Sentence of the day

Most New Zealanders don’t follow Australian politics very closely, or at all. Which is a shame, because Australian politics is great. IMHO being in Oz for a national election is a close second to being in the US for a presidential. I have done both: the US wins on points because it matters more on a world scale, but the Aussies are much, much funnier. Well, perhaps not Kevin Rudd.

The West Sydney suburb of Penrith had a by-election yesterday. It has been a staunch Labor (sic) seat forever, more or less: the Liberals have held it only twice in the last 37 years. But this time there was a swing against Labor of 25% and so the Liberal candidate Stuart Ayres hosed in. Or, as the Australian put it:

Voters in Penrith took a bat to the government

In New Zealand terms this is like Te Atatu or Mt Roskill going National. More here at the Sydney Morning Herald.

This is possibly just a local result with no implications for the impending general election: the reason for the by-election was that the Labor incumbent had to resign because of corruption, which is unusual in NSW. The resignation, I mean, not the corruption. But it must add fuel to the Gillard for PM campaign.

I did like this Laurie Oakes story which suggests that Rudd may be Cactus. Seems unlikely to me.

UPDATE: having returned from Melbourne, I can report (in case you hadn’t noticed) that Rudd is, if not Cactus, definitely toast. The best thing about this was seeing Mark Latham, a similarly dumped former Labor leader, on morning television viciously bagging Rudd, Gillard, Swan and practically everybody else in his party, especially the Victoria and NSW branches. These guys are outstanding haters.