The lying rodent is gone and the Liberals are in total disarray. For all the talk of economic management, Howard's claims about interest rates were exposed as a fraud, and WorkChoices has exposed him as arrogant, out of touch and power-hungry.

The political turnaround on these two important issues this year shed new light on the Liberals' record in other areas - Iraq, civil rights, refugees and immigration and global warming.

But the importance of the election outcome wasn't reflected in the campaign. Howard and Rudd's day-to-day policy announcements hardly inspired water cooler conversation.

While millions of us were nervously awaiting the outcome, Labor was promising to continue virtually 90 per cent of Howard's policies.

Where are the reforms to re-fund our public hospitals and schools or to protect workers from pay cuts and lay-offs? Why was there no real opposition to the government over its $34 billion tax cut plan or its increasingly disastrous NT intervention? Where's the massive investment we need in renewable energy?

If you compare Rudd's policies with those of previous Labor governments, it looks like Rudd will preside over the most right wing Labor government since the Great Depression.

We're going to have to fight him every step of the way for genuine reform.

In particular, Rudd's softening of Labor's original pledge to really get rid of WorkChoices means we need to continue discussion among trade union members about building an alternative to Labor.

If Rudd follows through on his 'economic conservativism', he is likely to be a huge disappointment to his supporters from very early on. The Greens have an opportunity to grow massively.

But it will require a very different mind-set to the one that has created the recent Greens election campaign. Greens politicians who have been extremely supportive of struggles such as refugee rights, workers rights, against the Iraq war will actually need to mobilise their rank-and-file members to build mass resistance on major issues.

And it's incumbent on the radical left, and those inside the Greens who recognise this, to be part of the process and help make it happen.

The crushing defeat for Howard - especially him losing Bennelong and being kicked out of parliament - is certainly cause for celebration and reflection. But we shouldn't kid ourselves: we face some big challenges in the coming period.