Australian Prime Minister John Howard has announced the next Australian federal election will be held on Saturday, November 24. Speaking to the media after informing the Governor General of the election date, Howard said "Love me or loathe me, the Australian people know where I stand on all the major issues of importance."
Current polling shows that most Australians do know where Howard stands, and they think it's the wrong side of the issues: Recent polls have given a 12 to 18 percent lead to the opposition Australian Labor Party. But don't count Howard out just yet.
Among political schemers in the West, only Bush's kingmaker Karl Rove come close to Howard's ability to bring about victory from seemingly certain defeat. Whether the growing list of Howard opponents is enough to finally end Howard's reign will be known in six weeks,
Meanwhile, Senator Bob Brown, leader of the Australian Green Party, accused Howard of pandering to homophobia in a effort to win votes, largely because of Howard's strident opposition to same-sex marriage in Australia. It wasn't even a federal issue until Howard made it one after seeing how successful Karl Rove had been in exploiting it.
A report to the Australian Parliament by the country's Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission found 58 laws that stand between GLB Australians and equality, largely because of the lack of any recognition of same-sex couples. Polls have found that 71% of Australians favour equal rights for gay people, but Howard is unmoved. He told Sky News, “We are not in favour of discrimination, but of course our views on the nature of marriage in our community are very well known and they won't be changing."
Australians have until 8pm on Wednesday the 17th of October to enrol to vote.
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