arib says gillard gone by september?, page-19

An introspective poke around in the worm infested entrails of the ex-unionist Laborites as they ponder what to do with the most hopeless, useless, and pathetic excuse for a "Prime Minister" ever seen in Australia - Miss Gillard.

The geriatric Laborites don't care as they intend to quit after the next election and are quite happy to get as much time in the sun as they can.

The ambitious back benchers are justifiably alarmed as they see their careers nose diving into the scorched earth as Miss Gillard steers HMAS Litanic towards that mighty lump of frozen H2O almost visible on the horizon.

Ruddy is sitting pretty as the Sussex Street Union Power Brokers are down on their knees begging Ruddy to walk in and Miss Gillard to walk out.

The "Independents" are balancing the possibility of saving something of their shattering careers by going with Ruddy and getting an early election or by getting a bit more time in the sun by staying with Miss Gillard and kissing goodbye to their polly careers as hatred for them builds by the day.

In the mean time those carrion parasites the Commo Green vultures sit on the abattoir fence and cackle and grimace gruesomely at all the goings on far below.

Backbench push for survival fuels leadership noise
by: PETER VAN ONSELEN, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR From:The Australian July 21, 2012 12:00AM

THE renewed speculation about Julia Gillard's ever shaky hold on the prime ministership couldn't have come at a worse possible time for her.

While Gillard has been stuck here at home this week, even travelling to Perth to attend a community forum before working her way up the West Australian coast, Kevin Rudd and a coterie of Gillard's most senior colleagues have spent the week in the US attending the annual leadership dialogue.

And if reports coming back home are anything to go by, leadership has certainly been a feature of the private talks. A chance for old wounds to be healed.

National secretary of the AWU Paul Howes has been seen in lengthy conversations with Rudd, as has Bill Shorten. Craig Emerson, David Feeney and Jason Clare are all in attendance, as are many opposition frontbenchers, who are closely observing what their political opponents are up to.

Back in Australia, this week started with chief government whip Joel Fitzgibbon using a TV appearance to make the rather obvious point that leaders who suffer ongoing poor polling numbers usually don't last all that long. It wasn't the insightfulness of the observation which mattered; it was the fact Fitzgibbon said it at all. It wasn't a frank slip of the tongue either. Rudd supporters had earlier in the day shopped around that Q&A was not to be missed that Monday night, anticipating that comments from Fitzgibbon would cause a stir.

Fitzgibbon is known to have switched camps since the February leadership showdown. So have others within the NSW Right of the Labor Party, but at this stage the numbers are not significant. That could change quickly, of course, if the momentum of recent days is followed up by a worse-than-usual Newspoll next week.

More likely, any Rudd comeback will take time to materialise. "We need her to bleed out," one Rudd backer rather gruesomely put it.

As the factional convenor of the Right, Fitzgibbon has some sway in caucus, but up until Thursday the drift away from the PM was seen as a NSW phenomenon only. More a reflection of lost hope in the PM than any kind of endorsement of Rudd.

Paul Howes and NSW state Labor secretary Sam Dastyari had previously strongly backed Gillard. But both powerbrokers are now believed to no longer be actively backing the PM. They won't support moves against her, but they won't be doing anything to quash a push for Rudd to return either.

Reports emerged on Thursday that Kelvin Thomson and Richard Marles of Victoria have shifted behind Rudd. The news alarmed the Prime Minister's office, which engaged in frantic telephone calls soon after the ABC's 7.30 program aired the claims.

Meanwhile, Rudd and his daughter Jessica have participated in a profile piece for Women's Weekly due out shortly. It's just the sort of soft campaigning politicians do when they are searching for promotion.

While Thomson and Marles will choose their words in public very carefully, it is understood that the shift by both men is an early show of solidarity by the Victorian Right for the moves afoot emanating from NSW. In other words, it means that Shorten's support for Gillard may be starting to wobble.

Shorten and Marles are especially close, factional allies and friends. Shorten was seen meeting Rudd in Rudd's Parliament House office in the final sitting week before the winter recess. He was subsequently seen having coffee with Simon Crean in Melbourne. Whether the meetings were more than amicable catch-ups are only known by the parties themselves. But such meetings have fuelled rumours that the powers-that-be inside the parliamentary Labor caucus are starting to size up their options.

There is little that Gillard can do to stave off the renewal in leadership speculation; just as she has been unable to elevate Labor's standing in the polls, it is a circular problem for the PM. A crisis her government has never lived without.

One move which Gillard backers (better described as Rudd opponents) have already played is getting the union movement to flex its muscle in support of the status quo. It was reported in The Australian yesterday that the national secretary of the Transport Workers Union, Tony Sheldon, threatened to withdraw $200,000 of his union's funding to the ALP if Rudd were to return as leader.

One Rudd supporter within the caucus ridicules the threat, describing it as a case of "putting the Labor leadership on E-Bay".

"You know they are getting desperate when they roll out union leaders to defend her like that," says another source, adding: "As though a return to Rudd wouldn't see fundraising efforts improve to the tune of $200,000 the moment Kevin tipped his hat."

Sheldon's attempt to give Gillard some union cover came following reports a day earlier that unions had in fact discussed the prospect of a Rudd comeback when senior union secretaries met on Tuesday. The focus of that meeting was workplace relations strategising, but it included a brief discussion of how to handle a Rudd comeback. "It was prudent planning, that's all," one person present at the meeting says.

It will take a big shift on the back of the skirmishes this week to dislodge Gillard and turn destabilisation into forced change. While there are signs that powerbrokers might be about to withdraw support for Gillard, more likely they will continue to wait and see what happens as the year drags on.

Most ministers remain behind the PM. So, too, the union movement. Members of these two groups know that Gillard is likely to lose the next election, and the size of such a defeat might eventually see them blast her out. But for now the unions are happy with her workplace rhetoric, and ministers are happy to go on drawing their salaries and being driven around in their shiny white cars. There is more than a year to go before the next election is due.

Many ministers plan on retiring at the next election after a defeat, so they are not thinking too much about the size of it when it happens. The backbenchers, however, with aspirations to further parliamentary terms are taking a very different view.

This is why for now the Rudd push is a bottom-up effort, albeit one with signs of support from other corners of the party. For example, ministers with leadership ambitions one day need to be careful not to leave the backbenchers who remain after the next election alienated by what they do now.

How a Rudd comeback might occur has been an enduring difficulty; and even whether he would accept the potentially poisoned chalice were it offered. Would Gillard fall on her sword and avoid a showdown, as Rudd did when he was challenged in June of 2010? Her inner circle laughs at the prospect.

Would she refuse to go, forcing Rudd to go back on his commitment not to challenge again, made after the February challenge, if he wants to reclaim the prime ministership? Few see this scenario as likely.

Will backbench desperation for a change of leader to save careers result in a situation where signatures are gathered for a formal spill of the leadership, thereby allowing Rudd to be nominated without formally challenging?

Or by the time Labor powerbrokers decide to listen to their backbench will it be too late, and will Rudd refuse all overtures to save the party?

This latest round of leadership talk is less likely to result in a sudden short-term resolution (but if recent history has taught us anything, it is that you never can be sure) even if it continues to erode the PM's authority.

Just about the only thing Labor MPs find harder to get their collective heads around than a Tony Abbott prime ministership is a Gillard win at the next election. Which means as long as a former leader with popularity double that of both major party leaders continues to sit on the backbench, leadership talk won't go away.

Perhaps the week's biggest development is the renewed backgrounding Rudd forces are engaging in. After some quiet, many Rudd backers have decided enough is enough. They are impatient for change and are sick and tired of waiting for the polls to improve. This situation is likely to turn the months ahead into a re-run of what Gillard faced in the lead-up to the February showdown. The question for those standing by the PM is whether that is tolerable. For some there are no doubts: Wayne Swan, Stephen Conroy and perhaps Nicola Roxon and Tony Burke see their fate as tied to the PM surviving. They won't back her removal.

That will need to be done by others. Shorten, Crean and, importantly, Anthony Albanese will need to find it within themselves to start from the top what is already under way at the bottom of the Labor caucus: a desire to execute another PM.