President Obama is visiting Australia on Thursday. He is making two stops, one in Canberra (Australia's capital) and Darwin in the north-middle part of Australia. He was going to stop by Melbourne (where I am right now) to go to the President's Cup golf tournament (where I would have been) on Thursday but his advisers told him not to go to the golf tournament because they said it would look bad to outsiders if he was spending time watching a golf tournament.
Australian Politics:
Australia, like the United States, has two main political parties that go back and forth with each other. The parties are:
1) Liberal Party: our version of Republicans (oddly enough)
2) Labour Party: our version of Democrats
Right now the Prime Minister of Australia is a woman named Julia Gillard, a member of the Labour Party. She made headlines in Australia and England a few weeks ago when Queen Elizabeth visited Australia and as she got off the plane Mrs. Gillard bowed to her instead of curtsied, which is the standard royal protocol. Lots of people saw this as disrespectful.
Also, a few months ago she passed a very controversial carbon emission reduction law which put a cap on how much carbon dioxide Australian companies could emit. Its a big deal over here because a) when she was campaigning she vowed not to institute such a policy and b) many people see it as a threat to Australia's growing economy.
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