chelsea girl said:
it's SYMBOLIC though. it's just, you know, kind of nice to know that the majority of people in this country are now a little bit less conservative and that we (touch wood) will not be regressing to a 1950's-nuclear-family-stepford-wives-esque state.
How does one reach such a conclusion from an election that was essentially about WorkChoices and the economic future of our country as framed by the leaders?
On a related note, ever since he became the leader of the Labor Party in the federal parliament, Kevin Rudd has gone to great lengths to frame everything in economic terms - education, health, indigenous affairs, etc.. If it was a political policy, it was presented to the public as a part of Labor's economic agenda. Nevertheless, a number of commentators have claimed that the recent election would be and was about the idea that "we aren't just an economy, we are a society", and that a vote for Labor differed to a vote for the Coalition in that a Labor vote supposedly represented something more 'altruistic' than a sense of 'economic self-interest'. Now that the election is over, it seems that quite a few still hold this "society, economy" idea to be true, despite the fact that Kevin Rudd's economic argument was just as widespread than the Coalition's. That Kevin Rudd's rhetoric (the future, workchoices, the future, workchoices, education, workchoices, etc.) seemingly softened the ALP's message doesn't change the fact that we are now no more a society than an economy than we were before.
Nobody should try and claim that the recent election represents a dramatic (or even a slight) socio-cultural shift. Yes, the government was turfed out, but that shouldn't be taken as a repudiation of every policy and political agenda pursued by the Howard Government over the previous 11 years. There is little doubt that the country will change (for the better, I hope), but such change will hardly be as fast and as widespread as many would like to believe. At the moment Kevin Rudd seems to be little more than a manager (much like a state premier), and only time will tell if he becomes an actual leader. Even then there's questions as to whether he will mellow or whether he'll keep the left in check and wholely pursue the Labor right's agenda.
ps, I saw the 'slight' and the 'touch wood', chelsea girl, but I have been meaning to say much of the above for some time, so please don't think that my poor excuse for an argument was directed at you.