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March 21, 2013
It is federal ALP that is in crisis, due to its internal destabilization from those MP's who support the return of Kevin Rudd as leader and PM. Labor is in turmoil from its ongoing leadership tensions. So say the political journalists in the mainstream media, rubbing their hands with glee.
A leadership spill has been called by Gillard for 4.30pm today. The Coalition used Question Time to call for standing orders to be suspended so they could move a no confidence motion against the Gillard Government. The Coalition kept calling -chanting even--- for an election now during today's Question Time. "We cannot wait until September 14."
The motion to suspend standing orders failed to gain the required absolute majority. The media still rubbed their hands at the thought of blood on the floor at 4.30pm. It would be Gillard's blood for sure.
Alan Moir
It is true that the ALP that is damaging itself. Yet its economic performance is okay, the carbon price appears to have been effective, there have a number of significant reforms (eg.,water reform in the Murray-Darling Basin) and they were starting to shift Australia into becoming a "high-wage, high-skill economy".
Despite a good record Labor turns on itself. Why the destablization from within by people like Joel Fitzgibbon--the Chief Whip---when changing leaders won't change the splits, factions, divisions and hostilities within the ALP? There would be only a facade of unity.
It's all grist for the media's narrative that leadership tensions is the core of political reporting and that the Gillard Government is dysfunctional and incompetent. They reckon that they don't have to make things up anymore or trade in deceptions.
They can now write that the ALP is on its knees and asking Rudd to return. And Ministers desert PM. Rudd gets his sweet revenge. Gillard is gone.
And so on. And so on. It's a hostile media narrative. Is this a case of shooting the media messenger who are merely reporting on what "senior Labor sources" have told them?
Not at all. The media don't even know whether Rudd has the numbers to defeat Gillard, or whether he is even contesting the leadership. They are just speculating and calling it fact. It's more likely a media beat up to reinforce the media's narrative and to help the Coalition crack the Gillard Government so that it falls.
Update
Kevin Rudd did not contest the leadership. It was a week long media beatup. The press revved it up, drove it, surfed it, then savored Gillard's blood on the floor for an hour or two this afternoon. They were denied Gillard's head on a platter.
How long before the mainstream media start beating the leadership drum again? Will the emerging narrative will be " this is not over - there is no settlement"? Or Labor is dysfunctional. Labor is badly damaged. So is Gillard.
The journalists don't even understand what was going on in Question Time today. Thus Jacqueline Maley in the SMH says:
Abbott only got through a couple of questions before he moved a motion to suspend standing orders so he could move a motion of no confidence in the government. The suspension vote was won, and so the no confidence motion was debated.
Not so. The motion to suspend standing orders in order to move a motion of no confidence did not obtain an absolute majority. So the no confidence motion was not debated. Maley also says that the immediate threat to Gillard was at her back. But there was no contest. Maley is writing fiction.
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Unless they've plumped for another candidate.
I loath the sight of supposed adults spooked by the media eating their own, if changing horses in mid stream works you'd be surprised.