A powerful Labor power broker has withdrawn his support for Julia Gillard, 7News has exclusively reported.
Chief Government Whip and MP for Hunter Joel Fitzgibbon, is said to have told the prime minister face-to-face that she can no longer count on his support.
Other MPs are reportedly following and some say the return of Kevin Rudd may be an inevitability.
Howard predicts Rudd will roll Gillard
Former prime minister John Howard predicts Prime Minister Julia Gillard will be rolled by her predecessor Kevin Rudd before the next election.
Replying to a question on Ms Gillard's tenuous hold on the top job during a business lunch in Perth on Tuesday, Mr Howard said it was unfair to compare her to another former Labor prime minister who was brought down mid-term, Gough Whitlam.
"I think the comparison to Whitlam is unfair to him," he said to an eruption of laughter.
Mr Howard said it was a "bad political mistake" for the Labor Party to have dumped Rudd - the man who beat him at the 2007 federal election, at which he lost his own long-held Sydney seat of Bennelong.
"I've long held the view that if the Labor Party had not dumped Kevin Rudd, he would have won the last (2010) election outright," Mr Howard said.
The former Liberal leader said he believed the Labor Party would replace Ms Gillard, whose Newspoll approval rating is now just 28 per cent, before the next election.
