Now, since Queensland is growing faster than the national average, and the north coast of NSW will, on current projections, experience a massive influx of people over the next two decades, the relative rise of Queensland and regional NSW will, over time, lead to an urbanized population that is less heavily concentrated in a few large cities than is the case today, which is already less heavily concentrated than was the case two decades ago.
The success of the Liberal/National coalition over the past more than decade has been in large part due to the Libs ability to attract support in the "mortgage belt" of outer suburban areas around the big cities, and Sydney in particular.
The last election, John Howard not only took great credit for relatively low interest rates, but was perceived as essentially promising that they would stay low under the Libs and would rise under Labor. This is especially critical in the "mortgage belt", since mortgages are almost always set with variable rates. So, listening in to the ABC podcasts from overseas, the increase of interest rates in the middle of the month and a half election campaign seems to have helped solidify Labor's lead by attracting enough attention to the question of whether "the interest rate promise was broken" that the Coalition can't get a lot of traction on other issues.
The main problem that the Coalition has is that Australia has had very strong economic growth, largely on the back of the resource boom, and the public mood seems to have shifted from, "good on them", to, "what are they going to do with it?"
After two tough elections, the first breaking to the Coalition right at the beginning with the phony Children Overboard scandal, and the second breaking to the Coalition based substantially on an increasing view of the ALP leader, Mark Latham, as a loose cannon, it seems an like a substantial margin of the electorate may be thinking that, on the one hand, Rudd is not going to do anything rash and, on the other hand, under Rudd the ALP will try to get something done. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
