Don’t laugh - but Julia Gillard is staking her leadership on her abilities as a salesperson.
The prime minister is gambling that she can sell voters on the idea that all asylum seeker boat arrivals from now on are Tony Abbott’s fault.
She thinks she can be more successful at this than Abbott will be in trying to foist the blame on to her and the Government every time another group of boat people disembarks on Christmas Island.
But sadly, if Gillard’s performance since she became PM is any guide, she is dreaming.
Despite the media training she received recently, her manner has not become discernably less wooden. And her broken election promise on a carbon tax has trashed her credibility.
Abbott, on the other hand, is a slippery but very effective salesman.
People seem prepared to buy just about anything he says, and when he backtracks or contradicts himself on an issue - as he does so often - they buy that too. If they buy Abbott’s line this time, and reject Gillard’s, the push to return Kevin Rudd to the Labor leadership will be almost irresistible.
And there would be irony in that because Gillard and her backers ruthlessly used the asylum seeker issue as a weapon against Rudd when they ousted him from the prime ministership 15 months ago.
What gave impetus to the anti-Rudd move was a NSW state by-election in the western Sydney electorate of Penrith that saw an extraordinary 24 per cent swing against Labor.
The plotters presented the result as evidence of public concern over asylum seeker boat arrivals and Rudd’s failure to solve the problem. Rudd was gone five days later.
That may well have been in Gillard’s mind yesterday as she fronted the media after news that the navy had intercepted two more boats carrying a total of 126 people.
She knows that, with her plan to send asylum seekers to Malaysia for processing now dead in the water, plenty more boats will be on the way.
Some Labor MPs are scratching their heads.
They understand why Gillard wanted legislation to circumvent the High Court decision that ruled her Malaysian solution invalid. But they wonder why she is pressing ahead when, with both the opposition and the Greens opposing it, defeat on the floor of parliament is certain.
“Masochism,” says one. “All pain and no gain,” says another.
But Gillard wants the Coalition to be seen voting the amendments down.
She believes that will give weight to the proposition that the Government is serious about stopping the boats while Abbott is “the people smugglers’ friend”.
“We will see more boats and Mr Abbott will have to take the responsibility,” Gillard said yesterday.
It is the kind of strategy a top class politician like, say, Paul Keating, would be able to execute to deadly effect.
But Gillard is no Keating.She has got herself into a remarkable position. Not only is the opposition leader able to attack from the right, portraying Labor as soft on border security.
With Gillard so committed to the Malaysian solution, he is now coming at her from the left as well, presenting himself as more compassionate towards refugees.
The hypocrisy of Abbott’s stance - that asylum seekers should only be sent to countries that have signed the United Nations refugee convention - is blatant.
Malaysia is not a signatory, but neither was Nauru when the Howard Government built a processing centre there. And the centrepiece of Abbott’s policy is that, where possible, boats should be towed back to Indonesia - even though that country has not signed the UN convention either.
Abbott has also heard directly from the head of the Immigration Department that the government’s proposal offers a much better chance of stopping the boats than the coalition’s Nauru alternative.
It is clear his priority is to destroy the last vestige of Gillard’s authority, not help the government to counter people smuggling.
The Coalition does not have a monopoly on hypocrisisy, though. The Government is into it too.
Labor used to be adamant that refugee processing should not occur in non-signatory countries. And, as ALP elder statesman John Faulkner made clear at Tuesday’s Caucus meeting, the Malaysian deal is incompatible with the party platform.
There is some talk that, if the crunch comes over Gillard’s leadership, a return to the human rights values implicit in the platform could provide part of the justification for a Rudd restoration.
Rudd’s record on asylum seekers is hardly flash, but on the night Gillard moved against him he did warn against “a lurch to the right”.
That now has resonance with many disillusioned Labor supporters as well as with a significant number of Caucus members.
Abbott’s response to Gillard yesterday was typically aggressive:
This is a pretty desperate prime minister who has lost control of our borders, who has lost control of our detention centres and now is in danger of losing control of the parliament.
A majority of Labor MPs would still like to give Gillard more time to turn Labor’s fortunes around. No challenge is imminent, despite this week’s stirring.
But if Abbott again does a better selling job and wins this latest asylum seeker blame game, it’s likely all bets will be off.
Laurie Oakes is political editor for the Nine Network. His column appears every Saturday in News Ltd newspapers.
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