Mark Kenny and Heath Aston
March 26, 2013
New faces & super ministries
Winners and losers emerge from last week's leadership stoush as Gillard's sixth cabinet is sworn in at Government house. Tim Lester & Mark Kenny discuss the picks.
- Analysis: Hard road ahead for heavily burdened ministers
- Gillard's new ministry: The winners
- Opinion: Labor so lost that even confused diehards stagger
- Opinion: The Gillard backlash says more about her detractors
Julia Gillard has promised a zero-tolerance approach to disloyalty, reshuffling her frontbench line-up, promoting three women among four first-time junior ministers while announcing a series of mega portfolios for proven performers.
There are also two new appointments in a 20-member cabinet pared back from the 21 previously.
Illustration: Ron Tandberg.
The team has been crafted to reward loyalists in the aborted Rudd coup and salvage Labor's battered image with voters with now less than six months to go to the September 14 poll.
Labor's prospects in September took another dive with the latest Newspoll, published in News Ltd papers, showing Labor's primary vote has falled five percentage points to 30 per cent, putting 30 Labor seats at risk.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott leads Ms Gillard as preferred prime minister 43 per cent (up five points) to 35 per cent (down seven) - the second time in three Newspoll surveys since February that he has been in front.
''I don't comment on opinion polls but I don't need a poll to tell me that last week the Labor Party had an appalling week,'' Ms Gillard said on Tuesday morning.
''When we present to the Australian people self indulgently talking about ourselves there are consequences.''
The newly promoted Resources Minister Gary Gray on Tuesday compared the party's current situation to the one faced by Paul Keating in late 1992.
''What the Labor Party did was retreat into its own core values . . . and win in 1993,'' he said.
Foreign Minister Bob Carr, speaking in the US on Tuesday said there was ''a deep reluctance in the Australian people to entrust their future to the Tony Abbott-led opposition''.
He said he still maintained what others might consider an ''excessive'' optimism that Labor could regroup to win the September election as the choice between Labor and the Coalition became more stark.
Addressing the cabinet reshuffle yesterday Senator Carr rejected the notion that he was returning to a party in disarray, saying the promotion of new talent could be a good thing for a government.
After weeks of internal haemorrhaging, a drawn but determined Prime Minister described the period as ''self-indulgent''. ''Like Australians around the nation, I was appalled by the events of last week,'' she said.
''Our eyes were on ourselves rather than on doing what we should have, being focused on the nation, it was an unseemly display.''
But while recriminations have been severe for most involved, the three-time Rudd backer, Anthony Albanese, has not only held his key post as manager of government business and Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, but has picked up Simon Crean's former responsibilities for Regional Development.
Mr Crean was sacked last Thursday after demanding a spill, while resignations were effectively forced out of Martin Ferguson, Kim Carr and Chris Bowen.
''I have always been able to work with minister Albanese well,'' Ms Gillard said. ''He has been very central to the life of this government and I believe he will serve very well and with a very strong sense of loyalty into the future.''
Gillard supporters scored the bulk of the prizes.
Former Special Minister of State Mr Gray has taken a step up to cabinet, filling the crucial economic post as Minister for Resources and Energy.
A former ALP national secretary, the WA-based MP was once a climate change sceptic who claims to have revised his thinking while working for the oil and gas giant, Woodside, before entering Parliament. ''At Woodside I became acquainted with the business case for managing climate issues and I became more aware of the work that underpinned the science,'' he said.
In a further sign of the value Labor is placing on winning the battle for western Sydney, Jason Clare was the other elevation to cabinet, with no addition to his portfolio of Justice, Home Affairs and cabinet secretary.
The biggest expansion of title was in the new job of Minister for Trade and Competitiveness, Craig Emerson. To his duties, Dr Emerson has added Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research.
Tony Burke has had Arts added to Environment and Sustainability.
Ballarat MP Catherine King, South Australian senator Don Farrell, Queensland senator Jan McLucas, and NSW MP Sharon Bird join the outer ministry
Green groups criticised the Climate Change Department being absorbed into the Department of Industry and Innovation.
with Jonathan Swan
