[NYTr] Howard GONE - Rudd sworn in as Australian prime minister

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Dave Muller - southnews (NO URLs)


AFP -  Dec 3, 2007


Rudd sworn in as Australian prime minister

AFP -

CANBERRA (AFP) --Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd was sworn in as 
Australia's 26th prime minister Monday, launching a new era in which he 
has pledged to roll back many of his conservative predecessor's
policies.

Nine days after a landslide election victory over John Howard's 
11-year-old coalition government, Rudd took the oath of office before 
Governor-General Michael Jeffery at Government House in Canberra.

In a sharp break with Howard's policies, the new prime minister has 
promised to sign the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, pull Australian 
troops out of Iraq and dismantle union-busting labour laws.

Watched by his wife Therese Rein, a millionaire businesswoman, and
their three children, Rudd swore on a bible to "well and truly serve
the Commonwealth of Australia, her land and her people, in the office
of prime minister."

Rudd's deputy in the Labor Party, Julia Gillard, was sworn in as the 
first woman to hold the post of deputy prime minister, along with the 
rest of his cabinet.

The 20 cabinet ministers, 10 other ministers and 12 parliamentary 
secretaries were due to hold a full ministerial meeting in Parliament 
House after the swearing-in, with Rudd pledging to get to work
immediately.

"It's an important day for us because we turn a new page into the 
future," he told reporters ahead of the swearing-in.

"It's getting down to work on the agenda we put to the people during
the election period. I'm really looking forward to that."

A reversal of Howard's refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on global 
warming was top of the agenda, said Rudd, who travels next week to a 
major UN climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia.

"As I said prior to the election, our first act as the incoming 
government would be to proceed with the ratification of Kyoto.

"That remains our intention and when I land in Bali we would hope that 
ratification process would be underway."

But Rudd warned that the conference's task of hammering out a roadmap 
for a new global agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions when
the Kyoto provisions expire in 2012 would not be easy.

"It'll take a lot of time, a lot of horse trading, a lot of
negotiation, it's going to be a tough process," he said.

Some 190 governments have been called to the 11-day conference which is 
being held under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

On Iraq, Rudd has pledged to pull the country's 550 combat troops out
of the war-torn country by the middle of next year.

"We've not begun our discussions with the United States on that," he 
said Friday. "We'll have a meeting with the United States ambassador 
before too long to set up the appropriate processes for discussing
that."

The withdrawal plan contrasts with Howard's staunch support of US 
President George W. Bush on Iraq, but Rudd has promised to maintain 
strong relations with Washington and is due to visit the White House 
next year.

Another priority for the new Labor government is tearing up Howard's 
labour laws, which were seen as allowing employers to cut wages and 
working conditions by forcing employees onto individual contracts.

"The transitional bill will be prepared almost straight away but we are 
not in a position to produce it of course until early next year when 
parliament resumes," Rudd said.

"We intend to proceed calmly, coolly and methodically in order to 
restore fairness and balance to the workplace."