IF JULIA GILLARD wants to “wind down” in these early days of her much-needed holiday, she’d be wise to avoid papers, radio and TV. The continuing unfolding drama of WikiLeaks is not conducive to relaxing and refreshing for a new year that will test the PM to the full.
Like everyone in federal politics, Gillard is dog-tired. Instead of having a break after the election, she went into more than a fortnight of nail-biting negotiations to form her minority government. That was followed by weeks of Parliament, a battery of conferences abroad, and all the normal work of government. And Gillard has also had to cope with much more criticism as leader than she faced as deputy – even some unflattering critiques of her clothes.
It’s been the year of the narrow squeak for federal Labor. We’ll never know how it would have panned out if Kevin Rudd had been left in place – there are different opinions. But we do know that Gillard took a gamble when she accepted the leadership and it could easily have ended in total disaster. She’s used up a good slice of her political credit, not to mention her luck in just getting through the election.
But Gillard is not one to worry about what might have happened. Her eyes are on the future, and she seems confident she can get and keep her reform program on track. She has a plan for managing the major issues – the months ahead will tell whether it is realistic.
Passing the legislation to break up Telstra in the last week of Parliament was heartening for her; that’s vital for the broadband plan which is one of Labor’s centrepiece promises. But finding a resolution on carbon pricing could be hellish: indeed, it’s hard to see how it could be anything else. And then there’s a mid-year tax summit. Remember that? An undertaking given during the post-election negotiations. How is the government going to handle it? By playing it down, or trying to use it as an opportunity to take up some more of the Henry tax report? In between juggling her “reform agenda” Gillard has to think about the budget (even if the hard slog is left to Wayne Swan); the first budget after an election gives a government more flexibility than the second and third.
Winning the independents (or most of them) was Gillard’s post-election triumph; her task next year will be managing them. She has to keep them onside but stop them eating her up, either by cornering her on issues or putting excessive demands on her time and attention. They have to show they are not her prisoners, so they’ll kick up on some issues. Last week Tasmania’s Andrew Wilkie lashed out at Gillard over what he described as her abandonment of “key principles of democracy” in her pursuit of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
On another front, country independent Tony Windsor is travelling the Murray Darling region in January; Windsor will have his own ideas on what should be done as the fraught water issue unfolds.
Then there’s dancing with the Greens: how to deal without being dominated, co-operate but still prepare to compete at the next election.
Gillard’s ministerial team seems happy enough, even if the opinion polls are knife-edge. It might be different a year from now if Labor hasn’t opened a respectable two-party lead. That will be about the time of the ALP national conference where, Gillard says, she’ll not be fussed about having all those flowers bloom, on everything from gay marriage to nuclear power. Perhaps she thinks that by then she’ll have racked up enough achievements for the party to be in celebratory rather than argumentative mood.
At least Gillard can look to 2011 as a new page there for the writing. She might, but probably won’t, spare a thought for Kristina Keneally, doomed to an electoral disaster she can do nothing to avoid. Keneally’s lot is truly dreadful. She’s a premier with some guts and talent who in other circumstances could be electorally attractive and successful. As it is, she’s the fall girl for the NSW Labor catastrophe. And when it’s all over, the NSW power players will be all the more anxious to keep in with Gillard, whom they helped make leader, because she will be their only remaining point of political power.
Article via TheAge
