Labor faces a choice between two agonies (Australia's Gillard government in its death throes)

LABOR is now a rabble in a panic in what seems to be Julia Gillard’s last weeks - maybe even days - as Prime Minister.

It has finally woken up to its deadly choice. It can either have a leader loathed by voters, or one loathed by its MPs.

It can stick with the incompetent and scandal-ridden Gillard, and suffer humiliating defeat.

Or it can surrender to the popular Kevin Rudd, and risk tearing itself apart again under a self-obsessed power freak.

Labor can dream of other options - Regional Australia Minister Simon Crean, Workplace Minister Bill Shorten or Defence Minister Stephen Smith - but it’s probably too late now.

I warned a year ago Labor had to choose a Crean then or a Rudd later. And later is now.

A year ago, Crean particularly could have had time to give Labor the steady, competent, boring leadership it needed to prove it could be trusted with government.

A year ago these men did not share the shame of what has followed, which now includes Gillard staff starting a race riot against the Opposition Leader, and Gillard cheating independent MP Andrew Wilkie over poker machines.

Oh, and did you notice yet more boat people were last week lured to their deaths by Labor’s reckless softening of our laws?

But more significant in this leadership battle, a year ago Rudd might just - just - have been still weak enough for his rivals to contain.

The Foreign Affairs Minister has grown so dominant that not to switch to him would seem to voters unnatural, and an invitation to yet more instability.

It’s difficult to say. If Gillard thinks she’s going to be dumped, she could go to the Governor General and ask for an election but doing so would be seen by her party as a major betrayal (because they’d be annihilated) so a lot depends on if she is angry enough to want that type of revenge.

If she’s dumped, whoever replaces her might go to the polls to try and capitalise on a bounce in the polls but that would be an incredibly risky strategy with their numbers as low as they are. Or they might decide to go now, knowing they will lose but hoping to get it over and done with so they can rebuild and try again in three years. Also, some Gillard supporters have threatened to quit if she’s dumped, and if they did that, and Labor lost their seats in a by election, that could change things as well.

Rudd wasn’t really ‘scandal ridden’. He was unpopular but it wasn’t really due to scandal, just lack of success.

The infighting is occurring within the Labor party, and if it comes to a vote, they will elect a new leader of their party, who will become Prime Minister as leader of the party that controls Parliament. Abbott is in opposition, and for him to become Prime Minister without a general elections, the two (arguably three) independents currently keeping Labor in power would have to transfer support to him - which is possible but unlikely unless Labor was found to have acted in a ‘reprehensible’ fashion (major corruption, for example).

Climbing the polls ... Julia Gillard has pegged back some of Kevin Rudd's lead as preferred leader. Photo: Andrew Meares

''In the end the government doesn't have to change leaders - they have to change policies because if they have Rudd or Gillard they'll still have the carbon tax, they'll still have the mining tax, they'll still be a government which is addicted to spending,'' Mr Abbott told Network Ten.

SOURCE

Weren’t at least a couple of independents supposedly “conservative” when they were elected and then betrayed their constituents to support Labor?

More or less.

There were four independents elected in 2010 - Andrew Wilkie of Tasmania was never likely to support a conservative coalition government (he first came to public attention as an so-called 'whistleblower' from Australian intelligence opposed to the war in Iraq) and so his support of Labor was unsurprising, and I believe an honest stance given his political beliefs (he has just recently announced he will no longer support the government because Julia Gillard has broken a promise made to him about Poker Machines).

Bob Katter (of Queensland) was once a National MP (and member of the conservative coalition) but left the party in 2001 over some policy disagreements. He remains a conservative though, and there was never any real question of him supporting a Labor government. He would have supported the coalition to give them government but as his one seat didn't wind up making that difference, he isn't formally part of any group - except a new party forming around him which hopes to win a number of state seats in this years Queensland election. Again, he's an honest man.

This left Rob Oakeshott, and Tony Windsor, both of NSW. Like Katter, both Oakeshott and Windsor were once both Nationals and both describe themselves as conservatives and both were elected into Parliament in 2010 because of preferences from the conservative parties. In simple terms, about 2/3rds of votes in their electorates were cast for conservative candidates - but they chose to support Labor.

Whether it's a betrayal depends on your point of view. They would argue that they took advantage of a once in a lifetime chance to force a government to give their electorates what they wanted, and Gillard was willing to give them things, that Abott would not. And, in fairness, there's some truth to that. But they did give us a Labor government with all that entails as well. Personally, I've got more time for Oakeshott than for Windsor. I think Windsor decided he was going to support Labor and that meant Labor would have 75 seats regardless. At that point, Oakeshott going to the coalition would have made it a truly hung Parliament of 75-75, which meant only Labor could possibly form a government and so he went to them in the interests of stable government. I can respect that to some extent.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.