BRISBANE (Reuters) - Prime Minister John Howard has been dealt another election-year body blow by discontented Australian voters deserting his conservatives in droves in a state poll.
Widespread discontent at a new 10 percent Goods and Services Tax (GST), fuel prices and free-market reforms that have hurt the countryside, devastated Howard's Liberal/National coalition in the state of Queensland on Saturday and in Western Australia a week before.
"Western Australia was a landslide. The Queensland election was an avalanche," said Malcolm MacKerras, a political analyst at the Australian Defence Force Academy.
Howard will be seeking a third consecutive term at the helm of this island continent of 19 million people when he calls an election, expected by November.
He will find it hard to resolve the voter dissatisfaction that swept the left-of-centre Labor Party back into power in the "sunshine state" of Queensland with a huge majority, and which ousted the incumbent conservatives from Western Australia.
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One door closed is one door opened
One more memory fades away
Such grand dreams we all have chosen
We lost our innocence along the way
- Rose Bygrave, "Innocence"
PsychoticIckyThing.Com
Widespread discontent at a new 10 percent Goods and Services Tax (GST), fuel prices and free-market reforms that have hurt the countryside, devastated Howard's Liberal/National coalition in the state of Queensland on Saturday and in Western Australia a week before.
"Western Australia was a landslide. The Queensland election was an avalanche," said Malcolm MacKerras, a political analyst at the Australian Defence Force Academy.
Howard will be seeking a third consecutive term at the helm of this island continent of 19 million people when he calls an election, expected by November.
He will find it hard to resolve the voter dissatisfaction that swept the left-of-centre Labor Party back into power in the "sunshine state" of Queensland with a huge majority, and which ousted the incumbent conservatives from Western Australia.
Want to learn more? http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=world&Repository=WORLD_REP&RepositoryStoryID=%2Fnews%2FIDS%2FWorld%2FOUKWD-AUSTRALIA-POLTICS_TXT.XML
------------------
One door closed is one door opened
One more memory fades away
Such grand dreams we all have chosen
We lost our innocence along the way
- Rose Bygrave, "Innocence"
PsychoticIckyThing.Com