WI: Howard hands over to Costello in 2006

Cook

Banned
By 2007 the Coalition had been in power for twelve years and the country was ready to hand over the reins of power to a new pair of safe hands. (Actually the country had been ready to change in 2004 and would have done so had the ALP had a sane leader at the time.) Costello would have been very unlikely to alter the feeling that it was time for a change.
 
Defeated Rudds Labor? Very doubtful, with or without Workchoices.

Without Rudd as leader, things would still be difficult, and they might hold on with a very slim majority or hung parliament, but its unlikely as the reasons already mentioned.

It depends if Costello tries to impliment a clean slate with "the next generation" as soon as he takes the job, or whether he decides to wait until after the election to clean house (whether thats called right away or the OTL date).
 
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