Australian Prime Minister Congratulates Barack Obama After Historic Election Win

The US election is finally over and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has congratulated the winner Barack Obama:

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd today congratulated US President-elect Barack Obama on his victory saying he brought a message of hope to the world.

Minutes after watching Senator Obama’s “extraordinary” speech, Mr Rudd lauded him as “a good man”.

He would ring to congratulate him as soon as possible.

Mr Rudd said he looked forward to working with Senator Obama in the closest possible way.

“Australia looks forward to working in the closest possible partnership with an Obama administration, acting together to deal with the great common challenges we face,” he said.

He said that the world relied even more on leadership from the US at the present time.

Mr Rudd said that in electing Senator Obama, the US had lived up to Martin Luther King’s famous speech in which men and woman would be judged not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.

“Today what America has done is turn that dream into a reality,” he said.

“His message of hope is not just for America’s future but also for the world, a world which is now in many respects fearful for its future.”

“It is a message of hope over fear.

“This is a great day for the American people.”

Mr Rudd said the world looked for leadership on the global financial crisis, climate change and continuing challenges of security.

He said he would work closely to deal with the challenges of Iraq and Afghanistan.  [The Mercury]

This is all nice and all but I found this at the end of his remarks to be totally unnecessary:

Mr Rudd said it was a matter for the Liberal Party to explain former Prime Minister John Howard’s comment last year that terrorists would be hoping for an Obama win in the presidential election.

“It is a matter for the Liberals to explain to the Australian people and to make proper account to the Australian people,” he said.

It was a historic election moment and PM Rudd couldn’t resist the temptation to play politics with it.

Personally for me anyway, one of the good things about Obama being elected is that I shouldn’t now have random people coming up to me and complaining about George Bush every time they hear my American accent.  That was getting extremely annoying.