The federal Labor Party appears to be reaching a point of high farce. That party elder Peter Beattie can seriously suggest Bob Hawke — a loved and respected figure, but now in his senescence — could broker a resolution says much about the inability of over 100 men and women in caucus to find a way to resolve the long-term Rudd-Gillard leadership tension and address the imminent catastrophic defeat of the party. A defeat that would lead to the erasure of most of the legacy of the Gillard government.
Worse, the party can’t even conduct a rational debate on other subjects for fear of exacerbating the leadership issue. This morning, caucus deferred a decision on the motion of retiring MP Steve Gibbons to return the power of selecting the Labor frontbench to caucus after the next election, because it had somehow become a proxy for the leadership.
What hope can there be of the much-needed internal reform of the party if it is unable to even discuss reform for fear of drawing further attention to an issue it is hopelessly unable to resolve?
Oh, and Gillard’s still the leader. We’ll let you know if anything actually happens …
I trust that Julia Gillard will hang on for the two last weeks of the parliamentary session. I f Labor is hit at the federal election as looks likely, the fact that the Coalition couldn’t topple her(but the people of Australia could) should be a nice little niggle for some time to come.
I am not sure Bob will appreciate “senescence”.
Axolotl – as if he would, again, leave the warm embrace of Bacchus.
Bob Hawke is respected and loved only because the mass media have failed to expose him. As Prime Minister he took Australia to its lowest point in history by joining an axis of evil with the US, China and the UK to support Pol Pot and the Khmer rouge after they had slaughtered a third of their own population. His Government continually voted for the Khmer Rouge to be official representatives of Cambodia at the United Nations. All aid was diverted from the starving Cambodians and given to Pol Pots band of Thugs Who continued to wage war on their own country men from their refuge on the Thailand Border. Armed by the Chinese with Margaret Thatcher’s SAS also supplying them with land mines and training them how to use them thousands more innocent civilians were slaughtered or crippled. At least Margaret Thatcher was forced to admit it in Parliament after years of denying it. Yet according to the Australian media Bob is continually referred to as loved and respected. Under Australia law any one who aids and abets a crime can be charged with that crime. If the Australian media were fair dinkum they would be calling for him to be tried for war crimes alongside the Khmer Rouge that he aided. Ian Bolton Kotupna, Vic