A True October Surprise (A Wikibox TL)
- Thread starter lord caedus
- Start date
Glad to see you like what's happened with the UK ITTL.
I honestly didn't even notice that.
Thanks.
And spoilers.
We can have a Kennedy in?
Wellstone will again?
And how is the situation in Latin America?
I've already decided on the nominees and the result of the election.
Wellstone is 72 in 2016 and is also too ill to campaign.
Pretty similar to OTL, at least in Central America (outside of Mexico). Cuba's still communist and Haiti is still the worst country to live in in the Western Hemisphere.
South America is a bit different, but not too much so:
Chile is doing pretty well for itself since they averted Pinochet's dictatorship (without Nixon and Kissinger to help exacerbate things in Chile) and have been a democracy for over 80 years now.
Argentina gave up its claim to South Georgia and the Southern Sandwich Islands but negotiations with Britain over relinquishing the Falklands came to naught and the country still occasionally pesters London by insisting on calling them the Malvinas.
Brazil emerged out of military dictatorship in the mid-1980s along with other South American nations and, as mentioned, is rapidly becoming an economic powerhouse.
Chile go forward with Salvador Allende or another president?
Ernesto Guevara is alive?
Who is Brazilian president in 2015 in your timeline?
Allende still elected, but without Nixon and Kissinger tightening the screws on Chile and encouraging his overthrow, Allende ends up getting impeached and removed from office peacefully (with the exceptions of street protests) instead and Chilean democracy survives.
Che died before the POD, so no.
Brazil's president is Fernando Pimentel, who won the 2014 elections after Antonio Palucci declined to run again following serious corruption allegations.
José Serra. Pimentel is a member of the Labour Party which takes up the center-left on Brazil's political spectrum.
Part 47: Japanese general election, 2015
...Japan remained one of America's most steadfast allies throughout the Cold War, something inconceivable after the brutal fighting in the Pacific between the two nations during World War II. American investment and the economic boost gained as a major supply depot during the Korean War quickly lifted Japan out of the post-war economic doldrums and by the early 1970s its economy and standards of living were on par with those of developed Western nations. Relations with the United States during this period entered a rough patch, as the continued occupation of Okinawa by the United States remained a sore spot.
The end of American involvement in the Vietnam War in 1971 as well as the turnover of Okinawa (minus the American military bases there) to Japanese control brought relations between the two former enemies back to "on good terms". Japan would also form a strong relationship with South Korea once that nation completed its painful struggle to democracy in the late 1980s, partially due to their shared democratic status and close proximity but also because of the threats of China, the Soviet Union and North Korea.
Leading Japan ever since its founding in 1955 (with the exception of a brief nine-month stint in the opposition) was the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Formed as a merger of two conservative parties, the LDP quickly, with the help of covert CIA funding, gaming of the House of Representatives' electoral system and broad-tent nature, became the dominant party in Japanese politics. The LDP was never in real danger of losing its majority in the House of Assembly for the first twenty years of its existence, winning every election handily. The revelation that Lockheed officials had bribed several LDP politicians in the 1950s and 1960s briefly threatened the LDP once it became known in the late 1970s, but the party weathered the storm by pointing to Japan's continuing economic rise and standards of living.
Things really were that great, as Japanese technology and motor exports were dominant in many western markets throughout the 1980s. The LDP was quick to take credit for the seeming never-ending boom and despite it becoming increasingly common for LDP ministers and prominent members of the Diet to be implicated in bribery scandals or other ethical lapses, the LDP's gaming of the system and sloganeering that the untested opposition parties would cause Japan's economy to collapse ensured that they always won a majority despite falling as low as 40% of the popular vote.
Then everything came crashing down in 1993. The Japanese real estate bubble, which had been inflating since the early 1980s, popped and the Japanese economy collapsed as the cozy system between the LDP, business and the civil service that had developed over the previous decades caused the party to pursue conflicting policies that financial experts would later say caused the rest of the 1990s to be one of economic stagnation for Japan. The fact that Japanese goods were losing their share of the American market (due to both the rise of American brands and policies passed by the Huddleston Administration to shore up the Big Three auto companies who were facing stiff competition in Japanese manufacturers like Honda and Toyota) at the same time also hurt the country's recovery. The uncovering of a bribery ring that forced the resignation of Prime Minister Takao Fujinami among other notable politicians was the last straw and in 1995, an unwieldy opposition coalition was elected, displacing the LDP for the first time in the party's history.
The new unstable government did not last long, as almost none of its eight constituent members had put any thought into implementing policy and running the nation once the LDP was removed. However, the coalition did end up passing electoral reform before it fractured in early 1996, returning the LDP to power. The new House of Representatives would no longer have multi-member districts elected by a single non-transferable vote that the LDP had stacked to great effect by nominating candidates from different party factions to avoid wasted votes. Instead, there would be a set number (300) of single-member plurality districts and other members (originally 200, now 180) elected by proportional representation in districts.
The LDP won its first majority under the new system in 1998, but even so, their showing was much weaker owing to the new proportional voting in parallel to district voting and more parties began to enter the Diet. Despite a credible alternative in the center-left Democratic Party becoming the main opposition to LDP rule, the LDP still won five consecutive elections from 1998 to 2011, although the three elections between the 1998 victory and 2011 resulted in the party having to share power with coalition partners, something unthinkable before the reforms.
While the LDP power-brokers had written off the 1995 results as an aberration, the unwillingness of the party leaders to address the reasons for the party's failure in 1995 and to apply any lessons learned only made the party's internal problems worse. Following the electoral reform, unhappy members of the LDP found they could more easily bolt to either another party or create their own under the new system, although for the most part the new parties faded after one election. From the 1998-2001 to the 2011-2015 Diets, the number of LDP bolters steadily increased as the party leaders continued to focus more on balancing factions instead of providing stable governance. The economy eventually began rebounding in 2009 and was able to give the LDP its first majority in a decade when the Japanese public went to the polls in 2011 but this just set the stage for another problem for the LDP.
With the LDP having led the nation out of the poor economy, voters soon began feeling confident once again to change from the LDP, especially as the party continued to be hit with corruption scandals. Poor showing in the House of Councillors election caused Prime Minister Shinzō Abe to resign, and he was replaced with Tarō Asō. Asō proved to be wholly inadequate to the job of leading the party and his poor reading skills and penchant for saying offensive remarks caused him to be booted out less than a year before the party had planned on calling new elections, being replaced with Nobutaka Machimura.
Machimura's selection would be the final straw on the back for several factions who had been passed over for the final time. Over 30 of those members bolted and formed the New Democratic Party, picking former government minister Sadazaku Tanigaki to lead them. This was not the only factor in the LDP's worries for the upcoming election. A new party of solidly right-wing nationalists called the National Restoration Party had formed earlier out of disgruntled LDP parliamentarians and they were increasingly eating into the LDP's support among nationalists. With the LDP divided, the Democratic Party began rising in the polls. Then, just days after Machimura announced the date of the election, the prime minister suffered a stroke.
While the prime minister survived, he would be unable to campaign during the election and questions began to swirl about if Machimura's fitness for office and just how long he could remain if the LDP retained control. The LDP leadership, unwilling for a third leadership change in eighteen months, and of losing yet another faction, united behind Machimura but this just ended up driving more Japanese voters into the arms of opposition parties.
The result was a massive landslide for the Democratic Party, which won nearly two-thirds of all seats in the House of Representatives. Machimura and Tanigaki both humiliatingly lost their seats in the Democratic wave, with Machimura becoming the first modern sitting Japanese prime minister to fail to be elected to the new Diet as the LDP fell to third in the number of seats and nearly half of the NDP's representatives lost their seats in the Diet. The National Restoration Party under Shintaro Ishihara became the official opposition as a result of the LDP/NDP split, further compounding the LDP's fall.
Prime Minister Katsuya Okada, the first Democratic Prime Minister of Japan, has begun to confront a nation with long-term problems that the LDP has neglected coming to the forefront: an aging population paired with overall negative population growth, poor job prospects for young men and a high level of debt. With the Liberal Democratic Party continuing to fracture and the National Restoration Party offering few practical solutions, it seems that Okada and the Democratic Party will, for at least a time, have the chance to get Japan on the right track...
The end of American involvement in the Vietnam War in 1971 as well as the turnover of Okinawa (minus the American military bases there) to Japanese control brought relations between the two former enemies back to "on good terms". Japan would also form a strong relationship with South Korea once that nation completed its painful struggle to democracy in the late 1980s, partially due to their shared democratic status and close proximity but also because of the threats of China, the Soviet Union and North Korea.
Leading Japan ever since its founding in 1955 (with the exception of a brief nine-month stint in the opposition) was the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Formed as a merger of two conservative parties, the LDP quickly, with the help of covert CIA funding, gaming of the House of Representatives' electoral system and broad-tent nature, became the dominant party in Japanese politics. The LDP was never in real danger of losing its majority in the House of Assembly for the first twenty years of its existence, winning every election handily. The revelation that Lockheed officials had bribed several LDP politicians in the 1950s and 1960s briefly threatened the LDP once it became known in the late 1970s, but the party weathered the storm by pointing to Japan's continuing economic rise and standards of living.
Things really were that great, as Japanese technology and motor exports were dominant in many western markets throughout the 1980s. The LDP was quick to take credit for the seeming never-ending boom and despite it becoming increasingly common for LDP ministers and prominent members of the Diet to be implicated in bribery scandals or other ethical lapses, the LDP's gaming of the system and sloganeering that the untested opposition parties would cause Japan's economy to collapse ensured that they always won a majority despite falling as low as 40% of the popular vote.
Then everything came crashing down in 1993. The Japanese real estate bubble, which had been inflating since the early 1980s, popped and the Japanese economy collapsed as the cozy system between the LDP, business and the civil service that had developed over the previous decades caused the party to pursue conflicting policies that financial experts would later say caused the rest of the 1990s to be one of economic stagnation for Japan. The fact that Japanese goods were losing their share of the American market (due to both the rise of American brands and policies passed by the Huddleston Administration to shore up the Big Three auto companies who were facing stiff competition in Japanese manufacturers like Honda and Toyota) at the same time also hurt the country's recovery. The uncovering of a bribery ring that forced the resignation of Prime Minister Takao Fujinami among other notable politicians was the last straw and in 1995, an unwieldy opposition coalition was elected, displacing the LDP for the first time in the party's history.
The new unstable government did not last long, as almost none of its eight constituent members had put any thought into implementing policy and running the nation once the LDP was removed. However, the coalition did end up passing electoral reform before it fractured in early 1996, returning the LDP to power. The new House of Representatives would no longer have multi-member districts elected by a single non-transferable vote that the LDP had stacked to great effect by nominating candidates from different party factions to avoid wasted votes. Instead, there would be a set number (300) of single-member plurality districts and other members (originally 200, now 180) elected by proportional representation in districts.
The LDP won its first majority under the new system in 1998, but even so, their showing was much weaker owing to the new proportional voting in parallel to district voting and more parties began to enter the Diet. Despite a credible alternative in the center-left Democratic Party becoming the main opposition to LDP rule, the LDP still won five consecutive elections from 1998 to 2011, although the three elections between the 1998 victory and 2011 resulted in the party having to share power with coalition partners, something unthinkable before the reforms.
While the LDP power-brokers had written off the 1995 results as an aberration, the unwillingness of the party leaders to address the reasons for the party's failure in 1995 and to apply any lessons learned only made the party's internal problems worse. Following the electoral reform, unhappy members of the LDP found they could more easily bolt to either another party or create their own under the new system, although for the most part the new parties faded after one election. From the 1998-2001 to the 2011-2015 Diets, the number of LDP bolters steadily increased as the party leaders continued to focus more on balancing factions instead of providing stable governance. The economy eventually began rebounding in 2009 and was able to give the LDP its first majority in a decade when the Japanese public went to the polls in 2011 but this just set the stage for another problem for the LDP.
With the LDP having led the nation out of the poor economy, voters soon began feeling confident once again to change from the LDP, especially as the party continued to be hit with corruption scandals. Poor showing in the House of Councillors election caused Prime Minister Shinzō Abe to resign, and he was replaced with Tarō Asō. Asō proved to be wholly inadequate to the job of leading the party and his poor reading skills and penchant for saying offensive remarks caused him to be booted out less than a year before the party had planned on calling new elections, being replaced with Nobutaka Machimura.
Machimura's selection would be the final straw on the back for several factions who had been passed over for the final time. Over 30 of those members bolted and formed the New Democratic Party, picking former government minister Sadazaku Tanigaki to lead them. This was not the only factor in the LDP's worries for the upcoming election. A new party of solidly right-wing nationalists called the National Restoration Party had formed earlier out of disgruntled LDP parliamentarians and they were increasingly eating into the LDP's support among nationalists. With the LDP divided, the Democratic Party began rising in the polls. Then, just days after Machimura announced the date of the election, the prime minister suffered a stroke.
While the prime minister survived, he would be unable to campaign during the election and questions began to swirl about if Machimura's fitness for office and just how long he could remain if the LDP retained control. The LDP leadership, unwilling for a third leadership change in eighteen months, and of losing yet another faction, united behind Machimura but this just ended up driving more Japanese voters into the arms of opposition parties.
The result was a massive landslide for the Democratic Party, which won nearly two-thirds of all seats in the House of Representatives. Machimura and Tanigaki both humiliatingly lost their seats in the Democratic wave, with Machimura becoming the first modern sitting Japanese prime minister to fail to be elected to the new Diet as the LDP fell to third in the number of seats and nearly half of the NDP's representatives lost their seats in the Diet. The National Restoration Party under Shintaro Ishihara became the official opposition as a result of the LDP/NDP split, further compounding the LDP's fall.
Prime Minister Katsuya Okada, the first Democratic Prime Minister of Japan, has begun to confront a nation with long-term problems that the LDP has neglected coming to the forefront: an aging population paired with overall negative population growth, poor job prospects for young men and a high level of debt. With the Liberal Democratic Party continuing to fracture and the National Restoration Party offering few practical solutions, it seems that Okada and the Democratic Party will, for at least a time, have the chance to get Japan on the right track...
Part 48: Australia
...The nation of Australia also began undergoing changes in the 1960s, especially with the end of the White Australia policy, coming to terms of the country's sordid history with the indigenous inhabitants of the country-continent, and the permanent rise of a new national identity that cast Australia as its own nation rather than just part of a larger Commonweath whole. Australia's involvement in Vietnam started out, like that of the United States, with popular approval but by the end of the decade the war had become deeply unpopular with voters.
John Gorton had replaced Harold Holt, who famously disappeared after jumping into the ocean for a swim, as Liberal leader and became the prime minister in early 1968. Gorton succeeded in winning the 1969 election for the Liberal/National coalition largely on the back of the planned withdrawal from Vietnam, but he proved to be a media disaster as prime minister and his political stumbles caused him to face a leadership challenge into his term. William McMahon was elected and given the unenviable task of putting the Coalition back on the right track to another term in just 18 months. The Coalition's answer to "quality of life" issues had been to pawn the responsibility off to the states, but this answer had increasingly worn thin with voters after the states continued to fail to either enact needed policies or lacked the jurisdiction or funding to do so.
It was no surprise that Australian voters, for the first time in 23 years, voted a new party in and the Labor Party under Gough Whitlam won a majority. Whitlam's prime ministry would be among the most eventful in Australian history. The Labor government would oversee the introduction of universal health care, university fees abolished, creation of legal aid programs and the end of national service. The final remnants of the White Australia policy were similarly ended by the Whitlam government and the Australian mandate over Papua and New Guinea ended when the country became independent as Papua New Guinea in 1975. Whitlam faced tremendous opposition from the Senate, where Labor lacked control, and many states, who were opposed to his activist role. Labor won a narrow majority in 1974 and the Senate gained enough Labor and Labor-friendly independents to give Whitlam's government breathing room, and the social advances continued in Whitlam's second term as Aboriginal land reform enabled members of the indigenous tribes in Australia's Northern Territory to claim the title to land if they could prove they could prove traditional association with it, stronger environmental regulations were passed, and funding was increased to education.
However, the Whitlam government had many critics. From the left, the government was hammered for following the lead of the Muskie administration and giving the Indonesian leader Suharto carte blanche to annex East Timor following the rapid decolonization of Portugal's colonies following the end of the European country's Estado Novo regime in 1975. The Indonesian occupation would be brutal and devastating for the Timorese people and it last for a quarter-century before Indonesia recognized East Timor's independence following Suharto's fall in 2000. On the right, Whitlam was criticized for increasing the country's debt even as the economy began to slow for the first time since the end of the war.
In 1977, voters denied Whitlam's attempt for a third term and the coalition returned to power under Malcolm Fraser. Fraser would be the first prime minister to really deal with an increasingly multicultural Australia and indeed opened Australia's doors for the "Boat People"- refugees fleeing from the former South Vietnam following the unification of Vietnam under the communist North. On foreign policy, he consistently followed Washington's line, committing Australian troops to the intervention in Iran. However, his economic policies, especially his focus on a "state's rights" approach compared to Whitlam's activist one, did little to solve the shaky economy that he inherited from Whitlam and by 1981, Australia entered a recession.
In 1983, Labor returned with a vengeance under Bill Hayden. Hayden, a much more conciliatory and moderate leader than Whitlam, oversaw Australia's recovery from the early 1980s recession as well as increasing trade links with Australia's neighbors in southeast Asia as part of making Australia into a "middling" regional power. Hayden also, ironically from a former democratic socialist (as he described his views in the 1960s), marked the Labor Party's shift away from the post-war Keynesian consensus to a more neoliberal economic policy, deregulating the financial sector and adopting a strong free trade orientation for Australia as a whole. Hayden oversaw two more victories for Labor and also worked to negotiate a better deal for Australian workers, especially those in trade unions.
By 1990, however, Hayden had worn out his welcome and had become unpopular across the country. His deputy Paul Keating eventually forced Hayden to resign and won the election to replace him as Labor leader and prime minister. Keating led a Labor in less than a year from being behind by nearly ten points in the polls to winning a slim majority in the 1992 elections in spite of the Australian economy again dipping back into recession. Keating would continue previous Labor government's efforts to help the Aboriginal community by reforming Aboriginal land title law and increased benefits for low-income parents of dependent children.
List of Prime Ministers of Australia
The Keating ministry also marked the high-water point of republicanism in Australia, as the cultural shift that had occurred post-war collided with the very public and sordid divorce of Prince Charles and his wife, Princess Jane (formerly Lady Jane Wellesley) to make conditions acceptable for Keating to propose a referendum on whether Australia should become a republic, if Labor should win a fifth consecutive term.
Liberal leader Peter Costello, who had risen rapidly through the ranks to become opposition leader at age 35, undercut Keating by promising a similar referendum if the Coalition were elected and pointing to the economic decline that Keating had done little to combat. The 1995 election saw the Coalition win a one-seat majority and Costello became prime minister at 37 (the second-youngest in Australian history behind Chris Watson who became prime minister less than a month after turning 37).
Costello, in the view of many Australian political observers, became prime minister too soon into his political career than he should have been. While talented and having the skills to successfully run the country (as his service in subsequent Coalition ministries showed), he lacked the necessary experience to keep his party in line while retaining their confidence. As such, the Costello ministry very quickly found itself relying on independents to survive as the party's majority dissipated following by-election losses and party-switchings. Costello's government passed a deficit reduction plan and pushed through comprehensive gun control measures following a series of spree shootings at Australian schools, but for the most part, Costello found himself unable to pass most of his manifesto legislation as a result of him not having a majority.
It was no wonder that voters chose to return to Labor in 1997 under Kim Beazley. Beazley was prime minister when Australia had its republican referendum and was the third straight prime minister to openly voice his support for a republic while in office. Nevertheless, the option the republican campaign had chosen for how to appoint a President of Australia if ratified (namely the prime minister and leader of the opposition picked a candidate who would be voted on by parliament and which also allowed the president to be prematurely dismissed by the prime minister) dissatisfied both progressive republicans (who wished for a directly-elected president) and conservative ones (who would effectively keep the governor-general system only with the title being changed) and led to the referendum's defeat.
Beazley's ministry would see Australia's military forces being used first in the Congo and again in East Timor. Following Suharto's overthrow in 2000, Australia provided the bulk of troops for UNAMET (United Nations Mission in East Timor)'s peacekeeping mission following the collapse of the interim government in the former Portuguese colony. Unfortunately for the prime minister, Australia's successful interventions abroad did not distract voters from factional infighting that begun to envelop the Labor frontbench that the prime minister seemed unable to quell. Added with voters beginning to sour on Beazley, this understandably led to Labor being tossed out in 2003.
Beazley's successor, Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull, spent his first term tinkering at the margins of economic policy, attempting to tighten the belt of several means-tested federal aid programs and reducing business tax rates. The main debate of the Turnbull era was over immigration. The government introduced legislation that it said aimed at keeping too many "boat people" from southeast Asia to land in Australia, which critics felt appealed to xenophobic fears and racial prejudices. Fighting between Turnbull and former prime minister Costello, who had become Turnbull's Minister for Foreign Affairs also began to dominate news coverage as Turnbull's first term ended and caused enough voters to waver about giving the Coalition enough preferences to end up with a hung parliament.
Turnbull remained prime minister, as the Coalition had a plurality of seats in the House of Representatives, but it wasn't long before it became clear that the situation was untenable and another election was called for mid-2007. Labor had had plenty of time to regroup, while Turnbull had been busy finally ending Costello as a player in Liberal circles, culminating in the former prime minister announcing that he would stand down in the election, giving Turnbull undisputed control over the party. This would come too soon, as Labor had already garnered enough support to win the election handily.
New Prime Minister Kim Carr, the first prime minister with facial hair in almost a century, was the most left-wing prime minister since Whitlam. Carr's government saw Australia recognize same-sex marriage on the federal level, but let each state or territory decide whether to legalize it or not and raised income tax rates for the first time since the Hayden ministry to pay for an increase in federal aid programs. However, Carr faced consistent challenges within his own caucus and the prime minister spent almost as much time trying to appease his caucus as he did governing. The right-wing of the Labor Party notably killed the government's attempt at a carbon tax and soon, Labor's dirty laundry was aired when a disgruntled staffer leaked internal party e-mails to the press, which instigated a firestorm of controversy.
Carr's government, damaged by the email leak, party infighting and growing opposition to further reforms, was handily dispatched by the Coalition in 2010. Julie Bishop, leader of the Liberals, became Australia's first female prime minister. The new prime minister tightened immigration policies that the Labor government had weakened, which only reignited the arguments over whether the policy had unsavory racial undertones. Bishop's term was not to be an easy one, as her government replaced several environmental laws with weaker substitutes, angering environmentalists and environmentally-oriented allies like Canada. Issues from the prime minister's past, including her associations with a man later jailed for defrauding the government, came back to bite Bishop and 2016 saw her narrowly lose her bid for a second term.
New prime minister Bill Shorten has proven popular with the Labor base, but his efforts at finding a way forward with environmental reform, immigration, and stagnant job growth have not met with much success in his first year of office...
John Gorton had replaced Harold Holt, who famously disappeared after jumping into the ocean for a swim, as Liberal leader and became the prime minister in early 1968. Gorton succeeded in winning the 1969 election for the Liberal/National coalition largely on the back of the planned withdrawal from Vietnam, but he proved to be a media disaster as prime minister and his political stumbles caused him to face a leadership challenge into his term. William McMahon was elected and given the unenviable task of putting the Coalition back on the right track to another term in just 18 months. The Coalition's answer to "quality of life" issues had been to pawn the responsibility off to the states, but this answer had increasingly worn thin with voters after the states continued to fail to either enact needed policies or lacked the jurisdiction or funding to do so.
It was no surprise that Australian voters, for the first time in 23 years, voted a new party in and the Labor Party under Gough Whitlam won a majority. Whitlam's prime ministry would be among the most eventful in Australian history. The Labor government would oversee the introduction of universal health care, university fees abolished, creation of legal aid programs and the end of national service. The final remnants of the White Australia policy were similarly ended by the Whitlam government and the Australian mandate over Papua and New Guinea ended when the country became independent as Papua New Guinea in 1975. Whitlam faced tremendous opposition from the Senate, where Labor lacked control, and many states, who were opposed to his activist role. Labor won a narrow majority in 1974 and the Senate gained enough Labor and Labor-friendly independents to give Whitlam's government breathing room, and the social advances continued in Whitlam's second term as Aboriginal land reform enabled members of the indigenous tribes in Australia's Northern Territory to claim the title to land if they could prove they could prove traditional association with it, stronger environmental regulations were passed, and funding was increased to education.
However, the Whitlam government had many critics. From the left, the government was hammered for following the lead of the Muskie administration and giving the Indonesian leader Suharto carte blanche to annex East Timor following the rapid decolonization of Portugal's colonies following the end of the European country's Estado Novo regime in 1975. The Indonesian occupation would be brutal and devastating for the Timorese people and it last for a quarter-century before Indonesia recognized East Timor's independence following Suharto's fall in 2000. On the right, Whitlam was criticized for increasing the country's debt even as the economy began to slow for the first time since the end of the war.
In 1977, voters denied Whitlam's attempt for a third term and the coalition returned to power under Malcolm Fraser. Fraser would be the first prime minister to really deal with an increasingly multicultural Australia and indeed opened Australia's doors for the "Boat People"- refugees fleeing from the former South Vietnam following the unification of Vietnam under the communist North. On foreign policy, he consistently followed Washington's line, committing Australian troops to the intervention in Iran. However, his economic policies, especially his focus on a "state's rights" approach compared to Whitlam's activist one, did little to solve the shaky economy that he inherited from Whitlam and by 1981, Australia entered a recession.
In 1983, Labor returned with a vengeance under Bill Hayden. Hayden, a much more conciliatory and moderate leader than Whitlam, oversaw Australia's recovery from the early 1980s recession as well as increasing trade links with Australia's neighbors in southeast Asia as part of making Australia into a "middling" regional power. Hayden also, ironically from a former democratic socialist (as he described his views in the 1960s), marked the Labor Party's shift away from the post-war Keynesian consensus to a more neoliberal economic policy, deregulating the financial sector and adopting a strong free trade orientation for Australia as a whole. Hayden oversaw two more victories for Labor and also worked to negotiate a better deal for Australian workers, especially those in trade unions.
By 1990, however, Hayden had worn out his welcome and had become unpopular across the country. His deputy Paul Keating eventually forced Hayden to resign and won the election to replace him as Labor leader and prime minister. Keating led a Labor in less than a year from being behind by nearly ten points in the polls to winning a slim majority in the 1992 elections in spite of the Australian economy again dipping back into recession. Keating would continue previous Labor government's efforts to help the Aboriginal community by reforming Aboriginal land title law and increased benefits for low-income parents of dependent children.
List of Prime Ministers of Australia
The Keating ministry also marked the high-water point of republicanism in Australia, as the cultural shift that had occurred post-war collided with the very public and sordid divorce of Prince Charles and his wife, Princess Jane (formerly Lady Jane Wellesley) to make conditions acceptable for Keating to propose a referendum on whether Australia should become a republic, if Labor should win a fifth consecutive term.
Liberal leader Peter Costello, who had risen rapidly through the ranks to become opposition leader at age 35, undercut Keating by promising a similar referendum if the Coalition were elected and pointing to the economic decline that Keating had done little to combat. The 1995 election saw the Coalition win a one-seat majority and Costello became prime minister at 37 (the second-youngest in Australian history behind Chris Watson who became prime minister less than a month after turning 37).
Costello, in the view of many Australian political observers, became prime minister too soon into his political career than he should have been. While talented and having the skills to successfully run the country (as his service in subsequent Coalition ministries showed), he lacked the necessary experience to keep his party in line while retaining their confidence. As such, the Costello ministry very quickly found itself relying on independents to survive as the party's majority dissipated following by-election losses and party-switchings. Costello's government passed a deficit reduction plan and pushed through comprehensive gun control measures following a series of spree shootings at Australian schools, but for the most part, Costello found himself unable to pass most of his manifesto legislation as a result of him not having a majority.
It was no wonder that voters chose to return to Labor in 1997 under Kim Beazley. Beazley was prime minister when Australia had its republican referendum and was the third straight prime minister to openly voice his support for a republic while in office. Nevertheless, the option the republican campaign had chosen for how to appoint a President of Australia if ratified (namely the prime minister and leader of the opposition picked a candidate who would be voted on by parliament and which also allowed the president to be prematurely dismissed by the prime minister) dissatisfied both progressive republicans (who wished for a directly-elected president) and conservative ones (who would effectively keep the governor-general system only with the title being changed) and led to the referendum's defeat.
Beazley's ministry would see Australia's military forces being used first in the Congo and again in East Timor. Following Suharto's overthrow in 2000, Australia provided the bulk of troops for UNAMET (United Nations Mission in East Timor)'s peacekeeping mission following the collapse of the interim government in the former Portuguese colony. Unfortunately for the prime minister, Australia's successful interventions abroad did not distract voters from factional infighting that begun to envelop the Labor frontbench that the prime minister seemed unable to quell. Added with voters beginning to sour on Beazley, this understandably led to Labor being tossed out in 2003.
Beazley's successor, Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull, spent his first term tinkering at the margins of economic policy, attempting to tighten the belt of several means-tested federal aid programs and reducing business tax rates. The main debate of the Turnbull era was over immigration. The government introduced legislation that it said aimed at keeping too many "boat people" from southeast Asia to land in Australia, which critics felt appealed to xenophobic fears and racial prejudices. Fighting between Turnbull and former prime minister Costello, who had become Turnbull's Minister for Foreign Affairs also began to dominate news coverage as Turnbull's first term ended and caused enough voters to waver about giving the Coalition enough preferences to end up with a hung parliament.
Turnbull remained prime minister, as the Coalition had a plurality of seats in the House of Representatives, but it wasn't long before it became clear that the situation was untenable and another election was called for mid-2007. Labor had had plenty of time to regroup, while Turnbull had been busy finally ending Costello as a player in Liberal circles, culminating in the former prime minister announcing that he would stand down in the election, giving Turnbull undisputed control over the party. This would come too soon, as Labor had already garnered enough support to win the election handily.
New Prime Minister Kim Carr, the first prime minister with facial hair in almost a century, was the most left-wing prime minister since Whitlam. Carr's government saw Australia recognize same-sex marriage on the federal level, but let each state or territory decide whether to legalize it or not and raised income tax rates for the first time since the Hayden ministry to pay for an increase in federal aid programs. However, Carr faced consistent challenges within his own caucus and the prime minister spent almost as much time trying to appease his caucus as he did governing. The right-wing of the Labor Party notably killed the government's attempt at a carbon tax and soon, Labor's dirty laundry was aired when a disgruntled staffer leaked internal party e-mails to the press, which instigated a firestorm of controversy.
Carr's government, damaged by the email leak, party infighting and growing opposition to further reforms, was handily dispatched by the Coalition in 2010. Julie Bishop, leader of the Liberals, became Australia's first female prime minister. The new prime minister tightened immigration policies that the Labor government had weakened, which only reignited the arguments over whether the policy had unsavory racial undertones. Bishop's term was not to be an easy one, as her government replaced several environmental laws with weaker substitutes, angering environmentalists and environmentally-oriented allies like Canada. Issues from the prime minister's past, including her associations with a man later jailed for defrauding the government, came back to bite Bishop and 2016 saw her narrowly lose her bid for a second term.
New prime minister Bill Shorten has proven popular with the Labor base, but his efforts at finding a way forward with environmental reform, immigration, and stagnant job growth have not met with much success in his first year of office...
Somehow I knew that this would be the thing that got a reaction first.
The reason I didn't mention it is that it hasn't been that relevant, since (spoiler, I guess) Elizabeth II is still the British/Commonwealth monarch by the TL's end in 2017 (/spoiler) so outside of Australia, it hasn't had a real impact on the actual effects of each country.
I didn't plan out any more changes to the Royal Family since they aren't really that relevant in the scheme of things unless Charles & TTL's Princess Jane didn't have children, but they did, so the others aren't (really relevant, that is).
The OTL second-in-line is Prince William (ATL person of course since he has a different mother) who was born in 1978. William's brother Prince Charles Arthur ("Charlie" to differentiate him from his father) is second in line and he was born in 1981. Charlie's son George (born in 2010) is third in line. Charles and Jane's final child is Princess Catherine (popularly known as "Princess Kate") who was born in 1983 and she's fourth in line.
Charles, like OTL remarried to Camilla, although like OTL, Camilla won't become queen upon Charles' ascension. The Lady Jane (although she's still popularly known as "Princess Jane") stays out of the public light for the most part, and she's generally only seen with her children or grandson.
Nope. Of course, since he's 38 and unmarried by the time the TL ends, the tabloids are calling him a "confirmed bachelor" and other euphemisms for gay, but he's also been seen in the presence of eligible bachelorettes, so who knows if the whispers or true or not...
Just to note, that was the final infobox before the 2016 US elections and the TL's end.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Fair warning for anyone who wants to make a similar-style infobox with district & PR votes: I experimented with putting swings for both the district & PR votes in to see what happened when I was making the infobox and the end result was that it just didn't work visually and made an already super-long infobox even longer. Maybe if there weren't a big map or three rows it could work but I'm doubtful.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Fair warning for anyone who wants to make a similar-style infobox with district & PR votes: I experimented with putting swings for both the district & PR votes in to see what happened when I was making the infobox and the end result was that it just didn't work visually and made an already super-long infobox even longer. Maybe if there weren't a big map or three rows it could work but I'm doubtful.