In Australia, from 1996 to 2007, the commonwealth was dominated by the growing power of the conservative wing of the Australian Liberal Party led by the ageing Prime Minister, John Howard. Dogged, experienced and mater of political posturing and strategy, he pulled the nation up by its bootstraps and hulled it down an ideological road that it had never been down before, marked by the ideological conservatism that the Prime Minister and his government towed. Marked by wavering support for social conservatism, a strong national defense force, and the unbending maintenance of a neo-liberal, open market economy, the Liberal Party (along with its coalition partner, the National Party) molded and shaped an entire age of Australian politics and society, leading the commonwealth through the so-called 'end of history' and into the bright cynicism of the 21st century before their crushing defeat at the hands of the resurgent Labor Party led by the young Kevin Rudd in the 2007 election.
In this timeline, however, the social conservatism that defined a new age of the nation does not waver in the face of the young, resurgent force of Kevin Rudd, but instead, with a POD during the December 2003 Labor Party leadership spill, continues to guide it down the path the movement laid out for the commonwealth after the famous electoral victory in 1996. Once again led by the Liberal Party and its Prime Minister, the dominance that they displayed in one era would be carried over to the year 2008, and with the growing disaster that loomed just over the horizon, it would have to be witnessed if the conservatives could avoid the struggle and conflict that would soon command a new era.