Australia's 2007 Election: The End of an Era

▪ 2008

      On Nov. 25, 2007, headlines around the world announced that the Australian Labor Party's (ALP's) victory in that country's parliamentary election the previous day marked the end of a conservative era and the beginning of a period of substantial social change. The ALP captured 43.4% of the vote for 83 seats (an increase of 23) in the 150-seat House of Representatives. Prime Minister John Howard's conservative Liberal Party (LP) secured 36.6% of the vote and fell from 69 seats to 55, with the LP's minority coalition partner, the National Party (NP), garnering only 5.5% and 10 seats. The Greens took 7.8% but won no seats. Two independents retained their seats. The ALP triumph capped a series of victories at the state level since 2001, and when party leader Kevin Rudd (Rudd, Kevin ) was sworn in on December 3 to succeed Howard as the country's 26th prime minister, there was not a single conservative political leader in power in any of Australia's states or territories.

      Howard, prime minister since March 1996, went into his fifth election presiding over a country with unprecedented prosperity. Australians enjoyed near full employment, but the industrial relations landscape had changed, and many Australian workers sought a return to a system of collective bargaining rather than having to rely on individual workplace agreements with employers to set pay and working conditions.

      When he was defeated by former Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalist Maxine McKew, Howard became only the second prime minister in Australian history to have lost his seat in Parliament. In his concession speech he endorsed his treasurer, Peter Costello, as his successor as the head of the LP. Costello, however, declared that he would not accept the role of leader of the opposition and that he would leave Parliament as soon as possible. He publicly blamed Howard for the landslide defeat and expressed the view that the coalition would have done better if Howard had handed over power and taken the distasteful advice of his ministers to accept the verdict of the preelection voting predictions; pollsters had asserted that it would be the ruin of the conservatives if Howard led them into battle.

      While playing it safe and endorsing many conservative policies that had coincided with a decade of economic growth, Rudd was criticized by many of his supporters for not providing significant alternatives. His campaign did differ markedly from Howard's on environmental issues and the question of Australian participation in the U.S.-led war in Iraq, but Rudd had learned from past experience how easily Australian voters could be spooked by the possibility of fast-tracked political change. In another break with tradition, Rudd selected his own ministers rather than having individuals thrust upon him by factional “warlords” in the party machine. Like the new prime minister, many of the new ministers came from regional Australia, and when Rudd's cabinet met for the first time, his leadership group was largely without any experience of power in government.

      Rudd (whose campaign emphasized his ability to speak Mandarin Chinese) spent his early career as a junior diplomat. From this experience he became convinced of the importance of Australia's future links with Asia. Although he reassured the electorate that Australia would remain a close friend of the U.S., the new government's priority remained to withdraw Australian troops from Iraq at the earliest possible opportunity.

A.R.G. Griffiths

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