Farewell

He's gone.

After more than a decade of deceit and divisiveness, Australia can finally emerge from the long dark shadow cast by outgoing Prime Minister John Howard.

Acknowledged even within his own conservative party as a mean and tricky piece of work, Howard missed the perfect opportunity to retire at the top, steering the Coalition not only to utter humiliation across the nation in Saturday's election, but looking like being only the second prime minister in Australian history to also lose his seat.

A master politician, Howard held onto power as long as he did by preying on ignorance and fear and tapping into the worst aspects of Australian culture and parochialism, through dog whistling xenophobia, pork-barelling and cleverly milking any 'anti-' sentiment onto which he could latch.

This, at a time where the resources boom flooded government coffers with cash that they could use to selectively bribe key constituents in their desperate (and largely successful) bids to stay in power.

As with any election in living memory, it was not won by the opposition but lost by the government. The Coalition's extreme workplace laws and the disgraceful stripping of workers' rights - introduced without even the hint of a mandate - appear to have been Howard's undoing, along with his broken promises on interest rates. An ugly, sloppy campaign based on scaremongering and union-bashing failed to win back lagging support.

Pulling rabbit after rabbit out of the hat in previous elections, there was always the fear that Howard could do it again, but thankfully there was nothing left in the bag of tricks this time around.

The starkest reminder of what we have lived through for almost 12 years of his rule comes in the responses given when Howard or his fellow party members are pressed to point to highlights of his time in power. Again and again they raise his response to the Port Arthur massacre (a welcome tightening of gun controls) and the Bali bombings.

Not a single example is put forward of a visionary policy, a uniting moment, a symbolic or practical gesture that suggests he will leave Australia a better place to live for the trust he has been given.

It would be nice to imagine the landslide return of the Labor government from the wilderness was a vote for a return to decency, respect and caring for others - particularly those most in need. That it was to send a message that we will not tolerate a war-mongering, narrow-minded, lying leader who could share no vision for the future beyond preserving his own legacy.

It's far more likely to reflect the government getting a kicking for rising interest rates and costs of living, with the opposition finally putting forward a candidate that the Government wasn't able to undermine.

But for now there's at least a small window of hope. We have a new government that is not helmed by a climate change skeptic and ideologue on a crusade against 'political correctness', that has promised investment in health, education and tackling climate change, as well as a staged withdrawal of troops from Iraq. A party that will work closely with the US, but hopefully not hand over foreign policy for a chance to be considered George Bush's deputy sherriff.

Issues such as the life expectancy and living conditions of Indigenous Australians are still, as ever, likely to take a back seat - and new leader Kevin Rudd has given little hope to those looking for a more humane refugee policy - but at least we can finally look forward to taking one step at a time towards a brighter future and not feel like we're caught in an inexorable slide into a social, cultural and environmental abyss.

To steal Mungo MacCallum's recollection of Gough Whitlam's quotation of the last line of Dante’s Inferno:

E quindi uscimmo a reverder le stelle

And thence we emerged, to see the stars again.