Australian Government Falling Apart

[Sheilbh]

Labor's leadership war becomes numbers game
PM
Updated February 24, 2012 00:51:42

As the leadership showdown looms, Julia Gillard looks to have the numbers in caucus but opinion polls tell a different story, pitting Kevin Rudd as the much preferred leader.

Ms Gillard says she expects to win Monday's ballot against the man she ousted less than two years ago and she holds the support of Labor heavyweights Wayne Swan, Nicola Roxon and Simon Crean - to name a few.

Mr Rudd has not yet confirmed if he will contest the ballot, but he has said he has significant support - among them senior minister Robert McClelland, Martin Ferguson and Kim Carr.

And when it comes to the polls between Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard it is Mr Rudd who holds the majority of public support.

But pollsters say those numbers may not matter because current figures show the Labor Government would be voted out if an election was held now, regardless of who the leader was.

Newspoll chief executive Martin O'Shannessey has told ABC1's Lateline that the latest results show the Gillard Government would lose significantly to the Coalition, led by Tony Abbott.

Mr O'Shannessey says even if Mr Rudd was to win Monday's ballot, it is hard to see any Labor leader beating Mr Abbott.

"I think that Tony Abbott with a 45 per cent primary vote is feeling pretty confident," he said.

"There's going to be change as we head towards the election, but Labor needs to put 10 per cent on their primary vote, even more if they're to rule in their own right. That is a very big ask."

Other pollsters have also found more public support for the former foreign minister than for Ms Gillard.

Galaxy Research principal David Briggs says January's poll showed Kevin Rudd was the preferred leader of the Labor Party 52 to 30 over Julia Gillard.

"While those numbers look pretty bad for the Prime Minister, it is an improvement on the figures for late in 2011 when we were looking at a 60-26 margin."

Nielsen Polls research director John Stirton says their polling showed similar results.

"In our most recent polls about three weeks ago, 50 per cent of voters preferred Kevin Rudd to be Labor leader and 35 per cent preferred Gillard," he said.

"That gap has been fairly consistent for the last 12 months, so Kevin Rudd has always had about a 20-point lead over Ms Gillard and I think that's because there's still a lot of residual goodwill to Kevin Rudd in the community given the way he was ousted."

Counter-argument

Mr Rudd's supporters are likely to point to the poll results when it comes to Monday's ballot and his forces are urging MPs to think about who they want standing beside them during the next election; in other words, who is more likely to be able to help them hang on to their seats.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen says he will be supporting Mr Rudd.

"I do think we need to reflect on the fact that there's no doubt that there's a lot of support in the community for Mr Rudd," he said.

Another Rudd supporter, Robert McClelland, agrees.

"I think unquestionably he's best equipped to win the next election," he told the ABC's 7.30.

"We have an obligation to put forth our best candidate."

But the counter-argument to the polls from the Gillard corner is that Kevin Rudd led a dysfunctional and chaotic government.

Environment Minister Tony Burke, say the Government froze under Mr Rudd.

"Kevin Rudd said he wants plain talking and now we're plain talking about why the caucus overwhelmingly dumped him and why they caucus overwhelmingly doesn't want him back," he said.

However some of Ms Gillard's backers have tried to tone down the vitriol when it comes to the leadership crisis.

Defence Minister Stephen Smith told Lateline "robust" things are said in any leadership spill but once the vote is over they must get on with the job.

"If Kevin Rudd wins, he'll be the prime minister and I would expect that the Labor Party caucus would throw itself behind him with all loyalty, just as I would expect that if Julia Gillard wins on Monday - and I am confident that she will - precisely the same thing will happen, and that is what we need. We need a united party," he said.

Health Minister Tanya Plibersek backs Ms Gillard and says she hopes if Mr Rudd loses the vote he will end his leadership campaign.

She says her colleagues should stop the open criticism of the former prime minister.

"I don't think this sort of public bloodletting does any of us any good. I think it overshadows our plans for the future," she said.

Ms Gillard says after Monday's vote, the loser should head to the backbench and pledge never to recontest the leadership.

But others are not so sure. One Gillard supporter who maintains Mr Rudd cannot muster more than 27 votes is still hedging his bets, warning if he manages to get 35 votes there is no chance the Government's problems will end.

I was watching the Aussie news to get a feel for it. 

From what I can gather Rudd was a popular PM, who had enjoyed record levels of popularity.  After a few fumbles (though still with over 50% approval) his party knifed him in the back because he was autocratic and difficult to work with.  He was replaced by Gillard who, barely, won an election a month later.

Then he's appointed Foreign Minister because he speaks Mandarin and is, according to everyone, very good at the job.  He's apparently briefing against the PM.  Her supporters make public statements describing him as a psycopath and she doesn't disown them.  Apparently she was confident she had the numbers to challenge him to a leadership race and fire him if he lost.  So he steals a march by announcing his resignation (in Washington!) before flying back to Canberra to run for leadership.

What's really incredible though is that through all of this there's apparently almost no policy or philosophical divide.  She's popular with the party and the 'faceless men' in the caucus, he's popular with the public.  They hate one another and are stylistically rather different.  But that's it.  The whole story's extraordinary

[grumbler]

What's really incredible though is that through all of this there's apparently almost no policy or philosophical divide.  She's popular with the party and the 'faceless men' in the caucus, he's popular with the public.  They hate one another and are stylistically rather different.  But that's it.  The whole story's extraordinary

I don't see why you would be surprised that there is no policy difference between contestants for leadership of a political party.  The contest exists because there is only one party leader and there are two people who want the job.

What is extraordinary is that both sides have made the purely-inside-the-party debate so public; the two candidates each appears to want the other to fail more than they want their party to win, so they are happy to give their party's opponents ammo to use against their party if they lose this contest.

Even that is only extraordinary because this is a parliamentary system rather than a free-association political party system.  Candidates in the US are doing the same thing these people are, right now, and no one thinks that is extraordinary.

[Sheilbh]

But there's normally some ideological and political content going on, within US primaries or internal party contests in a Parliamentary system. 

Normally there will be a candidate of the left and one of the right (Cameron the moderniser vs Davis the hardline; New Labour vs Old Labour; Abbot vs Turnbull in Australia).  Failing that there's some party dynamic going on, often one candidate will be choice of the activists and another the choice of the Parliamentary party and that'll be reflected in their views.  Even if they're actually very similar the media will read some kind of choice into it.  That doesn't seem to be happening here either.

In this case there's none of that.  They'll follow broadly the same policies, neither wants significant party reform.  The only difference is style and the history of bad blood.  I can't think of a case like it in the UK (the closest is possibly Labour 2010?), and it seems pretty unique for Australians too.

[MadImmortalMan]

That is a very big ask.

[Ed Anger]

Australia, the commonwealth's Alabama.