Mutiny for the bounty of power

DON'T be dazzled by the fireworks erupting from Sussex St.

Julia Gillard, by far the most articulate member of Federal Parliament, has been appointed Prime Minister by the same group of grubby backroom manipulators responsible for inflicting the failed and unelected premiers Nathan Rees and Kristina Keneally on NSW. It may have been an historic play for the faceless bosses of the trade union movement. They, together with the wheeler-dealers of Labor's factions, combined to assassinate the man who led the ALP into office 2 1/2 years ago. This handed the leadership of the parliamentary party to a woman - but a momentous day, hardly. The ALP bosses, like those who run some of the worst trade unions in the land, catch and kill their own. Now they have just toppled the leader of the party Australians elected to lead them, without bothering to consult those voters. Like Bob Hawke in 1991, Rudd was the victim of an internal party room dismissal. There would be screams of outrage if the Governor-General had been involved. So now we have a new Prime Minister. Ms Gillard is no stranger to party coups. She's been playing hardball left-wing politics since way back during her university days. Recall, too, that Gillard willingly conspired with her predecessor Kevin Rudd to topple Kim Beazley and was not exactly an unwilling participant in Wednesday night's extraordinary Rudd rebellion. Labor's machine men may have given the chop to one of the Gang of Four in dismissing Rudd, but the Gang of Three remains - at least for now. They are Gillard, her deputy, Treasurer Wayne Swan and Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner. That trio, however, is soon to fracture. Tanner, we learnt yesterday, will not be running at the next election. His seat of Melbourne is likely to fall to the Greens should there be any swing against the Government. Though the Rudd government has spent $230 million on his electorate - more than any other in Victoria - Tanner now says he wants to spend more time with his family. Despite the timing of his announcement, Tanner claimed it had nothing to do with the change of leadership. Stripped of the emotion-tugging scenes of a teary Rudd and a vibrant Gillard, the most important message to be derived from the new Prime Minister's press conference was the repeated theme that she had to act because Rudd Labor had lost its way. That's not news. The Opposition has been saying the Government has lost its way for the past seven months. Opinion polls have backed that up. But having bloodied her hands to ensure her Government gets back on track will Gillard be more than another salesman for ruined ALP policies or will she act to clean-up failed programs like her own wasteful school building initiative? Greens leader Bob Brown said the hour is now Gillard's, but we have yet to see how she will realign the policies of the ALP and not just jiggle with its spin as she appears to be doing with her announcement that her Government will halt its taxpayer-funded political advertisements targeting the mining industry to permit negotiations with the miners. BHP graciously suspended its own campaign, showing extraordinary trust in the Labor Government which first ambushed it with a huge new retrospective tax and then refused to negotiate in a professional manner and which still clings to the $12 billion to come from the miners it announced in the Budget. She comes to the prime ministership owing the big unions plenty, particularly the AWU and its publicity-seeking boss Paul Howes. They will demand that debt be repaid prior to the election Gillard is expected to announce within the next six weeks. Given her support for the historically corrupt MUA during its fight against reform, Australians should be deeply concerned at the potential damage Gillard will inflict on the economy when she rewards the trade union movement for its support in her sudden and successful leadership battle. Having run up the white flag to the miners, Gillard will also have to do more to reassure Australians that their well-founded worries about lax border security will be addressed. Her claim to understand that the public is "disturbed" is hardly enough. She says she will provide "strong management of our borders" but she will have to demonstrate strength before that is believed. The other theme of Gillard's media briefing was one of fear; fear of the Opposition and its values, the values with which it held office for nearly 12 of the nation's most successful years. In reprising fear as the central tenet of Labor's campaign, Gillard has foreshadowed a very grubby election campaign. However, in permitting Rudd and his family to remain resident at The Lodge, Gillard showed a definite warm streak. Rudd had no real friends in the Labor Party when he arrived in Canberra and he is almost as friendless as he exits the nation's highest office. As one senior member of the ALP caucus put it yesterday, Labor MPs have now reached a consensus with the public that Mr Rudd was a "smart-arse, know-it-all conman". He was elected on hype and ran his government on spin, his office was dominated by inexperienced youngsters, Alister Jordan, Lachlan Harris and Andrew Charlton. Talents perhaps, but quite out of their depth as Labor MP Kelvin Thomson acknowledged yesterday, saying: "I hope that there is a greater say for the elected members of the federal parliamentary Labor Party and less say for the unelected adolescents of the prime minister's office." Australians have seen a number of Labor leaders leave office in recent years, Kim Beazley, Simon Crean and Mark Latham among them. All of them paid tribute to their parties for the opportunities they had been given, none of them broke down before the cameras, maudlin and mawkish, until yesterday. Little wonder that some of the more excitable young members of the Canberra Press Gallery felt their own eyes dampen. They had never seen Rudd appear to be as human. Rudd Labor has been dangerously amateurish. Its policies were ill-thought and will continue to cost taxpayers for generations. Its place in history will be small, thankfully. It will be best remembered for its brevity.