cam . # .

Foreign Policy: Foreign Policy is about the largest difference between Labor and Liberal. Both parties are economicly liberal (or rationalist), and their domestic policies seem to be predicated around electoral bribes. Foreign Policy is about the only place I can see where there is alternate worldviews between the parties.

I like Labor\'s foreign policy, and have utter disdain for the Liberals \"great and powerful friends\" doctrine as I do not believe it is befitting an independent and aspirational nation. Any student of history will be able to tell proponents of the \"great and powerful friends\" doctrine that it has not worked once in a century. There is a tonne of empirical data for it to be dropped.

However I dont think East Timor would have been possible under a Labor government. I consider East Timor the highlight of Howard\'s years. History will not remember him kindly for all his other messes, but East Timor was a good thing. It got a monkey off the Australian collective conscience. A cancer that has sat there since Australia did nothing when Fraser was told Indonesia invaded East Timor. To make it worse, our \"great and powerful friends\" of the time, Ford and Kissinger, gave Suharto the ok; only ramming home how useless the \"great and powerful friends\" doctrine is.

The foreign policy issue of the last five years has become terrorism, which has globalised along with multi-national corporations and trade. Locally, the terrorist threat to Australia is with extremists in Indonesia. So far it has been Indonesia that has been taking the punches for us, and handling it brilliantly, belying just how new their democracy is.

This reality fits closely with Labor\'s policy of \"Asian Engagement\", \"Security Within Asia, not from it\". Close ties between Australia and Indonesia are going to be necessary to combat terrorism and disorder regionally. Australian national security will become dependant on it. Labor will be able to achieve this better than the Liberals simply because of the different foreign policies. Indonesia, and hence local terrorism will become Labor\'s focus.

Foreign Policy wise, the Labor view of terrorism and the steps that can be taken to eradicate it, are far more enlightened than Liberals old \"Cold War\" policies. Iraq has shown that the military is a blunt instrument with no finesse when it comes to terrorism. Tanks dont stop terrorism, they just create the environment that terrorists thrive in. Howard should be censured for Iraq. It was a vacuous decision that displays how beholden to US interests he is, and how divorced he is from the polity and the realities of south pacific region.

I consider Evans and Keating Australia\'s first two modern politicians. Ones that broke the mould of 90 years of post-colonial Australian political thought. If Rudd can continue that process, which it appears he may, then it will be a good thing for Australia.

cam