The beginning of the end for Tony Abbott

Opposition leader Tony Abbott is not interested in economics and doesn’t like reading press releases so he may not have seen the minutes of the last Reserve Bank meeting. What Abbott would remember from that August 7 meeting was the headline of interest rates kept on hold at 3.50 per cent. The Board said world conditions had declined since February, commodity prices were down and global growth was unspectacular. Australia's terms of trade (the relative prices of Australia’s exports and imports) peaked nearly a year ago, the Bank said, “though they remain historically high”.

The Board offered its judgement on the world and Australia's place in it. China was steady, US growth is modest, Asia was recovering from natural disasters. Europe remains the sick man of the world as policymakers juggle sovereign and bank debt with the need for future growth. The share market was volatile, risk aversion was high while interest rates were historically low. Yet the board noted Australian banks have had no difficulty accessing funding, even on an unsecured basis. This was because Australia was a “highly rated sovereign”. Inflation and unemployment are low and not even the carbon price will change it that much.

This is an extraordinary result given Board Governor Glenn Stevens’ statement to the politicians yesterday, we were “not in anything like normal times”. Stevens was speaking at the House of Representatives standing committee on economics and repeated the good news about the local economy. Resource investment might be declining but export shipments will pick up. The dampening effect of a high dollar was beginning to wane, so other sectors such as construction and tourism may also bounce back.

Liberal member of the committee Steve Ciobo asked if Australia was merely just lucky to near Asia’s boom and far from the toxicity of Europe. Stevens avoided the political connotations of the question but admitted Australia’s geography and resource-rich land was a “blessing”. However he noted there were cultural issues at play too. “We are in the real economy exposed to the strong bit, and our financial economy and our psychology is still quite connected as well to the pessimism from the North Atlantic,” Stevens said.

The Opposition has tapped into this pessimism with great effect since the last election and has taken every opportunity to link bad economic news to the minority government. After two years, Tony Abbott  is no longer pretending Australia is in dire straits but still marked Tuesday’s second anniversary of that election with a hope “the Australian people can vote for a better way.”  Abbott sought refuge in the past for his promise of renewed hope and a stronger economy.  “Sixteen members of my Shadow Cabinet were ministers in the Howard Government,” he said. “We delivered an era of reform and prosperity before, and we are determined to do it again.”

Abbott’s presser made no mention of the change in global conditions since Howard lost the November 2007 election. This week, he repeated claims the carbon and mining taxes were responsible for economic uncertainty in a shambolic performance on ABC’s 7.30. They were among many egregious errors, perhaps chief among them the suggestion Marius Kloppers may have misled investors if he failed to mention the carbon tax as a reason for BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam postponement. 

It wasn’t just Leigh Sales toughening up on Abbott this week. Many in the media have started to ramp up the scrutiny. Michelle Grattan said his credibility was as big a problem as Prime Minister Gillard’s trust. Grattan noted Abbott’s biggest strength, his absolutism, could become his biggest problem when the facts don’t fit his strategy. He is also in danger of losing the advantage over the Government as more people recognise his “one trick tony” behaviour. 

Laurie Oakes openly called out Abbott as a liar in his weekly article for News Ltd today. While most people would not find it surprising a politician is less than scrupulously honest, it is a problem for Abbott because, says Oakes, “the central message from Abbott supporters is that the Prime Minister is the liar - Ju-liar.” 

With still a year to go before the next election, the advantage remains with the Opposition. But recent polling has seen a narrowing and even in Queensland where Labor has been battered at the last Federal and State election there is improvement. On figures released this week, Poll Bludger reckons only the marginal seat of Moreton might fall and there is still another year of Campbell Newman government cutbacks to factor in.  

While leadership tensions in Labor are still not totally behind them (and won’t while Kevin Rudd remains in parliament), Gillard seems almost certain now to last until the next election. But there is no guarantee she will face Tony Abbott. Opposition members not rusted on to Abbott’s take-no-prisoners style (and there are many in the party, as the leadership ballot in 2009 showed), may get increasingly nervous if Labor continues to chip away at their lead, while their own leader goes missing in action.

Julia Gillard's Day Zero

No one seems to accept this as a possibility yet but Labor may well have won the next election today. Everyone does agree the Federal Government has been through the most extraordinary two weeks of bloodletting – not so much airing its dirty linen in public as proudly wearing it at a fancy dress party. From Simon Crean’s early promptings, to the mysterious airing of Rudd’s sweary video, the revelations of the Four Corners program of what Gillard did and did not know, Rudd’s overseas midnight resignation, the ferocious response of Government Ministers and Gillard’s ultimate triumph today, it has been gifted wrapped coverage for our media. Hundreds of journalists were in Canberra today for the vote which was a foregone conclusion. Yet not one of them picked up in advance the biggest story of the day – the resignation of Mark Arbib. It was this action as much as anything that shows the length Labor may be prepared to go to kill the leadership debate and end what Gilard herself called the political drama.

Along with fellow minister Bill Shorten, Arbib was behind that drama. He was the ultimate face of the faceless men who deposed Rudd in 2010. With senior minister Nicola Roxon admitting on the weekend she was unaware of the impending coup, it was Arbib and Shorten who Rudd would have considered the backstabbers-in-chief. Given he has not forgiven the party for his sacking, it is not beyond the possibility Rudd demanded a faceless head as his price for supporting Gillard post ballot. Certainly Arbib’s confusing resignation statement hinted there was something a lot stronger at issue than the “family reasons” offered as the main cause. And as a Senator he could leave without Labor facing a by-election.

Meanwhile Kevin Rudd seemed at ease after the ballot today. Perhaps he has exorcised some of the demons of his 2010 defeat which occurred without a ballot. The initial reports were he had just 29 supporters in caucus but it was soon revised to 71-31. This was a margin that seem to please everyone in Government. Gillard was handsomely re-elected with over a two to one majority. Meanwhile Rudd was not disgraced (those two missing votes getting him into the respectable thirties) without getting the 40 or so votes he needed for the legitimacy of a second challenge. His speech afterwards was both valedictory and apologetic. He stood up for a belief in his achievements but acknowledged others saw it differently. Most importantly he saw the need to commit to Gillard for the life of her Government, effectively ending his leadership challenge until either she resigns or is beaten at the polls.

This was also a coded message to the media: he was off the drip. With no other senior minister with a serious axe to grind, there should be few further leaks of the kind that has destabilised the Gillard regime from the moment it took office. The media will keep Rudd on the preferred prime minister poll question as they do Malcolm Turnbull. But just as they do now with Turnbull, Rudd leadership stories will run short of juice without a quote from a “Senior Government Minister”.

The similarities with Turnbull extend beyond this. Both men are brilliant intellectuals but brittle and difficult to work with. Both have probably burned their bridges with their caucus colleagues and may have to set up a third (or fourth) party if they are to ever re-establish their leadership credentials. Rudd in particular is damaged goods. The Australian hailed him as Labor’s best hope to defeat the Coalition in 2013, but his clear lead in the preferred prime minister stakes was in stark contrast to the respect in which he was held by the vast majority of caucus members.

It is the difference between having to vote for him and having to work for him. Rudd has mastered a media image of the socially incompetent nerd. It doesn’t appear to matter to voters he hasn’t a shred of genuineness in him as long as he is there with that smile to crash or crash through any awkwardness. Behind the scenes, other parts of his personality were free to do their ugly work far from public prying. 24 x 7’s Kevin’s obsessive desire for control, glass jaw and an enormous untrammelled ego led to an unhealthy work environment that any self-respecting OH&S officer would complain about.

While the self-styled “K Rudd” now sits chastened on the naughty back bench, Prime Minister Gillard seemed positively ebullient post-ballot. The all-out attack strategy was risky but necessary to kill off her challenger. She has given Abbott his election ads but they will probably be lost anyway in a bland stew of negative messages. She also fended off Abbott’s Question Time attack today with ease making him look like a carping yesterday’s man while she was the forward looking leader. Such decisiveness may not last but it at least she can now attack without having to protect her flanks.

These two weeks told us where the corpses are buried but so far the public is not bothered by the macabre spectacle. Indeed Labor got its best result in 12 months in the latest Newspoll today. The two party preferred is 53-47 to the Coalition which is in the margin of error for 50-50. It seems the punters don’t seem to mind the blood-bath when they can see exactly who is throwing the punches. It is also a reminder of the old mantra when it comes to a vote “It’s The Economy, Stupid”. The Coalition remains all over the place in its economic policy in a time when Australia is in a relatively good position. Abbott's policy-free zone was a safe bet only as long as Labor people continued killing each other. Gillard's win may not yet have given her clear air, but the fog of war just got a little less dense.

Aliens in their own land: Sovereignty and the tent embassy

Australia does a nice line in snafu and this last week has provided a juicy example as the Australia Day prime ministerial dragging fiasco continues to spiral out of control. These events have thrown light on just how screwed political discourse in this country has become. It involves any number of major issues – inadequate security procedures, police incompetence, political misconduct, media manipulation, treatment of Aboriginal issues and subsequent substitution of white fights masquerading as concern for those Aboriginal issues. Not that Aboriginal leaders would be surprised their issues once criticised would then be ignored. It was ever thus since the Aboriginal Tent embassy that supposedly started all the current fuss (and now being ignored in the "who knew what" adviser scandal) was created in 1972.

Just before Christmas, I stumbled on the tent embassy when I was in Canberra. It was around 8.30am and I was on my way to visit the old parliament museum when I found the embassy at its doorstep. The museum didn’t open until 9am so I had time to wander around the site. Unlike the grandness of its near neighbour the Chinese embassy, the Aboriginal tent embassy is a low-key affair. Yet however shabby it looked, it seemed it had a right to be there. Successive governments and administrators have found its mixture of politics, symbolism and theatre difficult to counter. In a corner of the park in front of the old parliament looking across to the War Memorial lies the embassy, its flimsy tarpaulin dotted with signs protesting the lack of a treaty and the need for self determinism.

The camp proclaimed itself as a dry area and in the middle of the garden lay a giant fire circle with an Aboriginal flag and a sculpture of the word “sovereignty” all looking out across the lake. More than the tent, it was this “sacred fire” of sovereignty that gave the embassy an imposing air of permanence. The use of the word embassy gives it a stateliness that is contested by the Australian Government, but not to the point of seeking its removal. There was no sign of any cops about to shut down a long-standing “occupy movement”. Nor was there seemingly any movement there to disoccupy. There was no sign of life that morning though presumably there were people asleep inside the tents. It was all peaceful and remarkably normal.

The tent began in 1972 in frustration at the McMahon Coalition Government's refusal to recognise land rights. Hopes were high for Aboriginal land rights after winning the 1967 referendum to be counted at the ballot box. But five years later it was clear the Coalition was not about to disturb powerful interests. All McMahon would agree to was “general purpose leases” which would not affect existing land or mining titles. Most of the land titles were granted under common law “terra nullius” which assumed nobody lived on the land before the British granted title. The mining titles took precedence because, as McMahon said, they were “in the national interest”.

One of the embassy founders, Gary Foley, said McMahon’s laws made Aborigines “aliens in their own land". Like other aliens they needed an embassy which meant it had to be in Canberra. The notion of the ramshackle embassy as an “eyesore” has been central to its validity since the start. As John Newfong said in 1972: “If people think this is an eyesore, well it is the way it is on Government settlements.” Aboriginal policy was an eyesore that needed to stay in the public eye. Governments tried to remove the embassy by use of police force, invoking territory ordinances and planning guidelines, direct negotiation and simply turning a blind eye with the hope that the embassy would fizzle out. None worked. In tandem with another symbol invented the same year – the black, red and yellow flag – the black power activists’ tent reminded white Australia it was built on shaky foundations.

Ever since 1972, the embassy has only occasional impinged on wider conscience. Paul Kelly’s monumental The March of Patriots covered the Keating and Howard eras in great detail but made no mention of the embassy, even though the embassy became permanent just after the elevation of Keating as PM. Aboriginal affairs were a telling difference between Keating and Howard and deeply affected their tenure as prime ministers. Yet there were similarities too. Both men were affronted by the notion there was “another Australia” outside their jurisdiction though neither was foolish enough to raise in public the notion the “ambassadors” should be removed.

It was not politicians but judges who changed the law during Keating and Howard’s time. The Mabo and Wik judgements ended the fiction of terra nullius and helped forge a proper agreement over native title. 200 years of wrong could not be righted but some compensation was needed. Keating offered an apology in his 1994 Redfern speech but was hamstrung by his own side (corrupt WA Labor Premier Brian Burke had killed Bob Hawke’s Land Rights proposal in the 1980s). Keating was voted out in 1996, but not before getting a Mabo agreement through parliament over the objection of the Coalition.

Howard inherited Keating’s Stolen Generation Report that documented the extent of Australian 20th century interference in Aboriginal affairs. Ever conscious of the power of symbols, Howard could not bring himself to apologise. His later NT intervention was paternalism writ large masked under a pretence of preventing sexual violence. Despite the scale of the response (which the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments have been unable to undo), there was never a sense they were dealing with equal partners. The prospect of a treaty similar to Canada and New Zealand seems as remote as ever.

The embassy supporting that Treaty celebrated two notable anniversaries last week. The embassy has intermittently existed on the lawns since Australia Day 1972 and permanently since Australia Day 1992, so it either 40 or 20 years old according to taste. These anniversaries are appropriate moments to examine its worthiness. My view is that the overwhelming evidence suggests the “other Australia” still exists and therefore the indigenous protesters that live on the site are right to seek diplomatic relations. In all key life indicators, indigenous people lag behind the rest of the population thanks to two centuries of massacres, paternalism and benign neglect. As a defeated people since colonial times, they are under no obligation to accept white Australian rule as a fait accompli.

The howls of protest that accompanied Tony Abbott’s claim the embassy's time may be over, reflect a deeper concern that as Prime Minister he would not advance Aboriginal interests. He might also, despite the denials, be prepared to use his power to shut it down "occupy-style" using the media-generated confected rage against the “riot” that apparently caused the prime minister to trip over and lose a shoe. The Courier-Mail front page called it a "day of shame" without saying who should be ashamed. “Australia Day 2012 will be remembered for scenes of a terrified looking Ms Gillard being dragged away to safety,” the paper thundered. Whose fault was it? They didn’t say.

Instead they hinted at it. They said police clashed with protesters from the nearby aboriginal tent embassy and the two leaders were shoved into Ms Gillard’s bulletproof car and taken to “a safe place”. Police seemed to have overreacted in the way they escorted the politicians from the premises. Gillard and Abbott were at the Lobby restaurant presenting emergency services medals when “100 protesters surrounded the building”. Alerted by Labor apparatchiks (who presumably knew Gillard was there also), they came to protest against Abbott. Marxist march participant John Passant said witnesses reported that during a speech a woman interrupted to say Abbott had said the Tent Embassy should be moved on. "He was 50 metres away with his twin in racism, Julia Gillard,” Passant said. It was too good an opportunity to pass up. When protesters made the 50m journey to the Lobby, they banged on the glass walls. The chants started as “Shame, shame!” and “Racists, racists” and then became a steady “Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.”

They were protesting an answer Abbott gave in a doorstep earlier that day. A journalist (unnamed in the press transcript) asked him: “Is the Tent Embassy still relevant or should it move?”. Abbott responded by saying he could understand why the embassy was established but a lot had changed for the better. “We had the historic apology just a few years ago, one of the genuine achievements of Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister,” Abbott said. “We had the proposal which is currently for national consideration to recognise indigenous people in the Constitution. I think the indigenous people of Australia can be very proud of the respect in which they are held by every Australian and yes, I think a lot has changed since then and I think it probably is time to move on from that.”

No one asked the obvious follow-up question: Did he mean dismantling the tent? We don't know because the media circus moved on to Albanese’s Hollywood faux pas and the embassy answer hung out there to dry. Gillard’s people were on to the political implications quickly. The implied answer, Abbott might act as PM to “move on” the embassy, took little time to filter out.

Gillard’s media adviser Tony Hodges told Unions ACT secretary Kim Sattler and Sattler told the demonstrators. When they got to the restaurant, there were unedifying scenes of Aborigines clashing with police but no evidence to suggest violence was intended on Abbott or Gillard. It was the mob violence that wasn’t. All they wanted was for both leaders to talk to them. The prime minister’s security detail took a different view. In this risk averse culture they took the view she should leave quickly. On camera Gillard accepts their advice and asked them whether they should also inform Abbott. She is then shown on camera letting Abbott know they were "in it together".

Instead of confronting the protesters, the prime minister was dragged unceremoniously away. The footage showed the politicians, their security detail and news cameras with the protesters well back. World media were entranced by the footage particularly the fairytale angle of the “lost shoe”. Behind her, Abbott was also ushered away quickly without any wardrobe malfunctions. Abbott walked away without injury while Gillard lost not only her shoe, but her dignity, her press officer, her backroom probity and the political high ground. Abbott was able to say, “At the very least the Prime Minister should be offering an apology to everyone who was in that awards ceremony." But he did not clarify what Gillard had to apologise for except perhaps for incompetent staff who did not think through the consequences of their actions. Hodges paid the penalty and Abbott should stop playing put upon. He would have known fully what mischief his statement could cause on the Australia Day anniversary.

Meanwhile the 40 year sovereignty battle associated with the embassy has been damned by association. After the “riot”, influential voices like Bob Carr, Warren Mundine and David Penberthy have called for its abolition. None have attracted the opprobrium of Abbott but perhaps they should have. The time has not yet come to fold up the tent. The eyesore has not been treated. Sorry day has come and gone but the justice of sovereignty is no nearer for this continent’s oldest and most misunderstood inhabitants. Until it happens, they will remain aliens in their own land.

Red Hot Pokies: The politics of gambling

“The last time I played a gaming machine I intend to play for one hour and spend no more than $50. I blew $500 in six hours that day, my entire weekly pay. It happened despite my knowing the odds of winning a large payout were minuscule and it happened despite my very best intentions and determination to stick to a spending limit that I could afford on that day” (Sue Pinkerton, Committee Hansard, 1 February 2011)

Gambling is a $19b industry in Australia. The centre of attention of policy reform focuses on the “pokies” of which there are 200,000 in Australia (half in NSW) and an estimated 600,000 people them at least once a week. Some 95,000 of these (almost one in six) is considered problem gamblers and they incur social costs of up to $4.7 billion a year. The 2010 Productivity Commission report into gambling noted the technology changes of recent years have made it easier to lose large amounts of money quickly on the pokies.

They recommended a six year program which would impose an upper cash feeding limit into the pokies of $20 (currently up to $10,000) and lower the individual bet limit to $1 (currently $10). They also suggested longer shutdown hours, warning messages of likely losses, relocating ATMs and most controversially, mandatory pre-commitment (MPC). MPC requires lock-out when limits are reached, cooling-off periods for limit increases, safeguards to prevent gamblers from machine hopping and have an effective self-exclusion function.

In a rare moment of poetic licence, the Productivity Commission compares the notion of MPC to Ulysses binding himself to the mast of the ship to avoid the temptation of the call of the Sirens. Gambling has few market responses that enable individual pre-commitment to help people control their habit. Most gamblers rely on willpower but research has found continuous gambling leads to a loss of control, particularly when in an environment where alcohol is served. However the PC admitted the success of pre-commitment measures depended on their effectiveness, monetary and non-monetary cost (including erosions of autonomy) and addressing privacy concerns.

In 2011 the Senate produced its first report on a design and implementation of an MPC system for pokies. MPC would apply to big venues (>15 machines) and only to the high intensity machines capable of gobbling up thousands of dollars at a sitting. The slow $1 machines would be outside its purview – so it does not mean a licence to gamble. The MPC system would be introduced in 2014, require players to set a maximum loss in advance, lock out when that amount is reached, cool off before increasing a limit, have safeguards to prevent “machine hopping” and have an effective self-exclusion function.

While the report was well received by social groups, vested interest groups like Club Australia exploded in righteous indignation against what it called “draconian reforms”. The powerful club industry, with 4 000 clubs and 10 million members, launched a multi-media scare campaign called “Won’t Work Will Hurt”. They said MPC meant every poker machine player must show identification and register to obtain a card before they could play. They said the Government had agreed to work with the industry prior to the election on pokie reforms, and supported the introduction of voluntary pre-commitment. They said it wouldn’t help problem gamblers who would obtain the card and set high or no limits. Recreational gamblers wouldn’t apply for the card and would stop playing causing revenue loss that would devastate the clubs and pubs. They also put the squeeze on 30 Labor MPs in marginal electorates where pokies are prevalent.

Yet the Government might have weathered this campaign but for the fact it lacked bipartisan support in parliament. The Coalition’s policy paper on gambling tries to have it both ways. The report says less than one per cent of the Australian population are problem gamblers which equates to 220,000 people (the productivity commission says 115,000 are problem gamblers and another 280,000 are at “moderate risk”) while it is at pains to note 150,000 are employed in this “entertainment industry”. The Coalition also seeks to put a positive spin on the Productivity Commission report by saying problem rates are falling despite also admitting the one percent account for up to 60 percent of all gambling in Australia.

The Tony Abbott gambling policy involves a discussion paper proposing voluntary pre-commitment scheme, improved counselling services for problem gamblers and better training for gaming venue staff. It was roundly condemned by Independent MP Andrew Wilkie who said the paper “contained lies peddled by poker machine interests.” He said voluntary pre-commitment was a "nonsense" solution which would have no cashflow impact on clubs. He also hinted then he might be persuaded to water down his agreement with the Gillard Government.

Wilkie had been instrumental in installing the Government with an agreement he signed with Gillard on 2 September 2010. That agreement got Wilkie’s vote in parliament in return for $220 million for Royal Hobart Hospital and pokie reforms that included a full pre-commitment scheme by 2014, warning displays on machines and a $250 daily limit on pokie ATMs. A crucial date was 1 February 2012 by which the government had to advise Wilkie on the legal advice of getting the legislation through.

In the last act of parliament in December 20111, Gillard installed Liberal MP Peter Slipper as Speaker effectively given her a two vote buffer in the knife-edge parliament. I said at the time I didn’t think she would renegotiate the Wilkie agreement because I thought Gillard would still require his vote on occasion. I was wrong. On Saturday, Gillard announced a winding back of the proposal. There would be a trial in Canberra and MPC technology would be introduced to every pokie. The Government claimed unconvincingly it was reneging on the deal because it would not get through parliament.

Wilkie was unimpressed. He responded saying he had withdrawn support from the government. Wilkie said he could no longer guarantee supply and confidence for the Government because Gillard couldn’t honour the pre-commitment promise by end 2014. “I regard the Prime Minister to be in breach of the written agreement she signed, leaving me no option but to honour my word and end my current relationship with her Government,” Wilkie said. “Our democracy is simply too precious to trash with broken promises and backroom compromises. So I will walk, take my chances and so be it.” Whether it means he will now vote for Abbott – whom he has little respect for - is another matter. It is not just Andrew Wilkie who will be taking his chances. Unlike Sue Pinkerton and her pokies addiction, all bets are off in Australia parliament in 2012.

Gillard wins Harry's Game

An extraordinary last day in parliament has left Julia Gillard’s Government more likely than ever to see out its three year term of office. Never mind the possibility of Labor abandoning its pokies promise to Andrew Wilkie. It won’t, because chances are it will still need his vote on occasions to come. But Labor now has a buffer against the possibility of any Labor MP falling under a by-election bus. It offers the Government more certainty to allow it power ahead with its reform agenda for the first half of 2012 before it starts to work on the difficult but increasingly plausible business of getting re-elected. (Photo: Fairfax)

It was Speaker Harry Jenkins who set today’s drama in motion as he announced his shock resignation as the first item of business today. The word was out quickly that Labor would move to install deputy Speaker and LNP renegade Peter Slipper into the position, giving the Government a net benefit of two in the parliament. “Slippery Pete” has a dubious history as a parliamentarian and has been increasingly on the outer in Coalition circles. He was in trouble recently for hosting Kevin Rudd while John Howard was in the electorate.

Many now wonder whether today’s events were canvassed in the meeting, a charge Rudd denies. It seems unlikely Rudd would have accepted such a kingmaker role, given his own royal ambitions. Slipper also faces a strong preselection challenge for his Queensland seat of Fisher from former Howard Minister Mal Brough. Tony Abbott's warning today that anyone from the party accepting the position of Speaker would be axed, was always a fairly benign threat to Slipper. He saved Abbott the bother by resigning as first act of Speaker. Once in office, Slipper didn’t take long to dispel doubts he might favour the Coalition by firing four of their MPs out of the chamber during an unsuccessful censure motion.

The man Slipper replaced was the ideal Labor Speaker. Harry Jenkins holds the very safe Northern Melbourne seat of Scullin that only he and his father have held since its creation 42 years ago. He is Labor’s longest standing MP and was second deputy Speaker for the entire Howard era. He was the obvious candidate for Speaker after Rudd’s 2007 win but after Gillard’s knife-edge win last year, the Libs turned down a proposal to pair the Speaker and maintain a two-vote buffer.

The problem of how to claw back that vote has always been at the back of Gillard’s mind. When the moment finally arrived, it led to an hour or so of high farce. Labor nominated Slipper while manager of opposition business Christopher Pyne called it a “day in infamy” and counter-nominated Labor's Anna Burke. Burke declined as did another eight Labor MPs Pyne spruiked for the job - Dick Adams, Sid Sidebottom, Sharon Bird, Kirsten Livermore, Steve Georganas, John Murphy, Maria Vamvakinou and Yvette D'Ath. Slipper was then elected unopposed. Labor then proposed Burke for the deputy Speaker while Pyne proposed current second deputy speaker (and my local MP) Bruce Scott. Burke squeaked home 72-71. Scott remains second Deputy Speaker.

The opposition’s “infamy” charges won’t wash - they have form in this game. In August 1996, Labor refused the new Howard government request to make Mal Colston deputy president of the Senate. The Liberals nominated him and he resigned from Labor, with former colleagues calling him a “rat and a snook”. Yet Michelle Grattan has a point when she said the vote may tarnish Gillard. Slipper’s issues are well documented and Tony Abbott had a fair point in being sarcastic about the PM’s declaration she only found out about Jenkins’ decision at 7.30am this morning. Given the enormous consequences of the resignation, it seems difficult to believe this wasn’t orchestrated long in advance.

Nevertheless as Grattan also observes, most people couldn’t care less about the Speaker. Bob Carr noted today Gillard's “coup” sent a message to media and business that they will see out a full term: “we are here, get used to us.” Carr said success fed success and Gillard’s recent wins will reverberate in the community and give her a growing reputation of a tough operator and survivor. “In the New Year the nagging, neuralgic issue of poker machines will be subjected to a compromise and the anxiety of backbench Labor members, especially in NSW, will dissipate,” he said. Carr may be over-optimistic but it is also plausible. Not for the first time since the 2010 election, Gillard has blindsided Abbott. Today’s events will give the Government marginally more certainty in the difficult business of governing the country in 2012 and that is no bad thing.

La Gillard enchaîné

The merry-go-round of Australian politics is revolving at sickening speed. Society’s craving for instant gratification has led to demands of perfection immediately. The inevitable failure makes us repeat the mistakes of the past in a desperate attempt to avoid the errors of today. And so the talk is of replacing Julia Gillard with Kevin Rudd. This way madness lies - Rudd’s knifing was wrong but there is no reason to believe he will become Lazarus of Queensland.

It is well to remember the ALP still runs the country and despite the High Court and Craig Thomson the only imminent threat to that is to replace its leader. Its coalition with the Greens and independents is predicated on the leadership of Julia Gillard and all bets are off with anyone else at the helm. Such a governing arrangement is common in Europe but is considered the devil’s work in Anglo-Saxon countries (apart from Ireland where amoral politics will tolerate any governing arrangement as long as it can turn a quick buck.)

In Australia, power-sharing is the subject of fear and suspicion from both the major parties. Keating called the Senate “unrepresentative swill”. He was half right because tiny Tasmania had as many seats as NSW where 14 times as many people live, but not right about the wonderfully complex proportional representation and plethora of candidates that made the ballot paper the size of tiny Tasmania. What Keating was really complaining about was the Senate did not agree with him. Similarly there is a perception today the country is overrun by anarchy when all that is happening is there is a government in power whose policies some people don’t agree with.

The fact "the Coalition" does not like coalitions is particularly rich as it tries to combine the neoliberals of the dry Liberal bent with the agrarian socialists of the Nationals. Totem of the latter, Senator Barnaby Joyce would profess to hate any taint of socialism but is a crucial figure in leading opposition to the Government. The US Government was worried Joyce had become a lightning rod for the resistance, particularly over climate change. It was his implacable opposition to climate change action that led to the unseating of Malcolm Turnbull as Liberal leader and Tony Abbott taking the party to the right.

I was at a meeting in Roma on Monday where Joyce spoke to the local business community. His ability to communicate effectively shone through. But there was little new from I hadn’t heard him say before, except perhaps, the admission he was the only accountant in parliament which “scared the hell out of him”. His audience may not have been entirely made of accountants (there was at least two there) but it was one disposed to be sympathetic. Whatever anger in the room was directed at the government. There was a question from a lady still livid our political system allowed Gillard to replacw Rudd in the first place. This lady was personally affronted and shocked a leader not elected by the people was now running the country. "How can Labor get away with this?" she asked Joyce.

It was a reasonable enough anger but as Joyce explained, the Westminster system allowed it. “You as voters chose your MP and the MPs come together to decide who leads them.” Joyce conceded it could happen on both sides of politics (Hawke/Keating in 1991 and McMahon ousting Gorton in 1971). He did take the opportunity to put the boot into Labor, by saying Rudd’s overthrow was the first time it has happened to a first-time prime Minister (Gorton won in 1969).

It is not enough of a distinction to hang current Labor over but given the presidential nature of election campaigns, politicians should not be surprised when voters see it as a failing in the system. As I wrote at the time, Rudd’s overthrow was a very Australian coup. Again like now, there was no rioting on the streets nor did the stock exchange collapse. The voters stored away their unease and anger and took it out at the ballot box where Labor was badly mauled in 2010.

Yet the Government scraped over the line thanks to Julia Gillard’s formidable negotiating skills and willingness to bargain and compromise with a variety of political perspectives. There were more conservatives than non-conservatives in the parliament so the Liberals played their cards poorly. Tony Abbott’s treacherous nature put off Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott and the pair knew any arrangement with him would be jettisoned as soon as Abbott had the numbers. Instead they dealt with Labor – already in control – who offered a power sharing arrangement guaranteed to 2013. Despite the ideological contortions Oakeshott took 17 agonising minutes to talk through, he knew Gillard made the better offer.

Falling just one seat short of Government left the Coalition with a strong sense of injustice it has nurtured since the election. The party has constantly attacked the “legitimacy” of the government though there is no sign of the police commissioner coming in to arrest Gillard any time soon.

Gillard chose the high road for her administration when she did an about turn on carbon taxation. It was an enormous gamble which she knew would excite opposition on two fronts. Firstly it opened up the breach of trust of going back on her word. Keating and Howard both survived similar breaches though neither suffered a nickname from Alan Jones like Juliar.

Secondly it galvanised an Australian tea party movement still convinced carbon emission issues are overstated and the response to it are the work of a cabal of left-wing fellow travellers. Personified by the recent “convoy of no confidence” (run by the Australian truckies, who will be hit hard by the tax) it sought to magnify the illegitimacy of the government by means of a massive people movement.
To that end the Convoy failed. It attracted poor responses from most towns it visited (except Bob Katter’s own Charters Towers).

But it had a sympathetic run in the media as it fed the “government in crisis” narrative. The convoy supporters’ angry attack on Anthony Albanese yesterday showed what it was really about. They were not there to listen but to jeer. None of those present were likely to vote Labor long before this crisis despite the exaggerated talk of defection of life long Labor voters unhappy with the alliance with the Greens.

This is a confected crisis. The parliament has two years to go and Labor may as well govern their way through it. Saving a by-election or a more serious charge for Craig Thomson, Gillard should survive to the next election. That will give the electorate enough time to look carefully at achievements as well as promises. By 2013, the carbon tax and the NBN will be realities too hard for Abbott to overturn and this week’s High Court result may actually make refugee processing easier for the Government to sell morally because it forces them to do it in Australia. There is also the loose cannon of Tony Abbott and his glib glass jaw that has not yet been fully tested. Despite all the noise and fury, Gillard could still win in 2013, if given the chance.

Australia gets a Government

“It's going to be beautiful in its ugliness.” – Rob Oakeshott

After an at times exhausting and agonising delay, Australia has a new Government. Julia Gillard has become the first woman to win an Australian Federal Election. But the slow unveiling of his victory led to a final day of high drama that at times almost descended into farce. Never mind “horserace journalism”, this was part Melbourne Cup, part Survivor and part penalty shoot-out.

The fate of government lay in the hands of three bush independents for 17 days and they played their hands today with great care. When the three met this morning they would have discussed their final position - for a while only they knew who was going to be the next Government. Katter was up first to speak to the public. “I’m backing the Coalition,” he said early on.
But knowing he had chosen the losing side, the rest of his conference was about praising the returning Government:
“I like Julia personally”
“Kevin's thinking and my thinking are obviously very similar,”
“Mr Katter said he did feel a responsibility to provide stable government, hinting he could offer support to Ms Gillard if she formed government.”
“He paid tribute to Ms Gillard and said he could work with her if she was returned to government.”
He concluded by saying Abbott had only beaten Gillard on eight of his 20 points.

Windsor was next up. After rambling for several minutes, he said he swung on climate change and the fear Tony Abbott would rush to the polls the moment the Coalition was in a winning position. Labor’s more ambitious broadband plan was the clincher. His decision put Labor one ahead with one to go.

The last word belonged to Rob Oakeshott. He out-Windsored Windsor and picked his way through politically neutral language for 17 excruciating minutes to milk what was becoming a long moment. There finally came a point where he could no longer avoid saying what was becoming increasingly obvious: Broadband was the killer for him too. The last of the people’s representatives had spoken, and Julia Gillard was confirmed as the leader of the government.

The choice of broadband as the deal-breaker is instructive. In a grim campaign of attrition, the $43 billion NBN was one of the few imaginative offerings from each side. Tony Abbott ran a great campaign to get the Liberals so close to Government after being unelectable barely six months ago. Abbott launched his run based on personal virility while presenting a small face to the enemy. The weather vane, the people skills and the mad monk were all hidden away and he ran a relentless campaign of negativity.

The brawling boxer in him bruised his way through the entire 15 rounds and he only suffered a narrow defeat from the judges. Yet there remains a sense of inevitability around him that suggests he will never become Prime Minister. Former Liberal insider Andrew Elder certainly thinks Abbott never believed himself good enough though Elder also unashamedly says his site is for “Abbott Sceptics”.

Labour powerbrokers weren’t so sceptical. They were so spooked Abbott would win they robbed themselves of one of the key advantages of incumbency barely weeks before the election: leadership stability. Though Rudd’s poll numbers were sliding rapidly from the heady days of 2008, his departure was a major shock. Common wisdom was that Rudd would step aside sometime between the second and third term of office to allow his obviously talented deputy a chance shine at the top.

But the combination of Rudd’s pre-poll nerves with Abbott disciplined attacks imperilled the second term to the point where common wisdom was ignored. Rudd fell on his own sword rather than test the numbers. He was influenced by those who can quickly take the temperature of the party (unfairly maligned as “faceless men”).
Julia Gillard was appointed Prime Minister with blood on her hands. A poor campaign and damaging leaks saw Labor’s lead evaporate by polling day.

But in the one poll that counted it did not dip below 50:50. The electorate did not quite want her removed from office. With the sorry saga of her installation over, Gillard quickly changed. While Abbott assumed the pose of command, Gillard simply commanded.

The contrast can’t have escaped the attention of Oakeshott, Windsor and Katter who had easy access to both leaders. The hung parliament is serendipitous to them and they are well within their right to use their new bargaining power with all their might. The sword is double-edged. Oakeshott and Windsor went against the natural conservatism of their rural electorates to support her – a decision that could cost them both at the next election. Katter was cuter, avoiding the wrath of his own voters while slyly signalling he would abstain on supply making the real vote 76-73. A margin of 3 may come in useful in the event Andrew Wilkie goes rogue.

Abbott meanwhile is left high and dry. He relies on favourable by-elections (Kevin Rudd perhaps?) to get him another early tilt at the crown. This Government is going to chew every piece of legislation carefully so that there is no other excuse for an early engagement. The Greens get the balance of power in the Senate next July and their new Coalition binds them to fealty. They too have no desire for an early election. They know Labor will not squander the benefit of incumbency a second time round. There is no other Prime Minister in waiting on their side, unlike in the Liberals. If this Government rules for two or three years with regular 52:48 polls like they got for the last two or three, they will be returned again in 2012 or 2013. They will have proven a small majority is workable.

Australian election 2010: A fortnight is a long time in politics

One of the ladies in the office was at the photocopier near my desk today. “Have they announced the winner yet?” she asked with a slight sense of weariness. She was referring to Australia's 2010 Federal Election which is now two weeks old and still without a verdict. “Not yet,” I replied. “But I think Labor will hold on with the help of Windsor and Oakeshott.” Thinking back tonight on what I said, I stand by it but I may be underestimating the importance of Bob Katter.

Katter along with Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott are the three candidates yet to declare their hand. With the official fall of Brisbane to the LNP this week, Labor and the Coalition finished equal on 72 seats. Nationals Tony Crook (who took advantage of new boundaries to cause a surprise defeat to Wilson Tuckey) may not take the whip for all matters but would not support a vote of confidence in Julia Gillard. Labor this week signed agreements with the Greens and Andrew Wilkie to make it 74-73 in their favour.

That means Abbott will need the support of all three bush independents to form a government while Labor needs just two of them. The three are all former Nationals in strong conservative seats but they hate their former party with varying degrees of loathing.

The trio are living up to the independent tag and taking their time about deciding. They are well aware of their sudden new power and are determined to use it wisely to their own and their constituents’ best interest. With fellow cross-benchers deciding their position this week and voters like the lady in my office becoming tired of indecision, the bush trio have promised to make their stance known by early next week.

Nothing has occurred in the past two weeks to sway me from the position I took on the day after the election when it became apparent the trio were powerbrokers. “There will be a major focus on regional and rural issues by whatever party forms the next government,” I wrote. “Given what the Independents are saying today, there is no reason why Labor cannot be that Government.”

What I find most odd is why the Coalition has done so little wooing, and have instead mostly antagonised them. I am not sure if this is hubris that they assumed they would vote for them anyway or if they see winning this deadlocked election as a poisonous chalice best avoided. If it is the latter they may be taking a huge risk. An early election is possible given the instability of a Gillard-Greens-Independents Government once a Speaker and by-elections are thrown into the mix. But there is no guarantee the Coalition would do better next time round, and the oxygen of power remains with Labor.

That the Coalition budget costings were exposed as a dud should come as no surprise to the smoke and mirrors way the news of their initial delivery was handled. Their errors and subsequent paranoia over Treasury estimates has left them looking immature and unfit for Government, a fact not lost on the Independents.

Oakeshott and Windsor would be well aware Labor’s $43b NBN plan is not without its costing problems either. But what neither would deny is the tangible benefit their regional electorates would get if high-speed broadband was the norm around the country. They want the improvements in telehealth and long distance education as well as the tearing down of isolation barriers.

The pair have publicly expressed enough sentiment for me to believe they will not oppose Julia Gillard’s attempt to form the next Government. At 76-73 it would not matter in theory which way Katter’s card then falls. However, the three have shown signs of acting as a group so he remains an extremely significant player. It is possible he could sway them back towards an Abbott Government. But it is also possible the “gun-toting climate sceptic and agrarian socialist” could abstain or even vote against a Gillard no confidence motion.

At 77-73 Labor would have a small but workable majority. They will be actively looking at Katter’s 20 point plan and deciding which 14 or 15 they can realistically support. Labor won’t budge on a carbon tax or mining tax, but there are other good ideas in Katter’s plan a clever negotiator like Gillard will want to embrace. It won’t be easy to satisfy the iconoclast from Far North Queensland but not impossible either.

In sporting terms, the election was a draw and there should be a replay. However there is no guarantee that will happen soon. The competitive nature of an election hides the fact that what we are choosing people to govern in our names. The verdict on those currently doing the job was they were not good enough to rule in their own right yet we were not ready to turf them out either. Tony Abbott has done nothing since the election to convince he deserves the chance to rule and his party don’t appear to have any vision other than they are not Labor. The independents should, and probably will, support a minority Gillard Government. It will be then in their own interests to make sure it is successful.

Australian election 2010 (End of Part 1)

The people of Australia have spoken and delivered a very bloody nose to Julia Gillard’s Labor Government today. Whether the blow is enough to knock it out remains to be seen. With three seats out of 150 still in doubt at the time of writing the likely make-up of Australia’s next parliament has the Coalition with 74 seats and Labor with 71 seats. As well there are 3 ex-Nationals independents, a Green and ex-Green. Voting purely along a likely left-right axis, that makes it 77-73 to Tony Abbott's Coalition and in theory enough to rule, especially if he can convince one of the independents to be the Speaker.

But his party falls short of an outright majority so Abbott cannot yet stake his claim to be Prime Minister. Australia is governed by the Westminster Convention even if these conventions can sometimes prove tenuous just as when it was stretched to breaking point in 1975. In his post-election speech Abbott offered “the Australian people” his team as an alternative “stable government”. But as Abbott well knows, it’s out of their hands right now. Gillard refused to concede tonight and remains Prime Minister. The Governor General Quentin Bryce (a Labor appointee) will have to offer her the first right of refusal to gain "the confidence" of the Lower House.

Gillard will probably accept and attempt to manage a minority government. This will be at best a short-term manoeuvre to gain time to fight another election. She might be able to rule for a while with the tacit support of the Independents if she puts forward legislation that will get what they want for their constituents. After all, this dull election campaign has proven one thing. With the exception of the NBN and the ETS (neither of which will exist much before 2013) there is little differentiation between the parties. Yet a change of government is a big thing and it might be easiest to get what you want from the party already in power. As Tony Windsor said tonight "the most important issue here is stability of governance”. They may find the acceleration of the NBN in their areas an acceptable price of support.

Gillard can rule with the independents and Greens if she can manage the difficult balancing of rural interests with environment concerns. The ETS delay may yet prove convenient. She has no major agenda that she needs to push through in the next few months. A few anodyne bills while the parties squabble through to February may be what she needs. And then with Latham and Rudd just a bad memory they get back the six or so seats they need to form outright government.

But if the independents decide to play a bigger game then Gillard is in trouble. If they publicly come out and say they will support Tony Abbott for three years as the next prime minister than she will have to resign.

If that happens, Labor has no one to blame but itself. For two and a half years of government Kevin Rudd and his party enjoyed stratospheric polls as people enjoyed the change from Howards End and the impressive weathering of the global financial crisis. Meanwhile the Liberals recycled their leaders until it found one with the stomach to take the fight to the Government.

When the polls finally levelled as they normally do closer to an election, Labor panicked and sacked the boss. Australians didn’t like being told their Prime Minister was being removed without their say so and Queensland particularly resented losing their man. The hope that Gillard as a woman would affect the female vote was possibly countered by many men voting Abbott. If people weren’t sure the “mad monk” should be Prime Minister, there was a lot who didn’t like one being an “atheist antichrist” either.

The make-up of the Senate is more assured at this stage. The Greens had a great result electing senators in all six seats. With the Coalition on 34 and Labor on 31, the Greens now have a clear balance of power with 9 seats. Allied to Bandt’s stunning and historic lower house victory in Melbourne, and former Green Andrew Wilkie’s likely win in Denison this is a watershed election for the environmental movement who must now move deeply inside the tent.

A jaded electorate won’t take kindly to be sent back to the polls in the next few months. Who they blame for that will be whoever is seen as the most obstructionist in the negotiations to come. The animus of the party leaders remains crucial. Abbott is assured and now very confident as Liberal leader but still has obvious flaws and a fractured power base. Turnbull is still waiting in the wings to pounce again.

The Labor Government has no obvious candidate out there to replace Gillard (other than Rudd) and our first female Prime Minister may yet grow in the role that Rudd squandered. But the next few months are critical. If she can learn to negotiate with the Greens without needling Oakeshott, Windsor and Katter, a saner long-term Australian policy to the overwhelming problem of climate change may yet emerge from the chaos of representative democracy. Otherwise Gillard's bloody nose will be the least of our problems.

Towards a Citizens' Assembly: In defence of Gillard's climate change plan

This week Prime Minister Julia Gillard made a major speech on climate change that was almost universally reviled. The left, including Larvatus Prodeo didn’t like it because it didn’t nominate a carbon price, the right including Andrew Bolt believes Gillard is doing nothing on climate change while pretending to do something. Centrist Club Troppo’s Ken Parish was not impressed saying the deliberative democracy proposal is unlikely to work. And senior members of the commentariat like Laurie Oakes didn’t like it because it abdicates responsibility.

In rushing to condemn Gillard, no seems to have listened to what she said. Here is an excerpt of the speech:

“Global temperatures are rising. 2009 has been ranked the fifth warmest year on record globally and finished off the hottest decade in recorded history. The temperatures are largely driven by pollution created by carbon emissions. Climate change has a particular environmental and economic impact on Australia. 2009 was the second hottest year in Australia and ended our hottest decade. Each decade since the 1940s has been warmer than the last. With climate change, the number of droughts could increase by up to 40 per cent in eastern Australia, and up to 80 per cent in south-western Australia within the next six decades. Without action to reduce our pollution, irrigated agricultural production in the Murray-Darling Basin is projected to fall by over 90 per cent by 2100. About 85 per cent of Australians live in coastal regions. Just under 250,000 residential buildings, worth up to $63 billion, will be at risk from sea inundation if the sea-level were to rise by 1.1 metres. Coastal industries, such as the tourism industry, will also face increasing challenges with climate change.”

I agree with every word of that, and as Julia Gillard realises, many other people do too. Probably even a majority. Certainly all of the above commentators would (except Bolt). But the point is undermined by public hypocrisy. The majority does not yet appreciate “there is not a switch to flick or one single behaviour to change.” What Gillard won’t do yet is spell out what we can flick and all the behaviours that must change.

Her predecessor Kevin Rudd won the 2007 election, partly on his promises to act on climate change. He came close. We would now have a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme on the books if not for the poor decision making of the five Greens in the Upper House who could not join Judith Troeth and Sue Boyce in their courageous departure from party line. It would have been a flawed ETS, possibly even counter-productive. Nevertheless, getting it on the books would have been a great start to getting it right. It also meant the 2010 election would have been a contest of ideas between Rudd and Turnbull rather than the race to the bottom it has become under Gillard and Abbott.

I do not blame Julia Gillard for circling the horses as she attempts to win the election. I suspect that like Garrett’s fateful 2007 joke “she’ll change everything when she gets in” but for now she is moral powerless at the moment as a leader. She also knows meaningful action on climate change is impossible without a consensus. She might get that if she wins the election by a handsome majority (and if that Kingston poll is replicated widely she will get it too).

But even if she wins, consensus on climate change is out of the question with Tony Abbott as Opposition leader. It also needs an advocating (or at least understanding) media that accepts the inevitability of action to stop climate change. The mainstream Australian media has made no such concession. With their quotidian needs for conflict, they handle platforms to contrarians who prefer to focus on the immediate cost and its impacts, rather than the virtues of the long-term solution and its impacts.

Gillard explained what she meant by consensus. “I do not mean that government can take no action until every member of the community is fully convinced,” she said. Her solution is a Climate Change Commission. Those that think climate change is a communist plot will detest the new CCC with a passion. The same people will equally loathe the Citizens’ Assembly, with its name a whiff of the French Revolution. The media will attack both as toothless tigers redolent of the apparent pointlessness of the 2008 Summit.

But the Summit wasn’t pointless and neither will be these two new bodies. Deliberative democracy may not change votes but it should help push the effect of making the denialists look like flat-earthers. The remaining devil will be in the policy detail which can be ironed out over time. Gillard remains committed to a CPRS and if she wins she will be dealing with the Greens who will have the balance of power after July 2012 (the Senate election is as important as the Lower House one if not more so but is ignored by the media because it lacks the one-on-one drama). Let us hope by then the Greens wake up to the need to grab whatever power you can get and not repeat their mistake of 2009.

Until a proposal becomes the law of the land, we remain headed towards the final act climax of the Tragedy of the Commons. Australia’s electricity generation is projected to grow by nearly 50 per cent between now and 2030 to meet growing demand. Each of us takes a little much out of the garden, knowing all the while its stock is not being replenished. People can be educated out of their selfishness, by being bought or commanded to change. Maybe the CCC or the Citizens Assembly will help. But as long as there is an adversarial nature to our politics and our media, nothing will be done until we move into disaster recovery.

A Very Australian Coup

Julia Gillard has been Australian Prime Minister now for almost two weeks and the mutterings have begun about whether she is the right person for the job based on her mining compromise and her apparent willingness to sacrifice refugees on the barbecue of marginal outer Sydney electorates.

But few people in Australia have questioned her right to be Prime Minister. Despite the very presidential style of modern elections, it is MPs and Senators that people vote for and it is MPs and Senators who decide who leads them, and therefore the country. The media, so wrapped up in the exciting specifics of the overthrow, accepted the legitimacy of the practice without a murmur as “the Westminster system”.

In her first media conference as Prime Minister, Julia Gillard acknowledged she had not been elected Prime Minister by the Australian people. “And in coming months I will ask the Governor-General to call for a general election," she said, "so that the Australian people can exercise their birthright to choose their Prime Minister.”

Despite the media narrative of her need to get a “mandate”, Gillard never once mentioned the word in any of her early statements. Merrion Webster defines the word mandate in this context as “an authorisation to act given to a representative”. According to that definition Gillard has all the mandate she needs despite the birthright, having been elected unopposed by her party with the backing of powerful union bosses.

If the Australian media are mostly sanguine about this turn of events, voices are more uneasy overseas where the Westminster system has less sway. US papers called it a party revolt and a mutiny. Craig McMurtrie from the ABC’s Washington bureau said a Washington Post columnist though it looked disturbingly like a coup d’etat. The Americans are right, of course. Sure, there was no blood spilled or tanks on the lawn. Nevertheless, Gillard’s ascension shares this in common with coups more common to South America, Asia and Africa: it was ruthless overthrow of a country’s elected leader without the consent of the people who elected him.

Australians have been blinded to this fact by its commonness at State level where many premiers, most recently Kristina Keneally have been elevated into office by the backdoor. It is also common for the Federal Opposition with both Labor and the Liberals changing their leaders many times in the last 50 years when out of power. But it is surprisingly rare at the highest level of Government. Only twice has an Australian Prime Minister ever been dumped by their own party while in office – Gorton for McMahon in 1971 and Hawke for Keating in 1991. The 20 year symmetry wasn’t quite there for Kevin Rudd but the brutal machinations of backroom party politics were reminiscent of past coups. Even Gillard’s own Party has not yet caught up. The Australian Labor website still goes by the name of www.kevin07.com.au.

Meanwhile Opposition Leader Tony Abbott came out with a curious denunciation of the coup. He called it a political assassination (though Rudd may yet rise from that particular death) and an “ugly process” and said “Prime Ministers should not be treated in this way.” Presumably Abbott must think it is ok for Opposition leaders to be treated that way.

Though he probably has no intention of doing anything about it, Abbott is correct in his criticism. Prime Ministers should not be appointed out of backroom deals and there is no reason it cannot be changed. The Australian Constitution is silent on the matter of Prime Ministers and what exists are conventions that supposedly “assist the smooth operation of the legislature.”

Smooth doesn’t begin to describe the operation to depose Rudd. It is easier to describe the shock, distaste and a sense of powerlessness among the wider public (despite goodwill to towards Gillard) about the ugly process of succession. That is not good for democracy. It is time for people power to assert itself and insist the Prime Minister they elected is only removed when they say so.

Being Julia Gillard: Understanding Australia's new prime minister

In Jacqueline Kent’s book The Making of Julia Gillard, Gillard herself tells a story of an event that took place in Hopper’s Crossing outside Melbourne, Victoria. She was at a shopping centre standing next to a board with a photo of her. "This old guy comes out of the supermarket, looks at me, looks at the photo, then turns back at me and says ‘Taken on a good day wasn’t it, love?’. I said 'And you’d be bloody Robert Redford, would you mate?'”

Gillard’s self-deprecating sense of humour is one of the crucial skills she will need to have at her disposal after her stunning accession to the Prime Minister of Australia this morning. Most people believed that Gillard was destined to become the country’s first female Prime Minister but until a few days ago no one would have believed it could happen in 2010.

But with Kevin Rudd in disarray in recent weeks and private party polling clearly telling powerbrokers they were heading to defeat in a number of key marginal seats, it was suddenly time to up the tempo. Unlike Rudd and his opposite number Tony Abbott, Gillard had kept her personal popularity in the recent political upheavals. The time was right for the kingmakers to dust off the guillotine and depose the incumbent. Rudd realised overnight he no longer had the numbers and resigned without a fight this morning.

That outcome is the best possible given that the leadership spill happened. Labor has panicked unnecessarily and would have won the next election under Rudd but by terminating his leadership they have handed an unexpected fillip to the opposition. At least the clean nature of the execution means there is no residual leadership tension that could further undermine Labor. Indeed given Rudd’s stated intention to stay on, it is not beyond the realms of possibility he could be restored as Foreign Minister under Gillard after the election.

The focus is now on the new leader. Gillard was born in the South Welsh coal port town of Barry in 1961. Her father was a brilliant student but being one of seven children in a poor family he was forced to end his education early and work in the mines. When the four year old Julia was diagnosed with bronchial pneumonia, a doctor advised her parents to move to a warmer climate. The family (including elder daughter Alison then aged 7) moved to Adelaide in 1966 where Julia’s father worked as a psychiatric nurse.

Gillard said she left the value of hard work from her father. In her Adelaide University years she was an organiser with the Australian union of students and then involved with the Melbourne-based Socialist Forum. Political views were heavily skewed in the ultra-left scene of 1970s student politics. Gillard told Australian Story that being a Labor student “you were viewed as a right-winger, I mean, we didn't really have that many sort of Liberals who were active in it to create that right-wing pole so most of student politics thought the Labor students were the enemy for being too right-wing.”

Gillard graduated from the University of Melbourne with an arts and law degree. She worked her way up to a partnership in Melbourne legal firm Slater & Gordon before several protracted and unsuccessful attempts to secure Labor preselection during the 1990s. She gained crucial government experience in her role as chief of staff to John Brumby when he was state opposition leader in Victoria during the Kennett years and she was finally elected to federal parliament in 1998.

ABC Radio National’s Peter Mares said that Gillard’s membership of the Victorian left of the ALP was “more organisational than ideological.” She is keen to promote social inclusion but wary of government heavy-handedness in social policy. “Gillard supports approaches that combine state and non-state actors in service delivery, encourage competition and individual initiative, yet maintain a safety net for those who fall,” Mares said.

Biographer Christine Wallace agrees Gillard is “no lefty” and said she is factional only so far as it is useful. Wallace described her as “transfactional” and said Gillard elicits an “intense, visceral response from voters, journalists and fellow political players.” Her talent was nurtured by Brumby, Simon Crean and Mark Latham. Gillard was one of the few Labor heavies not to suffer a tongue-lashing in the Latham Diaries and in return she is one of the few leaders not to twist the knife in Latham. By the time Rudd took over, Gillard was the obvious choice of deputy and since the election victory in 2007 she has revelled in the difficult twin roles of education and employment minister.

Wallace said what distinguishes Gillard from many female politicians is a genuine love of power. “Possessing it acts as a big political multiplier for her: the more power she gets, the better she performs and the more she accumulates as a result,” said Wallace. Gillard has now hit the jackpot when it comes to accumulation of power.

Her immediate task is consolidation to ensure it doesn’t just last a few months. But assuming she wins the 2010 election, we may see a new style of leader never before witnessed in Australia. Her policy record is mixed, but her native intelligence, a driving will to succeed and her indefatigable sense of humour will prove major allies in the fierce battles to come.