Thursday, September 30, 2004

Australia chooses.

I'm beginning yet another blogpost about choice - except this time Australia chooses (Howard or Latham? Howard or Latham?). The campaigning is quite different from Singapore, to be sure. More......mass media, really, with both Labour and Liberals buying up prime-time ad slots in an attempt to sway votes. Mud-slinging at the opponent. Promising to spend more on welfare for the population. Interestingly, the rhetoric taken up by Latham early on - which would have been the catchiest "Home before Christmas", referring to Australia's ongoing participation, has been all but shoved back under the carpet.

Why so? Everyone fears a repeat of what happened in Spain this year; that pre-polling day attack swayed popular vote and the opposition party (which had promised to withdraw the troops) swept to power. And Spain duly withdrew their committment in Iraq.

I suppose Latham is politically correct.

He doesn't want to come into power ushered in by bombs going off in Sydney or Melbourne or some other major Australian city. Australia hasn't been molested by acts of violence since the Japanese bombed Darwin in 1941.

If he was unscrupulous enough, he would have. Might Howard have done that? From all accounts, I gather that Howard's the conniving cunning fox (see the children overboard case) and Latham's the fat dumb and happy dog (mishandling of funds while being a Liverpool councillor).

Then there's the track record - Labour's always mishandled the economy in their term. Now that wouldn't be such a bad idea as an international student here - it means my Singapore dollar gets me a little further because it would be comparatively stronger. But just where is the Liberals steering Australia toward?

Whoever gets voted into power would have to deal with the looming US elections, would the incumbent Bush still be in power or would Kerry come up? Would the UK (and Australia) dance to the new President's tone? If that happens, its going to be a case of the US saying "jump" and its so-called allies going "how high?".

The Aussies don't have much of a choice, do they? I don't envy them having to choose between a lying politician and a dumb one, I don't know which is deadlier either, I'm in no position to judge anyway.

It might be a little early to begin nominating my honours topic for my second year here, but perhaps Singaporeans are typically kiasu. Perhaps it is fortuitous, because the supervisor in charge of amenity horticulture does not think much of anything to do with arboriculture on initial discussions regarding the subject. Whilst it seems most lecturers would welcome students wanting to pursue honours, this one thinks I should choose another topic or do Masters by coursework, for if I decided to do honours I should be prepared to pursue it all the way to the PhD level. Whoa, way over my head here.

The Aussies have to choose Latham or Howard. I have to choose between coming away from Uni without the honours I came here for, or do something I have no interest in.

Needless to say, I'm quite annoyed.

posted by Chung Leong @ 8:29 PM

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