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The Nation magazine "reports" on the Oz election

Probably America's most pre-eminent magazine, The Nation - and certainly its oldest - interestingly publishes a perspective of the Rudd election win, written by an Australian and giving it prominence as its lead piece.

Antony Loewenstein's piece, "Kevin Rudd, Agent of Change?" evaluates the outcome of the election and where Australia is headed under its new PM, Kevin Rudd:

"..... the election of Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd to the prime ministership may not necessarily represent a repudiation of the worst excesses of the past decade. An "It's Time" factor became almost infectious as soon as Rudd assumed the Labor leadership in late 2006. Voters wanted change, a younger personality to replace the near 70-year-old Howard, and Rudd offered, in his cautious technocratic way, a sense of slight change without seriously challenging the fundamentals of relatively prosperous, conservative capitalism. No polls indicated intense dislike for Howard before the election, though he was accused, like so many global leaders before him, of not recognizing when it was time to retire. His Liberal Party is now out of power at every level of Australian government."

And:

"Rudd is a conservative Christian, Chinese-speaking former diplomat who remains relatively unknown. Canberra journalist Nicholas Stuart, author of Kevin Rudd: An Unauthorized Political Biography, says that the new prime minister is "like a glass and we're pouring our hopes and our ideas into him and, because he is empty, we see them reflected back." His optimism may be short-lived.

Although Rudd has pledged to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and remove Australia's combat troops from Iraq--clear policy differences with his predecessor--Rudd has maintained a "hard line" on antiterrorism measures, despite systematic failures over the past few years in bringing terror suspects to trial: a senior counterterrorism officer with the Australian Federal Police admitted in a recent botched trial that his team in 2004 was "directed, we were informed, to lay as many charges under the new terrorist legislation against as many suspects as possible because we wanted to use the new legislation." It is unlikely that a Rudd government will fundamentally alter the extremes of the current laws. One can hope that he will repair the breakdown in trust between the Muslim community and the federal government after years of Howard's rhetorical demonization of a minority vital to isolating terrorists."

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