An American view of Aussie politics

Here is an assessment of Australian politics from the libertarian American perspective of Cliff Thies, the Eldon R. Lindsay Chair of Free Enterprise and Professor of Economics and Finance at Shenandoah University.  (Pinched from) Libertarian Republican 

Julia the Red, tubthumper

by Clifford F. Thies 

Rolling Stone placed Chumbawamba's Tubthumping as #12 on its list of the most annoying songs of all time. Its catchy but repetitive lyrics, combined with its head-banging beat, eventually devolved the tune into mind-numbing drivel. 

So it is with the politician this website just loves to hate, the most alluring woman of the left of today, Julia "the Red" Gillard of Australia.   

 Since Julia announced the date of the next general election in Australia, September 14th, she has been falling in the polls, like a hit single that has played out its course. A just released Neilsen Poll shows her party twelve points down in two-party preference, and even her rival for prime minister, Tony Abbott of the Lib-Nat Coalition, leads her in personal popularity. (Losing to Tony Abbott is like losing out in a popularity contest to a cardboard cut-out of Mitt Romney, or - even worse! - to Mitt Romney himself).  

BTW: A Tubthumper refers, in England, to a politician who seems to "jump on the bandwagon" with a populist notion or idea, in Julia the Red's case, Global Warming.

This is probably a little unfair to Tony Abbott, who despite having no real charisma is not the rather wooden and bland type of person Romney is.  Abbott has, unlike many of our politicians spent time out in the real world and has an understanding of the Australian people, something Gillard can never hope to emulate.

On the other hand, he is rather wild and feral in the policy area, probably owing to having no real instincts for real liberalism in the classical sense.  He is not alone on this; you would have to go back a long way in time to find a Liberal Party member who did.