Rudd resigns as Australian PM.

[gracethepirate]

Did any of you ever get the feeling that the political left has a highly superficial approach to intercultural sensitivity....

If you are referring to the Australian Labor Party, they aren't all that left anymore, mostly central, though I guess Gillard, being a Tasmanian and originally from Wales UK, may be culturally insensitive to Rudd who is from Queensland a state with a different esprit from Tasmania's.

[Kevin Parlon]

Yeah, but that's not the Labor Party caucus, it's the public. I'd really like Rudd to oust Gillard in the party's open vote next week, though I think it's unlikely.

If Labor defy Australian popular opinion by tossing Rudd onto the backbenches they'll be annihilated in the next election. Labor has become a self-serving cabal of insider hacks, lightweights (Tony Burke, Wayne Swan, Simon Crean, Stephen Conroy) and Unionist bullies. Gillard herself I regard as a national embarrasment. Her (well, her string pullers) capitulation to the Mining lobby was a depressing sight to behold. Rudd made some mistakes his time round but is the better leader by a country mile and the country agrees.

If Gillard wins, Rudd will resign his seat and head for the pastures and Abbott will be the next PM. I hope I am wrong. We have two good pols in Rudd and Turnbull. Sadly, both parties are led by factional puppets.

If Turnbull were to unseat the mad monk Abbott for the leadership of the Coalition, I'll vote Liberal. Otherwise, its the Greens for me. I couldn't vote Labor in their current incarnation. Scoundrels.

[Kevin Parlon]

Did any of you ever get the feeling that the political left has a highly superficial approach to intercultural sensitivity....

Rudd can actually speak Mandarin, which puts him in tiny minority of western leaders. A lot of aussie pols are glorified jingoistic county councillers. Rudd by comparison, is positively Jeffersonian

[gracethepirate]

Rudd can actually speak Mandarin, which puts him in tiny minority of western leaders. A lot of aussie pols are glorified jingoistic county councillers. Rudd by comparison, is positively Jeffersonian

Good, another Rudd supporter. I'd forgotten about his knowledge of Mandarin.

[NYCKY]

If Labor defy Australian popular opinion by tossing Rudd onto the backbenches they'll be annihilated in the next election. Labor has become a self-serving cabal of insider hacks, lightweights (Tony Burke, Wayne Swan, Simon Crean, Stephen Conroy) and Unionist bullies. Gillard herself I regard as a national embarrasment. Her (well, her string pullers) capitulation to the Mining lobby was a depressing sight to behold. Rudd made some mistakes his time round but is the better leader by a country mile and the country agrees.

If Gillard wins, Rudd will resign his seat and head for the pastures and Abbott will be the next PM. I hope I am wrong. We have two good pols in Rudd and Turnbull. Sadly, both parties are led by factional puppets.

If Turnbull were to unseat the mad monk Abbott for the leadership of the Coalition, I'll vote Liberal. Otherwise, its the Greens for me. I couldn't vote Labor in their current incarnation. Scoundrels.

Kevin I like your posts and given that you are on the ground so to speak would like more information from a local.

Do you personally think that Gillard will win and do you think that Rudd resigning his seat would spark an election? I know that Gillard has a precarious majority? If I recall correctly I think one of the Greens pulled their support last week.

Is there any mechanism that Gillard could used to delay a possible by election, like Cowen was using in Ireland in 2010?

[Kevin Parlon]

Kevin I like your posts and given that you are on the ground so to speak would like more information from a local.

Do you personally think that Gillard will win and do you think that Rudd resigning his seat would spark an election? I know that Gillard has a precarious majority? If I recall correctly I think one of the Greens pulled their support last week.

Is there any mechanism that Gillard could used to delay a possible by election, like Cowen was using in Ireland in 2010?

Thanks. I think Gillard will win. It is a symptom of how self-absorbed the Labor party is, that it can be so utterly unaffected by popular opinion regarding Gillard and Rudd. Put simply, the electorate don't much like Gillard. Labor, if their behaviour means anything don't much care about the electorate. They (the electorate) might not love Rudd but he has consistently outpolled Gillard as preferred Primeminister. Labor is also in trouble as a party having lost groud to the Coalition with recent polling showing Abbot (the mad monk) as preferred PM when given a choice of Gillard or Abbott. When given a choice of Rudd vs. Abbott, Rudd wins by an easy margin. Labor are putting party before country.

I don't know if Rudd will resign. I think the man regarded his erstwhile position (Foreign Affairs) as beneath him having gotten a good taste of the international stage as PM. I don't believe the idea of a life on the back benches squares with his ego. Whether he walks will be down to his loyalty to the party. Thing with Labor is, it is permanently riven with warring factions on a state and federal level. The right faction (of whom gillard is the current sock puppet) is stronger and controls caucus, hence Rudd's chances come Monday.

Labour does not have an overall majority in either house. In the house of reps, rudderless, they'd still just about hold a workable majority provided the motley crew of independents (Bob Katter (Think an Aussie Healy-Rae) et al) hold their nerve. In the senate (more powerful than the Irish one) they rely on the greens who hold the balance of power, and for which they're extracting many concessions from the Labor government. The greens are currently wielding unprecendented power and will be loath to destablize the current parliment as it is not at all certain that an election held now would result in the same power balance. So, they'll hold their nerve. In the event of a Rudd walk-out, the future of the current government would rest on the independents; just as it did at the birth of the current parliment.

So if Rudd walks (not a certainty but my gut feel) they can still cling on, independents depending. If he did, he'd have to be sure of a cushy number somewhere outside of the party because he'd be a pariah, blamed for bringing down a Labor government and handing power to the mad monk. In my view, it is the labor party that has banjaxed itself by putting its own factional power struggles above what's best for the country.

My 2c.

EDIT: My opinion about Rudd quitting is not backed up by those who might know better.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/bre...-1226279009902

[Kevin Parlon]

An Australian Political Menagerie for those wanting to put faces to names:


Tony Abbot, aka the mad monk, seen here in his budgie smugglers. Abbott is a closet climate change denier, an excercise fanatic, a shameless populist, a royalist and staunch Catholic. Impetuous, hot-headed and given to the use of fear to score points. Favourite slur: "Unaustralian". Favourite Political Football: Dark hordes of asylum seekers.


Bob Katter, AKA the Jackie Healy-Rae of the outback. Famous for his Ahmedinijadian claim of North Queesnland being homo-frei.


Welsh born Julia. Looking uncharacteristly fabulous. Famous for backstabbing Rudd, being less popular than him and for adressing her electorate very, very slowly in what sounds like a parody of an Australian accent.


The Ruddmeister. Also hot-headded. Honorable position on many things, but like most lefties, a little too fond of spending public money. Rudd's roots go back to Tipp. His great grandfather, I think.

[RepublicOfLuas]

You forgot

Fiona Patten, leader of the Australian Sex Party. I met her in Melbourne a few years back.




and...Pauline Hanson. The less said about her, the better!

[Partizan]

With the obvious exception of Patten, Australian politics is not an attractive fare for its voters like our own.

Pauline Hanson is a disgusting piece of work.

[Impartial_Eclipse]

I have to say I like this guy.

Australia's Rudd to challenge Julia Gillard - RT News