the wrong party won, but the right leader became pm......Liberal would have won if they had a decent leader. having saying that, no party has won. Sure Gillard is pm, but how many laws can she push through without a majority?

A big loss for WA- time to get screwed over with the mining tax

pay the countries debt off by taxing one state- hell we aint even part of the federal healthcare system

And i feel comofrtabe with my statement that they are both very right of democrats... and have things that back me up.  People focus on the common things the US doesn't have, and ignore all the uniquely liberal and left things the US has.

Personal freedoms in general are just greater and more protected in the US.

So socialists will rule Australia for another four years? That means you'll keep your borders wide open.

When was John Howard in power last time (the last conservative prime minister in Australia I think)?

You know... there are many many other ways related to peoples rights too that hurts Australia and makes it rightwing vs the US.

For example, the level at which they STILL screw over their indegious peoples.  (Native American's are pretty screwed up form past treatments, but violations against them are far lower and not instutitionalized like Austarlia.)

It's so bad to the point of where they've been called out by the UN human rights council.

I'd certainly agree that our treatment of the indigenous peoples is poor.

It cuts both ways though, as we've had plenty of pm's that are athiests and agnostics and in general religion is far less of an issue here for example.

The proposed internet filter however wont pass the upper house as the greens and the liberals are both against it. So its hard to say that civil liberties are curbed by something thats proposed and not actually law and certainly wont become law.

except, your civil liberties are already fairly crubed. 

As for "religion" being an issue.  I don't think I follow.  There are a lot of atheists and agnostic politcians in Austrlia because there are a lot of Atheist and Agnostic people IN australia.  It's like 15%-20%... and that's just self declared.

Nor is there specific government run religious discrimination.  Honsetly there are few places in the world religion is more free then in the US. 

Ironically your entire form of government seems VERY conservative.  The individual states in australia have WAY more power then individual US states.

Decentralization is a conservative tenant.

The left-right scale is very much not clear on civil liberties. For example both communists (an extreme of the left) and the fascists (an extreme of the right) supress civil liberties in pursuit of their goals.

In purely economic terms, which is where left-right is more clear, Australia aims for greater equality (more socialism) and America for greater individuality (more capitalism). That puts Australia as a more leftist country than America in my opinion.

I think the political compass is bit of a joke personally, it simplifies data too much.

The Australian constitution also prohibits the federal government from doing the same "Section 116 of the Constitution of Australia prohibits the Commonwealth of Australia (i.e., the federal parliament) from making laws for establishing any religion, imposing any religious observance, or prohibiting the free exercise of any religion. Section 116 also provides that no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth" from wiki.

Of course the states are an issue, but they've been loosing power continually for a significant amount of time. Plus the NSW government (the state I live in) is passing same sex adoption laws (which have already passed the lower house) so the states aren't neccesarily slowing down such progress.

Interesting, the figures on the percentage of atheists in the US do seem to be smaller then I remember. My mistake.

But I do agree that the states here cause significant problems. Its the main reason we still don't have an r18 games ratings. Because one Attorneys-General keeps on blocking it. Which is pissing off a lot of people as I'm sure you're aware of. It just seems to be one of these generational issues, just like same sex marriage and adoption is. The results show that the majority of the people support these initiatives (and the younger you are, the less people are against such issues on average), its just some old fools and I suppose the fear of the small but nevertheless influencial "Somebody think of the children" brigade. Thats holding up such progress.

If I may, I think the issue we're seeing is assigning an absolute left or right label and applying it to multiple political aspects.  Economics, social welfares, and civil liberties.  So it's better to just list an area and assign a label to that, versus absolutely.  

That's not nessisairly the case either though.

For example when it comes to Sexual discrimination laws, the US laws, outlook and execution is considered far superior then any other nations, which is why countries like the UK are trying to adopt the US laws and methods.

Additionally the economy in Australia is far less regulated.   They rank 3rd in the economic freedoms index.  They have a 30% flat tax on corporate taxes.

While the US has a progressive corporate tax rate.

Austarlia doesn't really seem to want people to be equal in economy more then the US.  It just seems like they feel they need those things so they aren't dieing in the streets or something.

Those programs existed are clouding your general view on the subject, when they may exist for completely different reasons.

For example, there are things in there Unemployment process that democrats would find scandolous and wrong... including that said people may be forced to take part in activities such as forced volunteer work, forced government jobs (Work for Dole) and job training.

These are things Republicans have been pushing for, for years and years to weed out "lazy people" who just apply to jobs they know they can't get.