Unions' weakness opens door for Abbott
Australia's federal election on 21 August shows a strange picture. The Liberal leader, Tony Abbott , is a Catholic, a monarchist, anti-abortion, anti-gay, an old-fashioned male chauvinist, disdainful of the rights of indigenous Australians, someone who believes that climate change "is crap" and therefore it's fine to be reckless about trashing the environment. He makes an outcry about "reducing government debt" (code-word for cutting social provision) when Australia, almost alone of the world's richer countries, has absolutely no government debt "problem" . He was one of the architects of the...