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Washington and Corporate Lackey Oz PM Gillard Rejected by Australia
by baz - The Age Monday, Feb 18 2013, 10:37am
international / prose / post

One can only wonder what disease paralyses the Oz Labor Party; corporate loving, carbon tax, five full scale US bases with occupation troops on our soil, plus a record of attempting to grant sweeping eaves-dropping powers to Corporate bosses to spy on the private emails and other private digital communications of employees and her gut loosening speech delivered to the US Congress professing her undying allegiance to an American regime that brags of 'kill lists', 'indefinite detention' and murdering innocent civilians -- but the icing on this fetid cake is yet to come, it's her complete incompetence (mining tax) and total disconnect with the local population that makes her about as popular as a leper at a vegetarian dinner party!

Juliar Gillard is clearly the most reviled PM Oz has ever endured; many leaders have been disliked but none have been so comprehensively hated as is Gillard. Aussies have long memories, especially for leaders that contemptuously stab them in the back.

There is no doubt in the minds of objective political analysts that Gillard is responsible for all the devastating defeats Labor has suffered at State elections -- she is about to repeat her voodoo charm at the Federal level if her party fails to face stark REALITY.

Gillard's tenure in office has been characterised by her insularity, corporate servility, kow-towing to Washington and completely disregarding the Oz masses and national interests -- allowing the yanks to establish 5 full scale bases at strategic locations around our coast has made once nuclear neutral Australia a prime nuclear target; we can't thank Juliar enough!

Story from the Melbourne Age follows:

Labor's critical question: time for a new leader?
Editorial

IN MARCH 1971, The Age called for the prime minister to resign. We argued the ruling Liberal Party ''must have a new leader and the nation must have a new prime minister''. The Coalition government, under John Gorton, was embroiled in a crisis arising from the resignation of defence minister Malcolm Fraser, who declared Mr Gorton was ''not fit to be Prime Minister''. The Age argued then that the government lacked ''direction, good management and confidence in its prime minister''.

It is rare for any news organisation to call for a prime minister to resign. It is a serious call, one warranted only by exceptional circumstances.

Circumstances today are certainly not as extreme as they were in 1971. Yet the Labor government under Julia Gillard is finding itself under intense pressure. Is the government in crisis? Not sufficiently so for The Age to call for the Prime Minister to resign, but Ms Gillard and her party face crucial decisions about where her government and, more generally, the Labor Party go just seven months away from the federal election. They face a salutary, if dispiriting, period in opposition.

No government should be driven by polls, but it is perilous to disregard them. The latest The Age/Nielsen poll is impossible to ignore. It reflects voters' deep disenchantment with the Gillard government after a catastrophic start to the year. A series of political misjudgments, gaffes and poor timing, culminating in revelations last week about the inept handling of the mining tax, have left the government bruised and the electorate bewildered. How much worse can it get?

The polls indicate that, if an election were held now, the Labor Party would be comprehensively defeated. On a two-party preferred basis, Labor has 44 per cent voter support and the Coalition 56 per cent. So, can Labor come back from here? And can it do so with Ms Gillard as leader?

In June 2010, when Ms Gillard replaced prime minister Kevin Rudd in a brutal internal coup, she said the change was necessary because ''I believed that a good government was losing its way''. She argued the Rudd government ''did not do all it said it would do, and at times it went off track'', handily deferring her own responsibility for that government's record. Two months later, Ms Gillard only just managed to return Labor to government with the support of three independents. Her government's fragile grip on power has been reflected in its erratic performance.

Most woeful has been the Gillard government's consummate failure to devise an effective mining tax - a tax which, to be clear, 60 per cent of Australians support, according to The Age/Nielsen poll. Ms Gillard hung out her leadership shingle on this tax. The Prime Minister, along with Treasurer Wayne Swan and Resources Minister Martin Ferguson, were roundly trumped by BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata on this. If the tax has not reaped what the ministers expected, they have only themselves to blame. This was a vital policy initiative; its failure is not merely a slip-up but evidence of incompetence.

Labor has been further battered by allegations of corruption inside the NSW Right and, separately, the former Labor and now independent MP, Craig Thomson has been charged with multiple counts of fraud.

Labor's problems can only be a happy distraction for Liberal leader Tony Abbott. The Coalition has been getting a free ride. As the alternative government, it is obliged to cost its policies, which enables proper debate at a parliamentary level. But as the government fumbles, it seems the Coalition does not have to do anything, except stand still, to win the support of voters. This is not good for democracy.

If Labor hopes to retain power after September 14, the parliamentary Labor Party must make hard decisions now. The most important will be who leads it. Ms Gillard once said that as Prime Minister ''there will be some days I delight you, there may be some days I disappoint you''. There have been far too many of the latter.

Does this mean the only solution for Labor is a return to Mr Rudd? The difficulty for the party in this option is that his flaws as a leader have already been exposed, and very publicly. He may be a more popular option, according to the polls, but what credibility will he have on the campaign trail?

What Labor really needs is a third plausible option, someone with the strength and political acumen to carry the party through what may be a lengthy period in opposition.

© 2013 Fairfax Media

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/editorial/labors-critical-question-time-for-a-new-leader-20130218-2enr7.html