For the last few months various top level US politicians from GW Bush downwards have been involving themselves with Australian politics. From its beginnings with the Australian Labour party decision to bring home our troops at Christmas should it win the forthcoming election. Earlier this week the US Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage chipped in claiming the Labour party was split on the issue of troop deployment.
From the SMH 9/7/04
Washington should keep out of Australian politics, the Opposition Leader, Mark Latham, said yesterday, denying claims by a senior Bush Administration figure that Labor is split over its policy on Iraq. The former Labor prime minister Paul Keating also bought into the row over the comments by the US Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, describing his intervention as "dumb" and saying that Labor would not be "thugged" by American officials.
Asked about the claims of Mr. Armitage that Labor was "rent down the middle" over his pledge to recall troops from Iraq by Christmas, Mr. Latham called on overseas figures to "respect Australia's democratic processes". "I just think there is too much overseas commentary and interventions in Australian politics just prior to a federal election," he said. Australians were "keen to make their own judgment in our own Australian way about the forthcoming election", he said.
Mr. Keating described Mr. Armitage's comments as "yet another unwarranted and untimely partisan intervention into Australian political debate". He said Labor would "not be thugged by US officials", and that, in his experience, neither former US presidents George Bush snr nor Bill Clinton had ever contemplated such behavior towards Australia. "Beating up on friendly foreign political parties is not only unsightly it is also dumb and counter-productive in the longer term," Mr. Keating said.
http://www.smh.com.au/frontpage/2004.../frontpage.pdf