Australian Prime Minister John Howard promised yesterday not to let his Oct. 9 election triumph go to his head as he was formally reappointed leader of his Liberal Party.
Howard, reanointed to lead Australia for his fourth consecutive term, signalled again that reform of industrial relations legislation is a top priority.
PHOTO: EPA
But he promised sober government and vowed to keep his election promises.
"There's been a lot of comment about what we might do if we are fortunate enough to have a majority in our own right in the Senate," he told a meeting of Liberal Party legislators.
"The answer to that is very simple -- we'll do what we promised the Australian people we'll do and that does mean reforming Australia's industrial relations system.
"It does mean implementing other things which we have repeatedly taken to the Australian public. But we won't be allowing that circumstance to go to our head."
The 65-year-old veteran politician won a decisive victory after campaigning on his strong economic track record and tough stance on security.
Apart from an increased majority in the House of Representatives, the government won control of the Senate for the first time in two decades. Many of its key reform objectives were previously blocked in the upper house.
The new Cabinet is expected to be announced in the next few days, although Howard has indicated that several key figures will keep their current posts.
Also, Australia would consider negotiating a new security treaty with neighboring Indonesia to strengthen ties and incorporate counter-terror cooperation, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said yesterday.
But Downer said there were no plans for Prime Minister John How-ard and Indonesian president-elect Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to discuss a new treaty when Howard visits Jakarta for the former general's inauguration tomorrow.
"I'm making it clear that it's something that we would be prepared to have a look at," Downer told Australian radio.
"Perhaps we'd look at the police co-operation between us and other areas where we could could enhance co-operation between Australia and Indonesia and make it something of substance."
Australia and Indonesian police have worked closely since the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians, and again since a car bomb exploded outside Australia's Jakarta embassy last month, killing nine Indonesians.
Downer said some Indonesians would probably oppose a new security pact with Australia because they did not want a foreign policy too closely associated with the West.
"I always say to the Indonesians: `Well, you don't want to look at it terms of east and west or north and south but want to think of it in terms of neighborhood relations.' We're Indonesia's next-door neighbor," Downer said.
SUPPORT: Elon Musk’s backing for the far-right AfD is also an implicit rebuke of center-right Christian Democratic Union leader Friedrich Merz, who is leading polls German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a swipe at Elon Musk over his political judgement, escalating a spat between the German government and the world’s richest person. Scholz, speaking to reporters in Berlin on Friday, was asked about a post Musk made on his X platform earlier the same day asserting that only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “can save Germany.” “We have freedom of speech, and that also applies to multi-billionaires,” Scholz said alongside Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal. “But freedom of speech also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain
Pulled from the mud as an infant after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and reunited with his parents following an emotional court battle, the boy once known as “Baby 81” is now a 20-year-old dreaming of higher education. Jayarasa Abilash’s story symbolized that of the families torn apart by one of the worst natural calamities in modern history, but it also offered hope. More than 35,000 people in Sri Lanka were killed, with others missing. The two-month-old was washed away by the tsunami in eastern Sri Lanka and found some distance from home by rescuers. At the hospital, he was
Two US Navy pilots were shot down yesterday over the Red Sea in an apparent “friendly fire” incident, the US military said, marking the most serious incident to threaten troops in over a year of US targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Both pilots were recovered alive after ejecting from their stricken aircraft, with one sustaining minor injuries. However, the shootdown underlines just how dangerous the Red Sea corridor has become over the ongoing attacks on shipping by the Iranian-backed Houthis despite US and European military coalitions patrolling the area. The US military had conducted airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels at the
MILITANTS TARGETED: The US said its forces had killed an IS leader in Deir Ezzor, as it increased its activities in the region following al-Assad’s overthrow Washington is scrapping a long-standing reward for the arrest of Syria’s new leader, a senior US diplomat said on Friday following “positive messages” from a first meeting that included a promise to fight terrorism. Barbara Leaf, Washington’s top diplomat for the Middle East, made the comments after her meeting with Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus — the first formal mission to Syria’s capital by US diplomats since the early days of Syria’s civil war. The lightning offensive that toppled former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on Dec. 8 was led by the Muslim Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in al-Qaeda’s
RSS