Julia Gillard's days as PM numbered, say pollies

LABOR MPs are insisting Julia Gillard will face a challenge within months, despite Kevin Rudd's clear declaration of support.

LABOR MPs are insisting Julia Gillard's leadership is terminal and will face a challenge within a few months, despite Kevin Rudd's clear declaration of support from New York yesterday.

The Prime Minister dismissed reports that the Foreign Minister was ringing Labor MPs from New York and claiming to be just short of having the numbers for a successful challenge. This was "a Liberal distraction", she said, adding no one had suggested to her she "had until Christmas-time".

Labor dissent over Ms Gillard's handling of the changes to the Migration Act is fuelling dissatisfaction with her leadership as Labor sinks to record lows in the polls.

Tony Abbott said in Melbourne yesterday: "I accept that this is a pretty desperate Prime Minister who has lost control of our borders, who has lost control of our detention centres, and now is in danger of losing control of the parliament."

Ministers publicly said Ms Gillard's position was safe and Mr Rudd said he wanted to be "very clear" that he supported Ms Gillard, in response to reports that numbers were building inside the federal Labor caucus for him to return as leader.

A growing band of federal Labor MPs is pessimistic about Labor's prospects of re-election if Ms Gillard remains in the top job, and is starting to campaign for a change back to Mr Rudd.

Labor MPs told The Weekend Australian dissatisfaction was growing because of Ms Gillard's "poor judgment" in handling her plan to send asylum-seekers to Malaysia and insisting on introducing legislation that would lose and only reinforce all the arguments about government incompetence.

MPs critical of Ms Gillard said they were shocked at the speed and extent of the reaction to their arguments that Ms Gillard's leadership was terminal. "It's typical of how everything is tinder dry and any spark sets off a fire," one said.

ALP members are saying they do not expect any leadership challenge "until November or early next year".

Mr Rudd was ousted in June last year after losing majority support in caucus over his handling of asylum seekers, a carbon tax and the mining tax. Mr Rudd has since worked hard as Foreign Minister and is considerably more popular with voters than Ms Gillard.

"I support the Prime Minister," Mr Rudd said yesterday. "I'm a member of the cabinet, I support the decisions therefore of the government, and I just think it would be a good thing if everyone seriously had a cup of tea and a Bex and a long lie-down, OK?"

Mr Rudd also again defended his position on travel expenses as Foreign Affairs Minister after revelations -- based on a Freedom of Information request -- that Ms Gillard's chief of staff had queried his big spending while on overseas trips. On a point of principle, he said, foreign ministers across the world travelled a lot as part of their job. He tried to keep costs down by staying at the residences of Australian ambassadors wherever possible.

A letter from Ms Gillard, not her chief of staff Ben Hubbard, to Mr Rudd's chief of staff, Phil Green, queried the $77,706 cost of a European trip, including a $1700-a-night stay in Stockholm.