and thus the procrastination ends

This morning, in Australia, John Howard did what he should have done months ago. He called a general election.

I have no like for Little Johnny Coward as my father loves to call him, but I have actually spent my entire adult life living in a country run by Howard and the party he represents.

One of the reasons I so strongly dislike Howard is the way he plays this political game, which of course should never be treated like a game at all. To sum it up, he is a canny old bastard.

Take the announcement of an election on a Sunday, one of the things that has confused people - including me about this year's election is that they have changed the laws about the cutoff date for electoral enrolment.

This SMH article states that electoral rolls close the day the election is announced. Yet this time around Howard has announced the election on a Sunday, a non working day. Further confusing the issue.

Looking at the official electoral web site they can't even get it right or advise Howard correctly.

Howard has stated that Weds 17th is the cutoff if you have not yet registered and Mon 22 is the cutoff if you have registered but need to update your details.

However Monday is a full day public holiday in one tiny part of Oz, so the cut off for enrolment updates is actually Tuesday 23rd.

So those of you have have never registered to vote or have dropped off the electoral roll, you have THREE days to fix it!

This is all quite deliberate, by creating confusion, dragging out the announcement of the election, Howard will deny first time voters, overseas voters and also many in their 20s who move house a lot from voting due to the very small time window to enroll or update your enrollment.

These are all groups who might swing things away from Howard, he's very canny and he learns from the bad examples in the US where similar tactics have been used to deny minorities from being able to vote.
The following is all speculation, I don't even live in Oz any more and have no access to polling surveys or anything.

In London there's a huge expat community - many of whom are happy to be out of an Australia screwed up by John Howard. They have a right to vote, and would be more likely to vote labour - but they have to jump through more hoops to actually vote and unlike Australians living in Oz do not get penalised for not voting.

First time voters will have been influenced by their families and have seen how much more of a struggle it is to get started in the workplace under the reforms Howard has introduced, I would guess that they would also vote Labour if given the chance.

Twentysomethings have enjoyed the financial prosperity and me culture that Australia has moved towards progressively over the last decade. However the recent housing crisis has hurt them badly. They are more likely to live in the big cities, but now cannot afford to do so. It is possible they will be locked out of ever owning their own home unless their parents are able to help them out. But their parents are a bit young to be part of the baby boomer generation where all the wealth is concentrated in Australia. So they are likely out of luck. Last election this group mostly voted for Howard, it's possible this time around with they might vote differently.

Howard has made a huge about face on the aboriginal issue this year. However he still won't say sorry.

Also it may be argued that his stance on Aboriginal reconillation and the strongarm approach to the problems that remote Aboriginal communities face is really for the benefit of White voters who want to be reassured that Howard cares about all Australians.

Howard's approach to solving the crises in remote Aboriginal communities is carefully constructed to show immediate success so as to garner votes. It will fail shortly after and then be deliberately underfunded and forgotten.

Of course he will say that the AEC has spent a lot of money advertising the upcoming election and encouraging people to enroll, but in reality - most people don't even bother to take action until the election has actually been called.

Another detail on the timing of the calling of the election, by doing it on Sunday Morning, well after the deadlines for most newspapers that are printed at 10PM on saturday, this news will not be so well publicised till Monday. My sister could not even find a mention of the election announcement on the Canberra times website.