Morning in Australia

We woke up today in Toronto, 14 hours behind Australia, to find that the sun was shining, the temperature was wonderful, birds were singing, and the world was as it should be. That’s what the ABC and most left-leaning Australian commentators would call an ‘unremarkable’ day.

Oh, and it being election night in Australia when we woke up, my wife and I discovered first thing that the Coalition had ‘unwon’ the election, that the Labor Party had gone down to ‘unbig time’ defeat, that the Australian human-rights special-interest lobby and industry (sorry, those selflessly committed to the human rights of others) and many of those working for the ABC were ‘unscared’ about their futures, and that the carbon tax, mining tax and endless budget deficits would soon be ‘ungone’.

That’s because the ‘unelectable’ Mr Abbott, whom I have long liked and admired and whom I am delighted has won, actually won.

Who would have thought it? Not a myriad of ABC and left-wing (sorry for the redundancy there) commentators, who again and again and again claimed Mr. Abbott was unelectable.

Apparently the voters of Australia disagreed. What an ‘unshock’?

James Allan, Garrick Professor of Law, is on sabbatical in Toronto at Osgoode Hall Law School.