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Mars waning Venus rising

From the ABC:

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, backed by factional Labor Party warlords, has made a tilt at Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s leadership. Mr Rudd has told a press conference that earlier this evening Ms Gillard visited him to request a leadership ballot. Mr Rudd says the Labor caucus will vote on the party and Federal Government leadership tomorrow at 9:00am AEST.

Interesting times.

1,871 replies on “Mars waning Venus rising”

There will be blood…….All over the floor.
But it will be Kevin’s and I won’t care.
I just hope our new PM has better media skills than Kevin 07.
(It would be hard to sound worse than Kevin has.)
For me, the only *real* high point of his PMship was the sorry speech.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t followed up with any meaningful interaction with indigenous Australians. 🙁

Paddy re Blood

One Labour person tweeted the tweetie birds who host Sky News tonight:

wtte ” Kevin Rudd can either be escorted to the door tomorrow….or booted right through it. His choice”

Much as I like Julia, I question the timing of this and just hope the Labour Party hasn’t shot itself in the foot.

Well I personallyam quitepartial to the idea of women leaders 😉

and Miss Cat – an honour indeed.
xx

All we have to do now is wait for the onslaught from the MSM to cut her legs from under her and i reckon they will try their hardest.

Isn’t it amazing how Australia cuts down with the tall poppy syndrome. We had a total zealot for twelve years and could not get rid of him.
We find some one to do the deed who is very smart, leads a party through the GFC and which introduces some very smart policy like NBN, insulates over 1,000,00 homes, BER and on it goes.

The problem is the MSM in cohorts with their friggin ABC has convinced half the public that this very smart PM does not hold a knife and fork correctly and would rather have a complete vacuous cretin like Tony Abbot lead this country.

The moral of the story is never be a smart and clever Australian.

If Julia does become the PM today i sure hope the fuckheads stop listening to the MSM and ABC bullshit and make sure she wins the next election.
I certainly don’t want to go back to workchoices and you can bet London to a brick that Abbort will drop the mining tax and up the GST to 15%. Costello planted that seed yesterday with an article in the media and his conservative cousins in the UK have just upped their VAT to 20%.
It also begs the question of if the Right of the ALP get rid of the no faction PM and installs a PM from the Left, when will they try to dump her to get someone from the right to their rightful PM position.

Go figure.

Why Republicans Need Barton to be Quiet
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Texas suggests Republicans are well advised to stay clear of Rep. Joe Barton’s (R-TX) apology to oil giant BP for how they were treated by the Obama administration.

“The poll numbers indicate this is an issue where Democrats could find some resonance with independent voters. They see Barton negatively by a 35% to 14% margin, think he should lose his leadership post by a 45% to 29% spread, think Obama was right on this issue 59% to 29%, and oppose an apology to BP 75% to 12%. Given those numbers GOP leaders would probably like to see this issue disappear as soon as possible.”

http://politicalwire.com

same old gaffers-
Julia will be in the firing line now, but hopefully she will have the armour to withstand it.
Now the libs will be crapping themselves about running Abbott against Julia and Hockey must be licking his lips.
Personally i am proud to represent a party that knows what loyalty is about.

If I was being really cyncial, my thought would be that the right are backing Gillard for one reason: they think that Labor will lose the election and that loss will destroy Gillard as a future leader.

The Labor right have one motto: better lose control of the country than lose control of the party.

But I am not quite that cyncial … yet.

If I was Abbott, I would be laughing. This is exactly the kind of things you need to happen if you are a longshot outsider trying to win an election. If I was Julia, I would go to the election as late as possible this year.

DG – While I’d generally agree with you that destabilisation is a negative, I think Julia has a better chance against Abbott and I think Labor’s position will be strengthened. I think Abbott has come off second best against Julia more than three quarters of the time.

Katielou,

You are likely correct. But I still think that Gillard will go the election later rather than earlier.

Anyway, congratulations to Prime Minister Designate Julia Gillard. 🙂

Chris B – I am a long term, (unnatural) redhead. I forget what my real colour should be. It’s probably grey now. 😛

I feel very relieved that we no longer have an evangelical soldier heading the ALP and PM of this country.

Farewell Ruddy, you will always be the bloke who kneecapped the rodent, for that you have earned due respect.

Hear hear HarryH.

Look forward to seeing what Gillard has in store.

Hopefully, unlike Rudd, it won’t be joint meetings with the ACL together with Abbott.

Interesting. I am watching Kev delivering his farewell speech.
I feel for the poor bastard, but I’m glad he’s leaving the job.
I want to be able to listen to the PM without squirming.
Alas, he’s having deep trouble getting through this farewell without breaking down. Bloody sad. 🙁

poor bugger – excrutiating to watch.
But exactly why he is… just want him to be quiet and go away.

Jeez Jen! You’re a bit heartless for a compassionate Greenie. He’s entitled to the dignity of a farewell to the electorate – however excruciating it is.

What I want to know is – have the Labor Right handed the Mining Council Rudd’s head on a plate. If so, in exchange for what?

I also want to know how long it will be before the “faceless men’ jibes from the 60’s resurface. Julia will be forever tarnished by the Right after this, regardless of her motivation. If it surfaces that the AWU and the Right were doing deals with the mining council then shit will hit the fan. I suspect the election is now lost anyhow.

I think you’re wrong Ferny. I think Julia will wipe the floor with Tony Abbott’s head as a mop. She’s already dealing with the media with more panache than Kevin managed in 3 years.

No sympathy for Kevin Rudd from this little brown duck. His problems were all his own making. He is deeply flawed as a Labour Leader .

Julia oozed Gravitas.

She will beat Abbott comfortably.

Ferny,

The factions got control of the party back. They saw the opportunity, and took it. I doubt they did a deal with the mining council.

I hope to Darwin that the election is not lost.

Paddy, one of the problems is that Labor supporters have underestimated Abbott all along….and still are.

Ferny,

I agree. When he was elected as leader of the Liberals no-one thought that he would push the government to the edge (me included). Labor’s reaction looks a lot like panic in the face of Abbott. Gillard is an unknown quantity in many ways. I think she will shine. But …

sorry if i seem harsh Ferny – but I am no fan of Rudd. I did feel for him, however.
Julia was excellent in her press conference. I think she will work well with The Greens and we will see a realistic and effective ETS supported by the communiyt. Rudd would not negotiate with The Greens or the miners – and that’s why he had to go.
I do not believe for a minute that Tony Abbott will outpoll Julia Gillard.

Jen,
Julia will do whatever the Right lets her do. Time will tell if they want an ETS or not.
As for Tony, he will need to be careful how he engages with Julia. The public doesn’t like blokes smacking women around. He doesn’t want to be unmasked as the mysoginist he is.
Oops, too late!

David and Ferny

Don’t get Tony Abbott’s ability to destroy someone…especially someone who didn’t effectively hit back….with someone who is electable.

He is not.

Julia won’t cop his bully boy approach. Just watch.

David, I think there will be a bounce for Julia and I think the true believers will come on board fairly quickly.
Julia’s press conference would have sent a shiver down the spine of Abbott and the Libs.

paddy,

There will certainly be a bounce for Julia. The true believers will certainly be on board.

Jen,

Some of that bounce may come at the expense of the Greens. 😉

HarryH,

Abbott destroyed Rudd by moving ahead in the polls. It is clear that Julia believed that Rudd was going to lose the election. This indicates that she believes that Abbott is electable, by definition.

and she will be back to see Shorten’s Mother in Law as quickly as is feasible.

She is not for having something that she has not completely earned. You could sense that in her speech earlier.

36 David

Not necessarily so David.

It does however mean that she saw this as her chance

What I have underestimated is the wall to wall coverage Julia would get because she is a female. Because it is a historic occasion. 3 channels were still covering it near 1 pm. Channel 9 were going to cover question time. All of it will boost the ALP. There is no doubt there will be a boost in the ALP’s fortunes. As the said on Channel 9 reverse sexism. Graham Richardson said, “I don’t care, I’ll take it”.

David – I agree there may be a loss of currently disillusioned labor voters back to Julia andaway from The Greens -but if she doesn’t deliver on a carbon reduction scheme they’ll be back.
And if she does deliver, then that is the best outcome for the planet so i’ll be ok with that 😉

I think Rudd’s demise, and Labor’s decline in the polls is not owing to Abbott’s performance as much as Labor shooting itself in the foot. In fact, since the budget, Abbott has been underwhelming – he’s just let Labor fuck up. So I can’t agree with those who say Abbott has been underestimated. He’s just been lucky. It stops today (hopefully).

Has Mesma slashed her wrists yet for missing the opportunity to become Australias first woman prime minister?

Channel 9 has a 1 hour news service. Then A Current Affair with Julia Guillard. The ALP could afford to by that much airtime. Julia handled herself well in question time. All’s good again.

Geez. I’m disappointed. Didn’t see that coming. I did read yonks ago that Tanner (pre 2007 election) did not like Gillard. Tanner is a loss.

Tanner is a loss KL- and Gillard could do with his expertise, but looks good for the first Green in the HOR for Vic
:mrgreen:

Bernard Keane tweeted that for a long time Gallard was Tanner’s archenemy, so my recollection was right. I think the relationship had improved though.

Tanner’s resignation takes a gloss off the day. Explains some of the miserable Labor faces.

Apparently big outpouring of lurve for Tanner. I hope there’s no family crisis for Tanner in the background.

Jen – I’m now OK with the Greens winning Melbourne. So you have my blessing now. 😛 I would have been rooting for Tanner otherwise.

Katielou,

Tanner said that his resignation had nothing to do with today’s events. So that pretty much means that he resigned because of today’s events. 😉

OR-Sen: Wyden camp–Rasmussen is full of it
———————————————————

Well, no…I suppose they didn’t say that explicitly, but the intent was pretty clear. A day after Rasmussen released a poll showing that the race between incumbent Democrat Ron Wyden and little-known Republican Jim Huffman was down to a ten-point margin, team Wyden countered by releasing an internal poll from Grove Insight showing the Democrat leading 53-23. The poll also included the Green and Libertarian nominees in the state, where each candidate notched just 2% of the vote.

http://www.dailykos.com

I dunno DG. If there were personal reasons behind it, it makes sense that today was the day to announce – get the upheaval out of the way.
I’m giving Tanner the benefit of the doubt for now.

I am sorry to see Tanner go. There are lots of less worthy pollies who deserve a whack, but I am obviously pleased to see that Adam Bandt may well get elected now. Like you Karielou I know lots of lefties who would have given their vote to Tanner while being quite sympathetic to The Greens. We’ve probably won them now.

(sorry about worse=than usual typing.. i really DID spill wine on keyboard and trashed it!! – and mobile phone too 🙄 😆 )

Caught the 4:30 news on 9. Basically it was 15 minutes of Julia Guillard interrupted by a couple of minutes of Tony Abbott. Blanket coverage for the ALP can only be good.

70 Jen I am not sure how that will pan out for the Greens. It all depends on Julia and the timing of the election. I am not saying they won’t win. But the Greens usually get up because of a protest vote. If Julia neutralists the protest issues. The Greens won’t get up. I suspect if the polls climb as a result of Julia’s honeymoon period. Julia will call an snap election. Timing is everything.

Long may you roll, Julia Prole.

Julia was always going to be the next ALP leader, the succession’s timing is a bit of a surprise though.

The Realpolitik is; Rudd was a riskier proposition as ALP leader than is PM Prole. Kevvy, who’d been getting stroppy with ALP powerbrokers whose support he needed, had to go. 70/30. Ouch! The Party has spoken.

If Rudd truly does love his Party in a Bonhofferian way, he’ll cop the slap sweet, glide gracefully from the limelight and stfu. Same for Tanner. ALP will not only be well led by JG, she will lead them to a comfortable victory at the next election, say five months away, when today’s events are but a dim memory in the minds of most voting men and women of Australia.

PM Prole is Monky King’s match……..and them some. 🙂

Ec – everything I’ve read today says that Rudd was completely classy today.

Enemy Combatant,

I agree re the timing of the election and with the fact that no-one will remember today. “Kevin who?” I mean, how many people remember that Turnbull was once Leader of the Opposition?

I suspect that Rudd will re-emerge as a minister after the next election.

Agreed Ecky – i think she will want to prove herself before a snap election – she has integrity.
AS for Greens – it all depends on whether she delivers on a Carbon Pollution reduction scheme or not, and is also seen to deal fairly with asylum seekers.
.\But I still think Bandt will win Melbourne (local candidates still have their own momentum) ,and we’ll get the BOP in the senate.
And of course there is the surprise result in Indi to take into account 😉

Channel 10’s coverage gave 15 minutes with more to come. Channel 9’s was more positive than 10, which went into things like backroom deals and had video’s of ALP power brokers talking in restaurants etc. Probably at parliament house or something. But overall. It was still good coverage.

80
Agreed about Barrie Cassidy’s piece Katielou.
I thing he’s been a stinker of a journo.
But this one is spot on.

I’m getting annoyed by those who believe the Labor Party acted immorally in terminating Kevin Rudd’s role as Prime Minister. (See Lavartus Prodeo’s current lead piece for a steaming turd of reasoning along these lines.) Prime Minister’s are NOT elected. They are elected as head of a party who in that role is commissioned by the GG to head a Government. Little Johnny Howard’s mantra was that “he would remain as PM as long as he had the support of the party room”.

Indeed, the ensuring the latter is as important as any of a PM’s many roles; without that support his party cannot govern effectively.

What about the backdowns and unpopular policies that Rudd undertook:

. ETS – it was a dog of a Bill and deserved to die and be replaced by something decent; why Rudd didn’t or couldn’t make the case that it could not be passed because that was impossible under Abbot’s bloody-minded opposition. This indicated to me was that the PM’s political ear had turned to tin.

.RSPT was a case of Rudd not being able to put Julia’s simple message that all Australians need to get a better share of the rewards of the exploitation of our mineral wealth. Another tin ear for KR.

.Insulation – Possum put forward the winning argument.

.Boat People – this is a tough one to sell because there is no way to encapsulate the arguments that the problem is trivial in terms of total numbers as a percentage of our migrant intake or at the world level. My experience is that overwhelming majority of people who get here by this means prove to be wonderful citizens. That’s the message that needed to be sold, a tough one.

And so it goes, with Possum’s take on the Tobacco Tax hike playing a role too.

Whatever, I had stopped listening to KR long ago. His only positive for me over the last 15-18 months was that John Stanhope made him seem humble.

BTW, I had not thought of tiredness as a possible reason for KR’s political ear turning to tin until I read a blog piece today that suggested that 4 years of 20 hour days, 7 days a week took its toll.
For over a year, thanks to my inside brief, I had formed the view that KR didn’t trust anyone outside his office to help him with policy.

That same source said everyone loved working for Julia Gillard because she was super clever and could delegate.

In the end, I believe KR lost the plot because he figured he was the only one with the answer to almost any problem. (I worked for a guy who operated like that after his usual 2-bottle-of-wine lunch; manic, stupid and pointless activity was all too often the result of many an afternoon.)

83
Well said Cardster.
There appears to be a lot of fantasists dreaming about a different reality that involves Kevin Rudd as a great leader. (as opposed to a merely very bright one)
Let’s hope Julia can navigate the perilous shoals of the “difficult” policies that killed Rudd and will kill her if she can’t get us old lefties back on board. I feel a lot more hopeful after today.
Climate change *IS* the greatest challenge we face.
All the other’s pale into insignificance by comparison.
But somehow, I don’t think the media is ready to cop that yet.
That’s Julia’s big task.

KatieLou, Yes, Kevin Rudd conducted himself admirably as he shed his last drops of Prime Ministerial blood at the “15 minutes to go ” presser. And it took real guts to front the Chamber for The Team after he had been dismissed from the captaincy.

Loved the way The Rooster publicly sucked-up to Julia with his earnest side ways eye-contact moments and his shit-eating “oh, how I so want to stay Treasurer and be your loyal deputy” grin.
As Inspector Poirot might opine:

“Zeez pipple, zey are beyont shame!”

———————————–oOo—————————–

Twice indeed, Chris. The first time when she assured Kerry that his xmas hols plans need not be altered ie, there will be an election later this year.
The second, when Kerry thanked her at interview’s end on “this historic day”.

Julia retorted with a hearty laugh; “yes, it’s a great day for red heads, Kerry.”

Classy.

PM looked drained after recent events (who wouldn’t be) and had to play a careful straight bat to Kezza’s probing opening deliveries, but she did so, steadied and batted-on with assurance till stumps.

Yes, very well said, Cardster. Couldn’t believe the sanctimonious blather at LP either. It took until about the 50th comment on Mark’s thread before anyone dared dissent.

The point you raise about tiredness (chronic sleep deprivation) is a valid one indeed and undoubtedly contributed to the demise of the “known” micro-manager, Kevvy.

—————————————-oOo—————————–

Climate change *IS* the greatest challenge we face.
All the other’s pale into insignificance by comparison.
But somehow, I don’t think the media is ready to cop that yet.
That’s Julia’s big task.

Paddy, for a Victorian, you sure talk a lot of sense! 🙂

Any sympathy for Rudd is misplaced imho.

He is from ALL reports an azzhole to work for and with. And has always been so. His public schmaltz act makes me sick. The real person is always displayed in private.

Besides that, he is the leader of a Government with a 35 friggin % Primary vote against a cretin like Tony Abbott and his Adams Family of front benchers…..35%……35% is not winnable. And he was the main reason for this 35%.

And besides that, poor old Kev knifed Beazer just like he got knifed today. No sympathy for Kevvie.

Well said Eccky & Harry H.

Harry, I believe Julia would and should have been branded as incompetent had she not acted. At least it was clean. Expanding a little on what I said last night, I am delighted that Prime Minister Gillard has demonstrated that she is an exceptionally competent politician and administrator; a bonus is that she is likely to explode a number of glass ceilings.

I hope her appointment will go a long way to exploding the myth that because “I am a white, heterosexual, “Christian” male, I am obviously a member of the most important group in society”!

The only men I come across who think that seem to have no sense of self-worth. Are they are afraid people will find out they have very small you-know-whats?

Gillard’s Labor seizes election favouritism.

More than $100,000 in bets in just 10 minutes has restored the Labor government to favouritism for the next federal election.

Online bookmaker Sportsbet.com.au said there had been a huge push from punters to back a Julia Gillard-led Labor to beat Tony Abbott’s Coalition.

“Following the spill we opened the Coalition as $1.80 favourites with Labor $1.90 outsiders,” sportsbet.com.au’s Haydn Lane said.

more here…
http://www.theage.com.au/national/gillards-labor-seizes-election-favouritism-20100624-z0dm.html

Agree with those bemused about the negative reaction of some to replacing Kevin. Sure, it was a highly unusual day, but it was a sensible political move, it was done professionally and respectfully, as far as politics goes.

I do feel a bit sorry for Kevin. That’s just unavoidable having watched his presser. But I also think that he just didn’t get it – he just didn’t understand that 24/7 Kevin was not enough – in fact, was simply too much Kevin. Clearly he didn’t have the political skills and support to lead long term – and that’s reflected in how his office was run (see Barry Cassidy’s breakdown above). But kudos to Kevin for his behaviour throughout the day yesterday. I think he can be a minister in Julia’s government.

If anyone catches wind of Paul Keating being interviewed, please sing out. I’d love to hear his thoughts on the change of leadership.

Agreed KL. That’s a brilliant piece by BB. The bloody man’s been reading my mind. How dare he steal my thoughts so exactly! 🙂

In the end Kevin Rudd was the living embodiment of The Peter Principle: a person promoted beyond his level of competency. This doesn’t mean I think he was an ‘incompetent’ person. It just means his skill set was no longer appropriate to the task.

Just because it is 100. :mrgreen:

Hat tip to Mad Dog, over the fence.

From Possum, re betting.

Sportsbet … informs us that that they actually opened the market immediately after the Gillard ascension with prices of ALP $1.90/Coalition $1.80 – making the Coalition slight favourites.

Nearly $96K came flooding in over the next 10 minutes on Labor, blowing that out to ALP $1.50/Coalition $2.50. The money has kept on flowing in, with Sportsbet currently (as of now) sitting on ALP $1.33/Coalition $3.20 – a 70.6% implied probability of an ALP election win.

$96K in ten minutes!

Some people know a bargain when they see one.

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