Howard the Coward

Finally, Australians have a date. We will go to the polls to remove John Howard - the lying, conniving, warmongering, anachronistic scab on our souls - on October 9th.

Howard's decision to call an election now is notable for several factors:

1. Most significantly, Parliament was due to resume tomorrow, and the prime topic of debate was to be Howard's lies about the "Children Overboard" affair, which won him the last election. As the ABC reports:

Mr Howard says the Senate will still sit on Monday and Tuesday, allowing an inquiry into the children overboard affair to be established.

"I didn't want anybody to suggest that I was trying to prevent the Senate doing any pointless political business that it might want to do," Mr Howard said.

Two days of debate? What will they do, set up an enquiry along Howard-defined lines, to reach yet another totally predictable nobody-is-to-blame conclusion (after the election, no doubt)? Howard is hoping that the six week campaign will effectively stymie any chance of real debate on this issue. He hopes that voters will think the whole topic out-dated and just part of the pre-election slagging. Even if a meaningful enquiry could be set up, it would not be scheduled to conclude before the election date. Howard is trying desperately to kill this issue before it can arise from the dead on prime-time TV.

2. Leadership challenges from within the Liberal Party are now effectively frozen, just when Treasurer Peter Costello was thinking he might have until April to build a posse. But Howard is - yet again - refusing to commit himself to a full term in office.

3. It's a month before the US elections. I always thought Howard would wait till after November 2nd if he thought Bush had a good chance of winning the Us elections. After all, who do you want in the lodge if the most powerful man in the world remains El Busho Loco? Many Australians would look - as they usually do at poll time, unfortunately - at which side of the bread the butter is on. Latham and Bush would be a recipe for conflict, and Howard is sure to press this point in any case. But Howard realises Bush is looking worse week by week, and he's not willing to take the chance.

4. Finally, tomorrow is the last day of the Olympics and Australian athletes have been more successful than ever before. Howard is hoping to piggy-back to victory on the strength of the nationalistic fervour that is sure to reign over the next month, coupled with the consequent lack of attention to details of government policy. Let's hope the media focus on what is really important for a change.

My gut feeling - based especially on converstions with friends, workmates, family, people in the shops and whatever, over the past three years - is that Howard hasn't got a snowball's chance in Hell of surviving this election. I think it will be a landslide for Labour, particularly because most Australians realise that they were cheated last time round (even the racist fools who were swayed by the imaginary deluge of baby-tossing boat people).

But - like Bush - Howard will do anything to win...

This election is going to be all about FEAR. Are you afraid that the Labout Party will not be able to keep your mortgage rates down? Are you afraid that boatloads of refugees will be camping on your lawn next year? Or are you afraid that Islamic terrorists will blow up the Opera House?

But fear works both ways. John Howard is certainly afraid that people will uncover his lies about "children overboard" and Iraqi WMDs, not to mention his government's complicity in the Abu Ghraib scandal.

Be alert, but not alarmed.

Together, we can defeat this menace!