The Australian Federal Election Results Are In

Yesterday - Saturday November 24 - Australian had its Federal Election.

In 2004 I wrote that... the GOP would lose the house and senate and then, due to the real estate collapse brought about due to Clinton/Greenspan monetary policy lag, the presidency. Also that the Leftist Labor Party would win the 2007 election in Australia.

So far, everything I predicted has come to pass. And only 2008 remains to see how right my 2004 predictions turn out to be.

The Swing that got the Labor Party into power is around 6%. In politics, this is massive. So massive that my next prediction is simply this... we will have a Labor Government in power in Australia for at Least 2 terms. For the voters tend Not to swing so wildly back and forth and it would take two elections to swing back the other way.

Australia now has wall-to-wall Labor government - each state is also run by Labor. The 2IC is a confirmed socialist. And the vast majority of the new Ministry is made from trade unionists.

Apart from wild spending to come, which will add to inflation and bring about interest rate hikes as an excuse to curb it, nothing else will change much (if you call, screwing an economy with wild feelgood government spending "nothing much").

Oh well. The people get the government they elect - no matter which side of the political spectrum you reside on. And, oddly, they have decided to vote out the party that resided in office while interest rates were at their lowest, the economy boomed and unemployment has been its lowest in decades. Go figure.

The one thing I do puzzle over though, is the Swing voter. The voter who one election is for more collectivist ideals and the next is for more free market ideals, only to change their mind again at the election after that.

Anyway. As for the US elections, I'll make some other predictions...

If Ron Paul gets the republican nomination, he will become president. If he doesn't there is a 50/50 change of the GOP winning/losing if Hillary is the Dem nomination due to Hillary's polarizing effect but will lose if Obama is the Dem nomination as, like Lieberman before, he is liked by people on both sides. 2008 will reveal how close I am on this one.

Michael Ross