The US has a very different set up to Australia and the UK, partly because there is no labour party in the US. In Australia we have better work conditions, less of a gap between rich and poor, and a more developed welfare state, as a result of union influence on the Australian Labour Party, and a tradition which has had governments walking a middle line between employers and employees. When the last government tried to break down employee rights through legislation which took Australia towards the American labour model(called, ironically, "Workchoices") they were voted out.

Australia is a more secular society and has seen social justice very much as being about fairer distribution of economic resources. We have not had so much of a religious tradition here. The US tradition of equality seems to me as an outsider to be a commitment to spiritual or moral equality, but not to economic equality. not an equality of distribution of resources, but an equality of social status.

The idea of individual freedom here (in Oz) is very much tied to secular ideals. I hope that either Obama or Hillary get in, and that they are able to lead America towards some of the social gains experienced in australia and in the northern european states.