Some advice for the apolitical

Today John Howard finally called the Australian federal election. So to mark the occasion and since I can't vote in Australia I thought I would add my two cents to the debate. Here is as I see it.

On the one hand you have old wooden spoon, the leader of the liberal party. Australia has just gotten so bored with Mr Howard after 12 years that he might actually be the first Australian leader to get voted out for being, well how else can I put, dull. Of course, being a politician these are far from his only crimes. In my mind his failure to recognise climate change as THE issue and his failure to ratify Kyoto are his biggest short comings. Of course, he will prattle on about the economy and his lack of intervention, lowering of taxes and to be fair his general less government is more fiscal policies are extremely sound, but hey we're bored with you.

Now crossing the fence to the other camp and we have Mr Rudd. This guy is so unbelievably slimey that he literally glistens in the sun. Whenever he opens his mouth, I find it extremely hard to take him seriously and I'm not quite sure what it is but it seems, well, he can't be trusted. About the only thing one can say about Mr Rudd on the policy front is that his policies are not that different from the liberals. His biggest shortcoming (although admittedly most people who like to shirk away from hard work see it as a positive), will be to repeal the work choices legislation, allowing unions to sneak back in through the back door and take the Australian economy hostage again. This will be a truly backward step for work place relations in Australia. However, Mr Rudd seems to have pulled the ultimate trump card going into this election - the big CC. Yes Rudd has promised to ratify Kyoto if elected, and one hopes that this will quickly pave the way for Australian leadership in reducing carbon emissions. In my mind this is the only issue going into this election and therefore you simply must vote Labour. It hurts me to say it, but there it is, vote Labour.