Despite the intent to not talk politics...

Some words for a change!

We are both feeling optimistic that the new Labor government in Australia will be a refreshing change.

As we're both Socialists at heart, it has been quite repressive - not necessarily for us personally but for many others - living under the Howard Regime. The xenophobic rhetoric alone has been more than a bit disturbing.

Kevin Rudd - the new Prime Minister - has promised to do some quite simple yet fundamental things in the short-term.

Not least of which is a formal 'sorry' from the Australian Government to the Aboriginal people for injustices done to them by previous generations. See Stolen Generation on Wikipedia for some background.

This might seem insignificant to outsiders but it was something the Mr Howard refused to do on the argument that this generation is not responsible for the actions of those previous.

This same concept is however not applied when many Australians relate to the Japanese and the history between the two countries.

Ratifying Kyoto, whilst now almost purely symbolic, will also help a lot in any further global negotiations going forward.

We have now lived in three countries where a conservative government has been 'swapped out' for a centre-left political force and we would hope that the same energy flows as it did - initially at least - in Germany and New Zealand.

Admittedly, both those examples were not without their failings but we are nonetheless optimistic, refreshingly so, about the whole thing.