Labor has no choice but to stick with Julia Gillard

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This was published 11 years ago

Labor has no choice but to stick with Julia Gillard

The PM's critics lack a credible argument for change.

ON THE surface at least, the argument for removing Julia Gillard as leader of the Labor Party and, therefore, as Prime Minister of Australia, seems simple enough. Opinion polls show she is deeply unpopular, with support for Labor slipping below 30 per cent. If these figures are sustained, Labor faces electoral oblivion. So, the argument goes, it's time for Ms Gillard to step aside, making room for the assumed successor, Kevin Rudd. This needs to happen soon, so Mr Rudd can re-establish himself as leader before the election, which can be held as late as November 30 next year.

The fact that internal Labor Party murmurings about the leadership have re-emerged just five months after Ms Gillard decisively defeated a Rudd challenge, and that some in the party are willing to contemplate another desperate gamble, is a reflection of the excruciating dilemma Labor faces. The argument for change - now put routinely by political journalists who obsess over every minute development through the prism of leadership - is that the party faces a wipeout under Ms Gillard that would all but destroy it for a generation. Mr Rudd, more popular in the electorate than Ms Gillard, is the party's only chance to keep the losses manageable.

In our view, the case for change now is not as simple or as compelling as some of the more presumptuous commentary would suggest.

For all her flaws, Ms Gillard does not run a shambolic, corrupt or dysfunctional government that would make a leadership change an urgent necessity, not just to salvage the shreds of Labor's reputation, but for the good of the country. Nor is she accused of reprehensible conduct that would make her unfit to govern. She was legitimately elected and, despite her fragile hold on power, her government is able to pass important legislation, hundreds of bills in fact, through a functioning parliament.

She has pressed ahead with a strong legislative agenda and major infrastructure projects, including the carbon and mining taxes and the national broadband network. Amid the usual federal-state posturing, she is driving the introduction of a national disability insurance scheme. Along the way, her government has continued to manage an economy that is the envy of the Western world. Leadership, of course, is not just about management, and

Ms Gillard often struggles to communicate to the electorate. But on substance, this is not a government in disarray.

So far, the handful of anonymous Labor voices who are advocating change have failed to put forward a credible argument based on policy or ideological differences. Their only point is that Mr Rudd is likely to be more popular than Ms Gillard. This, in our view, assumes the credulity of the public and tests Labor's credibility. The caucus threw a sitting prime minister out of office because of Mr Rudd's dysfunctional style, although it would have coped with that if the polls hadn't been so worrying. And it crushed his challenge in February. We wonder what, precisely, would Labor stand for if it threw out another sitting PM because the polls were atrocious? Precisely nothing, in our view.

And would the public's assumed fondness for Mr Rudd outweigh the derision that another leadership change would inevitably attract?

How could Mr Rudd form a strong cabinet, given the line-up of senior Labor figures who comprehensively trashed his character and competence during his recent leadership lunge? How would he and Labor counter the campaign of ridicule from the Coalition, playing back the uncompromising words of ministers who said they could never work with him?

The mischievous and the malcontents in Labor who continue to mutter about the leadership should think deeply about their destabilisation of the government under the pretence that it's all for the good of the party. For its own fragile credibility, Labor has no choice but to stick with Ms Gillard.

And another thing...

IT'S not often you see the words ''neo-Georgian townhouse'' and ''A-grade cock-up'' intertwined. But there's a big mess in Brighton involving a sports star, and for once it doesn't involve S.K. Warne. Harry Kewell is embroiled in a rental dispute with the owners of the multimillion-dollar house, who claim they are owed about $20,000 by the Socceroo's former manager. The property's owners now want to remove the soccer star's furniture and electrical goods from the premises. It also emerges that Kewell, who has left town for London with his family, is owed more than $250,000 from his single season with Melbourne Victory. There are legal letters flying everywhere. It's an ugly stoush for such handsome surrounds. The denizens of the prestigious south-east suburb of Brighton may be wondering what happened to their once genteel land.

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