Not the messiah; she’s just a naughty girl

FEDERAL POLITICS ... with Mungo MacCallum

Two weeks of parliamentary recess, and the general view is that the government must be pitifully grateful for the relief. But this is not necessarily the case.

Despite Tony Abbott’s assurance that the row over Craig Thomson (for which the Opposition is almost entirely responsible) has paralysed the government, in fact the legislation has been getting through; 22 bills in the last fortnight, bringing the total to an impressive 185 for the year.
Julia Gillard needs the parliament; in the current poisonous atmosphere, delivering the goods is her only hope of appearing positive. It is also the only place she can show what the electorate increasingly sees as her best features, her courage and persistence. Without it, there will be something of a vacuum; backbenchers will return to their electorates to be assailed with questions and complaints about Thomson and the media will become a breeding ground for yet more leadership speculation.
At the weekend the independent Andrew Wilkie gave it a kick start by opining that we might see new leaders as soon as May next year; this should not be a real news story, he added hastily, and it isn't; but nor will the speculation go unnoticed. While the Labor Party has not yet succumbed to the despair which the Murdoch press regards as its due, a faint murmuring can be heard among the understandably nervous nellies on the backbench that it might just be time to be starting to consider a plan B.
It has become something of a chicken and egg question: with the party vote and the leader's standing equally on the nose, are they both irretrievable or is one dragging the other down? And if so which? And in the circumstances would a change of leadership make any difference? On the face of it, the move would be suicidal. There is still a substantial Rudd rump festering in the party room; to add a Gillard rump would risk open and bitter divisiveness.
Moreover, it would confirm the already substantial impression of a party desperate for survival and without any sense of purpose and direction. And most importantly, it could undo Gillard's pact with the independents, who have pointed out that their deal was to support a Gillard government, not just any old Labor government.
Better to hang on and hope for a miracle - after all, if there are no serious accidents (which in the wake of the Thomson affair may be an overly-optimistic assumption) there is still two years to go. But, say the doubters, that is precisely the point.
Two years is a bloody long time - more than long enough for the voters to forget all the current kerfuffle and embrace yet another new Messiah. Gillard is doomed; the people have stopped listening to her and if they do hear anything she says, they don't believe it.
The unrelenting hostility from the miners, the clubs and pubs, small business, the farmers and of course the shock jocks and Murdoch press is aimed directly at her: Juliar, Brown's bitch. A new leader would not be greeted by these groups with joy and delight, but at least he - it would inevitably be a he - would not be carrying quite as much baggage.
But even if this line of argument were to be accepted by the caucus - and there is no sign of that happening at present - the problem remains: finding the new Messiah. Kevin Rudd is the voters' choice, but absolutely unacceptable to the powerbrokers who killed him off once and would blow up the party rather than have him back.
The deputy, Wayne Swan, is totally identified with the Gillard government and in any case is too boring. Defence Minister Stephen Smith has been mentioned as a relatively unknown cleanskin, but is hardly the man to excite the imagination of millions.
Climate Change Minister Greg Combet is competent and convincing but tied to the unpopular carbon tax. Assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten is a down to earth figure who has had a moment in the sun with the disability proposals but is still remembered as one of the faceless men from 2010.
And this is the catch 22: all of the above were apparatchiks - party officials or union bosses, precisely the people most to blame for the Labor Party's decline as an inclusive, open political movement.
This may be an unfair assessment of the individuals involved but nonetheless it is the public perception; they are part of the problem, not part of the solution. And, given that the same stricture applies to more than half the caucus, it would seem that any real improvement in Labor's fortunes will have to involve change starting from the bottom, not the top.
Let's face it, there is no plan B. For better or worse, Labor is stuck with Gillard, so the nervous Nellies had better just stick up for her. But Wilkie was talking about leaders, plural; is there any real threat to the smashing, bashing, crashing Tony Abbott? Well, obviously not immediately; with the polls the way they are he will cruise into government without having to consider what Tony Windsor claimed he threatened as the ultimate sacrifice: selling his arse.
But the same polls indicate that the voters will elect him with considerable reluctance: a clear majority neither like nor trust him. And it should not be forgotten that he gained the leadership by just one vote, and a lot of those who didn't want him back then have not changed their minds.
If he can get them back on the Treasury benches, that's terrific, but it doesn't end there; having done the job he was selected to do, he might find his use-by date approaching more quickly than he thought.
And the irony of all this, of course, is that if there were to be a popular vote for Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull would be a shoo in. Abbott will always have lurking behind him the real Messiah, slouching towards Bethlehem, waiting to be born.