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• Gillard battles to win voter trust

  thewall.com.au | 9:02 am Feb 23, 2012

  When Julia Gillard came to the Labor leadership on June 24, 2010, she promised to turn around "a good government that lost its way".

  As deputy leader to Kevin Rudd, Gillard saw up close the dysfunction and chaos at the heart of the government.

  She became a sounding board for complaints from ministers, backbenchers and senior public servants cheesed off with the way Rudd held presidential-style control over the government, chastised and badgered those under him and kept all but a small clique in the dark.

  With the shine well and truly wearing off, Rudd's appeal with the voting public was also fading.

  Labor's primary vote in opinion polls had dropped to 35 per cent, from 43.3 per cent at the November 2007 "Ruddslide" election.

  Internal ALP marginal seat research showed a potential loss of between 23 and 30 seats at the upcoming 2010 election.

  Voters had become dissatisfied with Rudd as his emissions trading scheme floundered, the mining industry defeated him over the profits tax, he shifted to the Right on asylum seeker policy and Tony Abbott was starting to make an impact as opposition leader.

  Gillard held "frank exchanges about the circumstances of the government" with Rudd, before clinically seizing the leadership with the backing of NSW and Victorian powerbrokers.

  She knocked back Rudd's last-minute plea to give him four months to rebuild public trust and support and he stepped aside knowing the caucus numbers were against him.

  Australia's 27th prime minister took little time setting an agenda to deliver on what Rudd could not.

  On her eighth day in office Gillard declared she had a deal with the biggest miners on a new version of the super profits tax.

  She also outlined a new approach to asylum seeker policy, dismissing the "extreme, emotionally charged claims and counter claims" in the debate.

  Both Gillard and Abbott made themselves small targets in the August 21 election that followed and voters reacted to the campaign with anger, frustration and confusion - delivering the first hung parliament in 70 years.

  The Labor campaign was damaged almost beyond repair by leaks to the media, which have been sheeted home to Rudd and his backers.

  After 17 days of arm-wrestling, the Greens and independents sided with Labor and signed agreements worth around $10 billion which have since tied the government in knots.

  One of the promises, to form a multi-party climate change committee, led to Gillard breaking an election vow which has dogged her ever since: that there would be no carbon tax.

  Labor's primary vote hit 30 per cent in March 2011 when Gillard made it clear the promise would be broken and it has hovered there ever since.

  Gillard gave Rudd his preferred portfolio of foreign affairs, as well as rewarding her coup backers such as Bill Shorten and Mark Arbib with ministries.

  Deals with East Timor and Papua New Guinea on offshore processing of asylum seekers were trumpeted, and then came to nought.

  A third option - signing a deal with Malaysia - has been killed off by the High Court, opposition and the Greens.

  The health of the Murray-Darling river basin emerged as a hot button issue for the government, with farmers burning copies of a draft guide to the basin plan in anger over having their water allocations cut.

  Gillard sent in her point-man, Regional Affairs Minister Simon Crean, to get the process back on track and a new chief was appointed to the Murray Darling Basin Authority, but the issue continues to simmer.

  In a deal which was to bite the coalition later, Abbott reneged on overhauling parliamentary rules and providing a "pair" for the Speaker, in order to retain the numbers on the floor.

  The speaker Harry Jenkins at the end of 2011 went to the backbench, replaced by Peter Slipper who quit the Liberal party to become an independent and give the government an extra vote buffer.

  But Gillard lost the extra vote when she reneged on a deal with independent Andrew Wilkie on poker machine reform - hailed by nervous backbenchers as a rod off their backs.

  Gillard's first foray into foreign policy was tentative - given the choice, she said, she'd swap meeting 11 world leaders in a day to watch "kids learn to read" at a school.

  But she soon took a liking to summits and developed a strong friendship with US President Barack Obama.

  Despite warming to many aspects of the job Gillard, who has held the Victorian seat of Lalor since 1998, has been unable to sell her government's achievements and plans to the public.

  She's also made several bad calls: using the baffling phrase "we are us" at the ALP national conference in December; the Australia Day riot debacle which led to a staffer resigning; and a floundering performance in an ABC Four Corners program on Labor.

  While she's comfortable with negotiating and glad-handing small groups, she has failed to come across to voters as trustworthy - taking Labor's vote back to the levels at or below the darkest days of Rudd.

  Rudd's wife Therese Rein underlined this as a point of difference when on Thursday she talked about two Australias - one that haunts the hallowed halls of Parliament House and the other "on the street".

  "What ordinary people tell me is that they trust Kevin and they respect him," she says.

  If there is one thing going against Gillard as she heads into Monday's leadership ballot it is this issue of trust, but she's happy to stand on her record.

  The crossbench independents and Greens have applauded her for managing to hold the minority government together.

  It's true, the government has passed important legislation and been able to function.

  But the perception that Gillard "sold out" to the Greens on major issues such as the carbon tax remains.

• ALP leadership spill: it’s on

  crikey.com.au | 5:47 am Feb 23, 2012

  Duncan Kennedy at the BBC offered some analysis of the situation:The speculation about Kevin Rudd’s future has been the political story of Australia’s summer and about as stormy. The “will-he-or-won’t-he-go” brigade have been filling radio and television…

Most Popular Tweets (9)

• @Drag0nista I think Therese Rein would be a preferable candidate.

  @Andys280500 - Andrew Skehan
  

  8:40 am Feb 23, 2012
• Therese Rein, no one is buying your act: 'Sometimes I think there are two Australias' - no bitch, there's only one! #auspol #respill

  @the_blc - The Real BLC
  

  8:13 am Feb 23, 2012
• David Cameron and No 10 are losing their grip on the reins of power - Telegraph http://t.co/sxajFuz2 via @Telegraph

  @robindbrant - Robin Brant
  

  8:06 am Feb 23, 2012
• Therese Rein urges people to contact their Labor MPs and Senators http://t.co/ZMjjZ3Pp

  @TheRuddAlliance - The Rudd Alliance
  

  6:04 am Feb 23, 2012
• Don't speak for me Therese Rein.

  @lala_lauren - lauren
  

  12:59 am Feb 23, 2012
• @lasty52 Therese Rein can just see more juicy & sexy JobStart contracts around the corner. Doesn't matter she's Rudd's wife, right? #auspol

  @journo_realdeal - journo_realdeal
  

  12:31 am Feb 23, 2012
• @samanthamaiden Expect @swannydpm to come out and attack Therese Rein. now People I have spoken to to-day disgusted with Swan

  @littleaud1 - Littleaud
  

  12:08 am Feb 23, 2012
• Therese Rein on Nine now

  @meadea - amanda meade
  

  11:45 pm Feb 22, 2012
• I understand Therese Rein called Tim Mathieson at 1.20am Washington time and told him she no longer serve as his apprentice hairdresser

  @James_L_Bennett - James Bennett
  

  9:11 pm Feb 22, 2012