SYDNEY — A clean sweep across Australia ensures that old-style conservative government is out for at least the next three years, possibly the next decade. The Australian Labor Party now rules, not only in Canberra but in every state and territory.
Triumphant Labor has swept aside the 11-year regime in Canberra of the conservative Liberal-National coalition. The electoral victory was so convincing that a new-style Labor under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd could, barring a party implosion, be making Australia's deals with the world for years to come.
Vigorous Rudd is jumping straight into world affairs — he's a former diplomat fluent in Mandarin — at the United Nations climate-change summit in Bali this week. With him is his new Cabinet colleague, Sen. Penny Wong, who will be Australia's chief negotiator in talks on a global greenhouse-gas reduction target to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.