On August 29 the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, ended speculation and called a general election to be held on October 9. The Liberal Party has been in power for 8.5 years and is seeking its fourth term.
After the first week of campaigning the focus has been on Howard's chronic dishonesty and lies he has told while Prime Minister. These lies have been about both foreign and domestic policies. They include lies about the existence of WMDs in Iraq, the introduction of $100,000 degrees, and about the environment. The focus has
One of the most been on lies scandalous lies
Howard has became known as the "Children Overboard" told while incident that helped secure him the 2001 election. In October of that year a boat full of Iraqi and Kurdish refugees heading for Australian territorial waters and were turned back by the navy.
In desperation some men jumped overboard and in the end all the passengers were in the sea as the boat sunk. John Howard concocted a story about these refugees trying to blackmail Australia into letting them stay by throwing their children overboard despite being told there was no evidence for this.
This cynical ploy was a used to galvanise voters behind him under the slogan "We decide who comes to this country". The Liberal Party won an increased parliamentary majority.
In recent weeks it has been proved that the photos Howard used as part of this manoeuvre were in fact of sailors trying to rescue drowning children.
The Socialist Alliance will be fielding its most ambitious electoral slate with 37 candidates being put forward and for the first time the party name itself will appear on the ballot paper. Formed in 2001 it succeeded in registering as a party just after elections then.
A focus of SA's campaign will be the war and ongoing occupation of Iraq and exposing the lies told by John Howard to justify it. Combined
with other parties and groups having an antiwar stance this campaign is designed to unseat Prime Minister the Liberals.
On Sunday October 3 there is a nationwide demonstration entitied "End the Lies"; which the Socialist Alliance has participate in organising.
For the Alliance, the Greens and other anti-war groups a large demonstration will provide a basic idea about the balance of forces between parties, and how strong the antiHoward mood is.
The Australian Labour Party has also pledged to bring the troops in Iraq back to Australia before Christmas. This has enraged both Washington and Canberra. The ALP have also learnt the lesson from the Spanish election in March and saw that being identified as pro-war and pro-Bush carries significant political dangers.