Stability - hilariously enough - is the word of the day in Canberra as both Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott argue that they are best placed to find a way out of the mess left from Saturday’s election shemozzle.
While much of the horse-trading will come down to policy - that is, arguments over the respective party positions on big issues such as national broadband and the ETS - it will also be determined in equal measure by questions of personality. And the top-shelf sledging and sniping which we’ve seen in the past 36 hours suggests that neither the Labor Party nor the Coalition can credibly promise they will be able to deliver a stable minority government.
The immediate challenge for Labor is to keep a lid on the explosive tensions involving the conduct of national secretary Karl Bitar and factional numbers men and anti-Rudd plotters such as Mark Arbib, who has pulled out of a scheduled appearance o Q and A tonight amid the fallout from Saturday.
Bitar stupidly responded via Twitter a couple of hours ago to a quality spray from former NSW Premier Morris Iemma who said Bitar would be better of “flipping burgers” than running a major political party.
Iemma said Bitar had destroyed four governments in three years - his, the Nathan Rees Government, the Rudd Govermment and now the Gillard Government. Bitar says in his tweet that Iemma is just bitter that the party didn’t back him on power privatisation (which in passing was the one thing which would have saved NSW from the near-insolvency it’s currently in, and may have also paid for that rail link which blew up in federal Labor’s face a couple of weeks ago.)
Even if Labor can manage these tensions, others will emerge. There’s been no word from Kevin Rudd for example as to what he wants in return for remaining a loyal member of a Gillard Government and his negotiating position is now much, much stronger than it would have otherwise been.
But when you look at the Coalition side, things aren’t much better. There are many National Party MPs who would probably prefer being in opposition to cutting a deal with the three ex-Nats Rob Oakeshott, Tony Windsor and Bob Katter. Tactically these Nats might be right - imagine the marketing power for these three independents if they can form government with either of the major parties, win more influence and greater assistance for their communities, and use that in future campaigns to have more independents elected in traditional National Party regional seats.
The language coming from the independents doesn’t auger well for Tony Abbott’s negotiations. Tony Windsor’s quip today that “I ridded myself of two cancers” when he quit both smoking and the National Party in the 1980s sort of says it all.
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