If Gillard wasn't encouraged to take the leadership before the 1910 election, we wouldn't have had a snowball's chance in hell of winning it under Rudd. He had abandoned the ETS and he was in an unwinnable war against the mining companies. Voters were starting to question how effective a prime minister he actually was. He rarely ever spoke to Bob Brown, the independents or most of his caucus. He treated his staff like shit and would expect public servants to wait for hours on end in the early hours of the morning, after calling them in for a discussion. If Rudd was such a great guy, why did he decide at the last minute not to put the leadership to the vote of the caucus? He knew he only had a handfull of votes. I would have liked to see Kim Beasley become prime minister, but the member for Griffith stabbed HIM in the back.
It now looks like Andrew Wilkie's moment of fame has come to an end. I used to respect him, but you cant expect a minority government to assure a certain bill gets through when you need independents' votes to support it. It will be interesting to see if he falls behind Tony Abbott from now on. If he does, whatever popularity he ever had (outside his electorate) will go down the drain.
I personally would have liked to have seen just $1 limit spins on poker machines, but probably due to internal polling with Labor MP's in danger of losing their seats at the next election, they probably made the best deal possible, under the circumstances.
When Julia Gillard speaks, she is speaking as a representative of her caucus, not always from what she feels personally. If Rudd or any other former prime minister had undergone the same amount of scrutiny that Julia Gillard has undergone and under the circumstances of controlling a minority government with an idiot as an opposition leader, it would be interesting to see how any one of them would have fared.
Matilda, I dont know much about you, but I guess you are a Labor voter and you come from Queensland. Am I right?
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