because she wanted a fresher face in government.
"I want someone younger," said Wang.
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