November 26, 2011
Opinion
'The pressure is squarely on Abbott to come up with a new strategy.' Photo: Stefan Postles
IT WAS a throwaway line, but it summed up the end-game of a political strategy that was all about blasting Julia Gillard out of office, as quickly as possible. ''See you next year at The Lodge for drinks,'' a cheerful Abbott told reporters who attended the Opposition Leader's Christmas drinks at this time last year.
Whether it was achieved by wooing one of the independents who helped Gillard form minority government, or blasting out a Labor MP accused of behaving badly, or fuelling speculation of an imminent challenge to Gillard by Kevin Rudd, didn't matter.
Abbott was one vote away from the prime ministership and - courtesy of his relentless assault on Gillard's integrity and Labor's ineptness - a country mile ahead in the polls. His was a ''government-in-waiting'', and it all made for a very disciplined party room.
A year on, Abbott's Coalition is still mightily ascendant in the polls, but the game has changed. The coup that delivered the speakership to the disaffected Peter Slipper has transformed this contest, giving Gillard a two-seat buffer and dramatically increasing the odds that the Parliament will run full term.
That means Gillard has a better chance of building a recovery from the foundations of recent weeks. It certainly means the pressure is squarely on Abbott to come up with a new strategy in the months ahead. No wonder he is crying foul.
As Abbott describes it, the departure of the much-respected Harry Jenkins, and his replacement by Slipper, is just another ''squalid manoeuvre'' from Gillard's Machiavellian playbook. The PM deployed the ''Sussex Street death squads'' of Labor's Sydney machine to dispatch a good, decent and loyal man for the sole purpose of shoring up her own position.
More than that, she chose to replace him with a man who, in Abbott's words, had been a problem for the conservative side of politics for years. ''But he's now Julia Gillard's problem and I think she may well find that this is an interesting one,'' he told the Nine Network yesterday.
There are, to be sure, several people on the Labor side who think the recruiting of Slipper could blow up in Gillard's face and, if and when it does, be the catalyst for the much-anticipated push to bring back Rudd. ''It looks clever on the surface, but I suspect it's not going to end well,'' is how one veteran put it yesterday.
But the simple truth is that the Abbott account of what took place on the last sitting day of the year does not stand up to scrutiny. It may also be the case that any implosion of the Slipper speakership will not change the numbers of the floor of the House. Even so, it's a very high-risk play.
Gillard invited suspicion when she gave the most minimalist answer when asked by Abbott about her involvement in any discussions on replacing Jenkins with Slipper. All she said was that the first she knew of Jenkins' intentions was when he came to see her at 7.30 on Thursday morning. This beggared belief, the Coalition claimed. Surely she was the architect of a strategy to persuade Jenkins to move and encourage Slipper to rat?
It fell to Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie to make some sense of what had happened. ''It was always on the cards that something like this would occur,'' he told the ABC's Fran Kelly yesterday. ''It was often spoken about, the possibility of the speaker stepping down and Peter Slipper taking on the role. If anything, it was becoming increasingly likely, given the way the LNP [Liberal National Party] has been treating Peter Slipper in his own seat. In some ways, this is a problem for Tony Abbott of his own making.''
From the moment Slipper stood, with Labor's backing, to become the deputy speaker after the election, it was apparent the Queensland MP had designs on the main role. And from the moment Jenkins threatened to quit the post after being rebuffed in a vote on the floor in May, it was clear that his commitment to the role was qualified. Back then, Jenkins confided his frustrations to Simon Crean, another with a reputation for putting the party first.
Anthony Albanese, Labor's chief parliamentary tactician, didn't need to court Slipper or pressure Jenkins. All he had to do was move swiftly when Jenkins decided he wanted to reconnect with Labor after four years in the speaker's chair.
Jenkins visited Crean the day before he quit, giving rise to speculation that the former leader played the go-between role in facilitating the play. He did no such thing. Jenkins merely repeated that he was becoming increasingly frustrated by the stricture he had willingly accepted - that he divorce himself from party politics.
Abbott's failure to anticipate the move is all the greater because he walked away from the original agreement for parliamentary reform that would have seen the speaker's vote paired with the vote of the deputy speaker - an agreement that meant any change in who sat in the chair had no implications for the numbers of the floor of the Parliament.
It is greater, too, because Abbott could have installed Rob Oakeshott as speaker after the election if he been willing to accommodate the Port Macquarie independent's insistence that he still be able to initiate motions and legislation on behalf of his constituents.
Around midday on Thursday, Abbott rang Oakeshott and offered to back him on the original terms. While Oakeshott says he politely declined, the approach took some of the edge off Abbott's claim yesterday that he would never do what Gillard did in this instance. Even so, there are four potential downsides for Gillard. First, while I accept Jenkins' explanation on face value, the appearance this week was of the kind of ruthlessness that killed Rudd's prime ministership and damaged Gillard's standing. Even if it wasn't one, it smacked of an execution.
Second, Slipper may perform badly in the role when Parliament resumes in February and, as a consequence, add weight to the Abbott charge that the government is in perpetual crisis. The best that can be said here is that Slipper has had a long apprenticeship. He was first elected to Parliament in 1984 and has served as an acting speaker since February 2008. He knows the rules.
Third is the risk that he will not see out the term and be brought down by some allegation of wrongdoing or rorting. Already, there is speculation that his enemies within the Liberal National Party in Queensland have been given the go-ahead to throw whatever mud they have been accumulating on the man who conceded his first speech as speaker that he was ''not perfect''.
Of course, if it does emerge that Slipper has been profligate with his expenses, or something far worse, any wrongdoing would have occurred while he was a member of the Coalition. As one Labor MP puts it: ''If anything untoward went on, it happened on their watch, and they turned a blind eye.'' But the question of whether Gillard did due diligence would arise.
(However, even if Slipper were forced to stand down as speaker, the odds are that he would take a seat on the crossbenches and not vote with the Coalition, rather than quit the Parliament and force a by-election.)
Finally is the downside that has been overlooked so far. By embracing a flawed maverick from the other side of politics to slightly bolster her numbers - rather than backing Labor's next most qualified alternative, Anna Burke - Gillard has opted for pragmatism over principle and, in the view of several of her MPs, surrendered the high moral ground. ''We're all about hunting rats down - not bringing them into the fold,'' one said.
This concern will be compounded should Gillard bring back her Malaysian people-swap legislation - knowing full well that, even if it passes the lower house, it will be blocked in the Senate.
She has also taken some of the edge off her great achievement in the designated year of decision and delivery: that she has made minority government work, and delivered on the many commitments she made to those on the crossbench.
It's no surprise that she told these MPs - Wilkie, Oakeshott, Tony Windsor and the Green's Adam Bandt - what was happening on the speakership before she told the Labor caucus; and no surprise that she reassured Wilkie at the outset that this is not some insurance policy in the event she fails to meet his expectations on poker machine reform.
Gillard's people skills have helped in ticking off two of the three nominated priorities when she became prime minister - a price on carbon and the mining tax - and much more besides. In all, 254 pieces of legislation have been passed in a Parliament Abbott says doesn't work.
Abbott has fuelled the damaging impression that this is a Greens-led government, but the fact is that progress has been made on many fronts because Gillard has dealt in good faith with those on whose support she ultimately relies. As Oakeshott puts it: ''The big difference between this and other parliaments is that there is no too-hard basket. Even when things get hot, issues are dealt with on their merits - and that's the way a parliamentary democracy should work.''
Next year, both leaders move into new territory and new challenges, with workplace relations looming as one of the biggest. No one - not Gillard, not Abbott, and certainly not Peter Slipper - should be feel too confident about who will hold the ascendancy this time next year.
Michael Gordon is national editor.
!["Julia Gillard has put [Peter Slipper] into the biggest job in the Parliament" ... Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott.](http://images.brisbanetimes.com.au/2011/11/27/2801605/ipad-art-wide-abbott-420x0.jpg)
