The Labor-Green victory over the Howard government in the federal election was devastating. There was a near record swing against the government. As it starts to sink in, HALL GREENLAND reports on the devestation of the Liberal Party and the hopes for a Rudd Labor government.

For only the second time in Australian history a Prime Minister lost his own seat as well as government. And while Howard cracked hardy on Saturday night - his speech was Milosvic-like in its air of defiance - the Liberal party has already started to disintegrate.

The day after the defeat, the man Howard anointed leader, Peter Costello, squibbed it, announcing he doesn't want the job and will almost certainly leave parliament in the coming year. If the record of state Liberal parties in opposition is any guide, this will lead to a period in the federal Liberal party marked by wars of succession as one wannabe leader undermines the temporary incumbent.

The Liberals position nationally is dire. Their most senior elected official in the whole country is the mayor of Australia's third largest city, Brisbane. Only one voter in a million could tell you his name. (It's Campbell Newman.) It may prove only temporary, but the Liberals are consigned to the dustbin of history. Whether they can be recycled remains to be seen.

At the top of this report you read right ­- it was a famous victory for the pink-green alliance. In 23 of the 24 seats Labor won from the government, it relied on Green preferences to win. This pink-green united front could be felt at the polling booths. In my neighbourhood the Greens and Labor, as the main contending political forces, are usually in something like a permanent tribal war. Not on Saturday; it was peace and love. Veteran marxist activisit and bookseller Bob Gould reports that at the Labor victory party he went to, the second biggest cheer of the night went to Bob Brown, the Greens leader.

Saturday was also a triumph for extra-parliamentarism. There was a minor mass movement out there in the electorates. Labor and the Greens mobilised tens of thousands of booth workers ­ the polling booths were teeming with volunteers. In addition to the parties' own troops, there were activists from from internet network GetUp and the rights-at-work committees -­ there are 55 of them scattered around NSW, for instance, and they have been campaigning for months against the hated WorkChoices. The arrival of the Rudd Labor government will generate a more hopeful climate for activist campaigns. One can only sigh with relief that the result on Saturday was not a defeat because it would have been difficult to resist general demoralisation.

If the forced departure of Howard was the high point of election night, Rudd's victory speech was the most uninspiring aspect of a day to remember. He¹s a talented, likeable and sometimes witty man who dragged Labor out of some of its most demoralised years following Howard's landslide victory in the 2004 election. And he did it in just 12 months. But there was nothing of that in his victory speech -­ it was bland, verbose, centrist, clichéd and deflating.

Next day he rediscovered some of his wit but more worrying was his revelation that when George Bush phoned to congratulate him, he solicited the lame duck president for a invitation to visit him in the United States next year. It might not have been an appropriate occasion to tell Bush to leave Iraq now, although one cannot help recalling the occasion earlier this year when Rudd dropped his usual civility to call protesters against the visiting Dick Cheney "feral scum".

The next few weeks may tell us more about the Rudd government and whether it will heed the hopes of the Labor-Green surge that delivered the country from the Howard gang. It's worth recalling that 35 years ago this week the Whitlam Labor government was elected and in its first week abolished conscription, released jailed draft-resisters, opened diplomatic relations with Beijing, initiated the equal pay for women case in the arbitration commission ­- and abolished sales tax on the Pill.

Can Kevin do as well?

N.B The image accompanying this article is only wishful thinking but after a defeat like Saturday's anything seems possible.

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