Australia goes through leaders faster than I go through shoes.

Politics are funny regardless of where you live, but Australia has to be one of the most amusing of the Western nations. Sure, Barack Obama has trouble getting staff to spell his name correctly, but I really feel sorry for the nominated Speaker in the Australian Parliment. Regardless of the which party is in power, they are both pretty keen on replacing figurehead leaders.

Lets see, since I moved here, the Labor party has had 4 leaders, and the Nationals/Liberals have had 4 as well.

In the ring for Labor
Mark Latham: Opposition leader when I arrived in Australia. Seemed a nice enough guy until he got ousted and showed his true colours to the media.

Kim Beazly: Old-fart ex-labor leader, back from the dead, and buried again pretty quick when elections were nearing as Labor wanted to attract younger voters.

Kevin Rudd: Recognizable face of Labor since appearing regularly on Morning Television with Joe Hockey. (Coalition) Fairly well spoken, and after some heavy criticism of the Howard gov't Labor finally regained popular support. However, as a spokesman for somewhat controversial new policies around carbon trading and resource taxes aimed at large mining firms, it seems he lacked the backbone to get the party's view across.. So his right-hand-woman Julia Gillard stepped up and stabbed him in the back.

Julia Gillard: The current PM until the next election, probably called within the next two months. Frankly, she doesn't seem remotely like PM material to me. Just listening to her listless, droning voice makes me change the channel.

Meanwhile in the coallition corner:
John Howard: Prime Minister of Australia when I arrived. One of the longest running PMs, but getting very long in the tooth. Ousted before the last election for a younger, more "now" candidate to face off against Rudd. His 2nd in Command was too timid to challenge him, so the party picked an alternative.

Brendan Nelson: Party Yes-Man #1. Younger than Howard, but completely useless at convincing anyone of anything original. Not that the Coalition made it easy after implementing some really unpopular changes before the ellection.

Malcom Turbull: Bumped Nelson shortly after the last ellection. Started off as Party Yes-Man #2, then made some unpopular support calls against his party and got bumped as well.

Tony Abbot: Current Coalition leader but still selling the same old party lines around the unpopular Howard-era changes. Still extremely underspoken since every time he seems to raise his voice about something he puts his foot in it.

So, election 2010! On the one hand we'll have Julia Gillard trying to sell down the effective planned tax raping of the resource sector, with a voice I can't bear to even listen to... Vs. Tony Abbot, Someone I've barely heard anything from because he can't get 2 words out without choking on his own shoe-laces.

That is, unless either/both parties would care to replace their leaders *again*

And people wonder why I don't vote. Maybe we can import Hillary Clinton to run the country, she's going to waste at the moment.