(Waiting for a bite, Tom? .. Ok then - chomp!)

There is no mention of anything relating to that mentality in Chrenkoff's blog. Many people voted for Howard - everyone knows that, no-one is denying it in the way your Nixon quote seems to suggest. So, your use of the quote shows signs that you are interpreting Ostrayan politics through your own prism - understandable, but not quite right:

Because, despite the minimum wage in your country being comparable to 3rd-world standards, you still apparently have some very strong labor unions (the democratic or undemocratic nature of which is a different conversation. And, as you yourself have pointed out, the right-wing Bush administration has pledged to spend hundreds of trillions of dollars on health and some 70 billion on education.

That is very different governance from Howard, whose model is Margaret Thatcher, not George Bush, or Ronald Reagan, or Richard Nixon.

Or, maybe you do know that, and approve of it - which would be even sadder.

I am actually quite satisfied with the situation here, as I believe things worked out as they should: the so-called 'Labor' Party is a bunch of useless, highly undemocratic careerist opportunists, like much of the trade union leadership. The electorate was quite sensible in rejecting them. They are being gradually sidelined and probably consigned to history.

Hopefully in its place, something new, fresh and democratic will arise. Howard's Thatcherite attacks on workers' right to organize - the enforcement of individual contract bargaining over and above the right to collective bargaining - is sure to provoke a reaction, sooner or later. And that reaction will be grass-roots; democratic from the shop-floor up. It will be much healthier than the useless 'Labor' Party, or the latte-lapping self-righteous Greens.

Apart from the economic front, I don't mind Howard too much as I am something of a social conservative, if not an economic one. I'm not too much into tree-hugging and certainly don't give much thought to 'gay marriage' (not that that's much of an issue here, so far anyway.)

(Ok, so you got your reaction ..? ;)