Why did Labor stick with Prime Minister Julia Gillard as its leader?

[nero_bolt]

TWO years after Julia Gillard died as Prime Minister, Labor still can't get rid of the body. Maybe Kevin Rudd will yet replace Gillard before the election and save some of the 35 seats her discredited Government now risks losing.

But either way, Labor will face not just the usual post mortem of the defeated: what did it do wrong? There is an even more serious question. Why did Labor MPs stick for years with a leader so obviously unelectable: incompetent, untrustworthy and despised by many voters?

I am not wise after the event. As I wrote in March 2011: "Julia Gillard is finished. It seems she's lied too brazenly and nothing in her erratic performance suggests she can recover ...

"Truth is, her record in office is of unbroken failure."

It still is. Even Gillard's one last boast - a massive disability scheme - is just a promise, untested, needing billions more dollars we do not have.

Yet through month after month of disasters, Labor MPs stuck with Gillard, who claimed she had a plan for victory. It rested on three preposterous pillars, all now shattered only 100 days before the election.

First, Gillard thought voters could be bribed into forgiving her for lying to them about the carbon tax.

As she assured her party in 2011, voters would soon see the tax as not so bad: "(When) cows keep giving milk, chickens still lay eggs, our opponents know their campaign of fear will be exposed as a sham."

She never realised it was actually her lie that voters could never forgive.

Gillard also counted on the economy magically booming to produce a surplus this year to fund her lavish promises. Instead, she gave us a $19.4 billion deficit.

Lastly, Gillard thought she could make voters think Opposition Leader Tony Abbott was a woman-hating thug. Instead, Newspoll not only has the Opposition streeting Labor, 58 per cent to 42, but Abbott beating Gillard as preferred prime minister, 43 per cent to 35.

What turned off voters was precisely Gillard's screeching abuse and politics of division, pitting women against men, poor against rich, workers against miners.

Just to describe Gillard's strategy - to expect forgiveness for lying, to squander billions in the faint hope of a boom and to abuse Abbott while dividing Australians - is to be astonished Labor MPs thought it could work.

So here are the key sins a broken Labor must confront - sins that had it sticking with Gillard long after it should have sacked her.

It believed its own bull

Labor's head went soft. It fell for New Left fancies. It fell for the global warming faith and imagined the world shared it. It imagined boat people were genuine refugees who wouldn't take advantage of its "compassion".

It believed in Gillard.

It believed the Canberra press gallery

Most journalists lean Left, especially in Canberra, and cheered on Labor in its worst mistakes. Yes, we needed a carbon tax. Yes, Abbott was a buffoon. Yes, the Howard government's border laws were "inhumane". Yes, Gillard had reached a "turning point", as Channel 9's Laurie Oakes announced in March, July, August and November of 2011.

Labor lived in an echo chamber.

It believed in spin

Even yesterday, Labor MPs were claiming it wasn't the Government's performance that stank, but the reviews. It just needed better spin.

On Tuesday, Labor backbencher Laurie Ferguson even claimed Gillard could still win the election if she could now "speak in common language" to explain the huge influx of boat people was "a very complex problem and neither the Government nor the Opposition can easily solve it".

Talk about deluded. Here is a prominent Labor MP arguing the problem isn't that Gillard left the door wide open, but that she hasn't used "common language" to say she can't close it.

It is ruled by selfish faction bosses

The polls are adamant - only Kevin Rudd has the personal popularity to help Labor now. Indeed, he is this week touring two marginal seats in Geelong at the request of their desperate members.

Yet many Labor faction bosses, not least Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, would seemingly rather Labor be destroyed under Gillard than recover under Rudd, a man they hate and cannot control.

Nor would they let former Labor leader Simon Crean, not popular but competent, take over last year.

The Australian Workers Union, whose votes keep Gillard in office, seems likewise to prefer a dud Labor leader it controls to a popular one it doesn't.

I have not listed all the causes of Labor's fall: sheer incompetence, the lack of a single minister with a business background, the politics of division, a caucus stuffed with ex-unionists and party hacks, the outsized influence of young advisers strong on ideology and weak on experience.

My question is more limited yet more urgent.

Why did Labor stick so long with a loser

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/why-did-labor-stick-with-prime-minister-julia-gillard-as-its-leader/story-fni0ffxg-1226658051533

[lakeland27]

Does that mean that you comment on those posts without even reading them?

Is that a Shortenism?

no. shorten only did what mr abbott does everyday, and he has actual work to do on top of that ..

[lakeland27]

may as well go here, can't have people panicking because of the coalitions reckless lack of regard for the economy .

Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson has called for calm amid concerns that parts of the economy are on the brink of recession.

National accounts figures published yesterday show Australia's economy grew by 0.6 per cent in the first three months of this year.

That translates into 2.5 per cent year-on-year - a result that is lower than economists had predicted.

While mining exports are up, households remain cautious, despite two percentage points of interest rates cuts since late 2011, and businesses are cutting back on expenses and shelving projects.

In some reports on the figures, newspapers and commentators say Western Australia has slid into recession.

But at Senate Estimates hearings in Canberra this morning, Dr Parkinson said that was a "hysterical" reaction.

He says the economy is undergoing a difficult transition as the investment phase of the mining boom begins to fade, and journalists need to understand this will not happen easily or overnight.

"We cautioned that this transition would not necessarily be smooth," he said.

"It has been the case that over the last half decade or so, the vast bulk of GDP growth has been sourced out of the mining and mining-related sectors ... and the non-mining parts of the economy have been experiencing very sluggish growth.

"The challenge was to see us move from mining investment-driven growth to mining output-driven growth.

"But the increase in mining output was never going to substitute for the contribution that we were getting from investment as investment plateaued out."

Commentators accused of downplaying export figures

The state final demand in Western Australia did contract by 3.9 per cent in the first three months of this year, but if exports are included, WA's economy is growing.

Dr Parkinson says it is hard to fathom why commentators would downplay such an important aspect of the figures.

"Some of the hysteria that's in the press today is really over the top," he said.

"Apparently, if one was logical about this, it would be a good thing if we were, we'd lost competitiveness, we were importing a lot and gross national expenditure was growing rapidly.

"I understand people need to get publicity and that they need to sell product but some of the interpretations that have been placed on the data yesterday are really quite difficult to fathom."

ABC news.

[waterlilycat]

The people have stopped listening to Gillard, Labor MP's are losing it, see the great verballer Plibersek & that senator in the senate committee.

Labor MP's are packing up ready leave & MP's are ridiculing labor openly on TV & in newspapers.

We are shown the spectacle of Rudd on the 7.30 report blathering on about foreign affairs whilst trying to make out he didn't want anybody to think he was spruiking himself (again or still!!!)

Treasury has revised the deficit to over $350 billion & Shorten not answering ANY question honestly.

This is the spectacle we are served up every day, they are focused on themselves &  the country is being invaded by illegal boats & unknown terrorists.

The have given up, Gillard lost it again in parliament but with no hi 5's or laughter from her own side, just sheepish looks.

This government just can't get any worse, they have no shame & Gillard/Swan/Rudd will go down as the gang of 3 who ruined everything they touched.

Australians will punish this lot but the punishment will in no way be what they really deserve. They will be merely slung out but the mess will still be left behind them.

They are disgraceful & should never hold any sort of high office or anything the requires ethical governance, ever.

Roll on Sept.

[pct001wine]

"the country is being invaded by illegal boats & unknown terrorists."

What a load of poppycock, which you well know, but choose to spam here.  Scare-mongering at its finest. 

[ladydeburg]

Gillard has proven she has no leadership skills. Her most vitriolic detractors are members of her own party.

We see Rudd being asked to campaign (or is it  govern one can't tell) & not a whimper from Gillard, she knows she's electoral poison.

Have you ever seen anything like this ??

[ladydeburg]

And there is the main I.D. of the other spammers;-)

Did anyone see The Prancing Poodle on telly last evening saying that Ms Gillard was also appearing on the 7.30 Report to counter fears that Mr Rudd was again challenging Ms Gillard for the Prime Ministership.

What's the first thing Leigh Sales says when the show starts.......

Chriisy Pyne was full of it and none of what he said was true.

How embarrassing for the Poodle.:^O

.

It has come out that he was set up by Labor.

[topsidesoul]

Same reason why the Liberal Party Ignore the amount of Australian's who hate the thought of Abbott as a leader....

Nobody else in each party has the guts to challenge the backroom liberal and Labor power brokers.

The Liberal party are just lucky the are racing a dead horse as they whip it.

[topsidesoul]

And there is the main I.D. of the other spammers;-)

Did anyone see The Prancing Poodle on telly last evening saying that Ms Gillard was also appearing on the 7.30 Report to counter fears that Mr Rudd was again challenging Ms Gillard for the Prime Ministership.

What's the first thing Leigh Sales says when the show starts.......

Chriisy Pyne was full of it and none of what he said was true.

How embarrassing for the Poodle.:^O

The prancing Poodle is lucky nobody took photos of the grow house owned by a person he backed for  mayor in an Adelaide council.

He backed this person while he was health minister ....hahaha

[idlewhile]

That's the most preposterous comment I've read so far from a luvvie.

TA is not hated, in fact he's revered as seeing off 2 labor PM's  after Sept 14th.

I think TA will make a great PM, for one, he's not a liar, he doesn't sleep with married women, he hasn't been sacked for conduct bringing a law firm into disrepute, he isn't a de facto with a low life partner.

Tony Abbot has high morals, great community values & is a a tireless campaigner for Aboriginal aspirations & a fantastic charity worker.

None of these shining attributes is afforded to JG, in fact she's held in utter disdain & loathing by the majority of Australians & most of her caucus.

Now we are subjected to that psycho Rudd saying "LOOK AT ME I'M AVAILABLE TO TAKE OVER" That would be a fate worse than death for many Australians.

There's another factor coming in regarding Miss Gillard, fear, fear that she might get back in, this fear will see a majority of voters rushing to dispose of her.

They no longer want to sail in this ship of fools.

[lightningdance]

Gillards Game of Drones...:^O