I wonder what Boot would make of a democratic victory. Presumably that's also just the decision of the ungrateful masses who don't know what's good for them - not, y'know, disappointment with an administration that has made mistake after mistake...

You have just talked me out of voting for Rudd, looks like informal.

Re John Howard "His success is his downfall" Our PM has succeeded in pricing housing out of the reach of middle and lower income citizens. This success has had several poorly understood causes but making the well off even richer is one as it allows them to seek control of even more assets including more homes. Jackie Kelly married to an orthodontist is a good example. What is an orthodontist but an instrument fitter working inside a customers mouth, grossly overpaid to do so, and now on a much reduced tax rate besides.
The present method of contolling the volume of money is another substantial cause of the housing debacle. Banks now gouge the population with exhorbitant fees so that they make profits well in excess of that necessary to pay a reasonable dividend. The excess profit flows to their capital adequacy base so that they can create substantially more loans and thus further force up the price of assets.
Inflation is the loss of purchasing power of money. How much less valuable has our money become when it comes to buying a home on some other asset such as a bank share? The Commonwealth Bank is not really worth more than it was when the populace owned it. Its just priced higher because our money is less valuable in asset terms. The CPI has been kept low because politicians believe we can pay workers slave rates of pay if they cannot be seen because they are in overseas countries. No doubt in terms of his own ideology John Howard has been a rip roaring success.

Do they know Kevin Rudd’s diplomatic background? Firstly, he is a Sinophile for heavens sake. And he is a pragmatist. No confrontationalist or containment oriented China policies for him. America can forget about an automatic commitment of Australian forces in the event of a China-Taiwan conflict too. Even John Howard was at best lukewarm over that possibility. Good thing too.

America has nothing to fear from any difference of opinion from a Rudd led Australia over foreign policy specifics however. I see no dramatic threat to ANZUS. Strategic practicality is the order of the day.

"So exactly what is America’s hold over Australia? “[M]ost folks Down Under, Labor or Liberal, know that, in the final analysis, their survival and safety rest with their American mates,” explains Boot. “Just as America came to the rescue in 1942, with Douglas MacArthur taking charge when Japanese invasion seemed imminent, so Australians count on America to bail them out of any future crisis.”"

Unfortunately he's sort of right. Although the yanks motive for "coming to the rescue" was not actually to come to OUR rescue, it is what it amounted to for us and it is what our PM at the time was requesting of them.
Because they did effectively protect us from the spectre of invasion during WW2, i think we have this idea that we still need America to be our big brother and protect us, and we still have a bit of a lingering fear of being invaded or taken over by another culture.
It's really quite irrational and we actually don't need America to protect us at all, but unfortunately that underlying fear exists and therefore we cling do the pant leg of the US and enter into messy situations like Iraq without any real reasoned, rational thought bar the "we must support our mates" blind logic.

i used to laugh at the poor thais, having to enter the kings presence on their belly. but they're not the only ones. ozzies are on their knees to pollies, and oz pollie's heads are stuck up uncle sam's bum.

i truly wonder how the kiwis avoided this. much higher percentage of scot's genes, for a guess<viz 'braveheart'>. or maybe they just figured nobody would want to bother them. or maybe hollywood buying up all those disaster bolthole homes offers protection from the usmc. it's a puzzle..