Rubenerd

A case of another leader who started with a lot of promise but failed to deliver like so many other politicians, so they were replaced. Which of course is the politically correct way to say said person didn't fulfill the desires of some faction. So who do we have now?

Late last night a cabinet reshuffle ousting thingy (they're valid political terms, look them up) former Aussie Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has been replaced with Julia Gillard. No, that's me in front of Parliament House, not Julia Gillard, sheesh get your glasses checked.

Position on internet filtering?

Because this is a tech blog (or at least it's supposed to be) I'm more interested to hear what happens to Mr If You Are Against The Mandatory Filter You're A Pedophile Senator Conroy's position. My very good friend and all around awesome guy talkingduck informs me that he could be replaced by Kate Lundly, patron senator of IT and open source. Sounds great, almost too great, so I'm hedging my bets that it won't happen. I hope I'm wrong.

What I'd love to see is a person put in charge who not only recognises the need for open standards, but a transparent bidding process for government IT contracts and who understands that a mandatory internet filter is a futile exercise that will hurt Australia's standing in the world. Oh and it'd be great if she took the NBN seriously, and if she pledged to make all government documents open and available in standard formats, or if not her then someone she puts in charge. We'll have to wait and see.

Positions on other whatnot?

As for other issues, Kevin Rudd talked the talk when it came to asylum seekers, emissions trading and the environment, but failed to follow up on any of them. Preliminary chatter on Twitter by my Aussie friends suggests she won't be changing much of the party's policies, bummer. Ah democracy, its such a productive exercise.

One bit of good news is she's an atheist, like me. I have no problem with people of any faith being the leaders of countries provided they don't let their influence their policy decisions, and Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd unabashedly proved they couldn't in that recent embarrassing debate. If anything only addressing Christian voters was an insult to people of all other faiths and not just heathens like me.

Not sure when the Governor General will be swearing her in on behalf of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and all that. I suppose in these circumstances I can see where having a separate head of state and head of government is a good thing, sort of, kinda, maybe.