Is Julia Gillard a dead woman walking?

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Preferable to Abbott? The Nielson poll has the opposite, as did the previous Newspoll.

As to who would replace her, there was a flood of money backing Simon Crean last week. He moved from $101 to $11 on two sites, one of which has suspended betting on Labor leadership.

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She's doomed. I'd be surprised if the current parliament even lasts its full term.

I can't see an election being called early (this has been my opinion since, well, since both sides were negotiating with the independents). It's not in Labor's best interests, it's not in the Greens' best interests, and it's certainly not in the best interests of the independents, who will either be unseated, or at the very least lose their balance of power position. A double dissolution requires the passage of legislation in one house, with the same legislation being blocked or unacceptably amended by the other house (and for this to happen with the same piece of legislation a couple of times). With a minority in both houses, I can't see anything passing one house but not the other - I suspect anything will almost certainly fail to pass both houses, or would pass both houses.

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Wilkie's an interesting one... I know he realises that his seat would not return him if he backed Abbott, however he may have painted himself into the corner with the deadline he set for the implementation of compulsory pre-commitment on pokie machines by next year's budget. He could always back away from that, but it seems he's serious enough about the issue that he'd rather lose his seat but feel that he stood up for his beliefs, than not lose his seat but have backed away from the most primary issue for which he stands.

More likely, he'd not necessarily install Abbott as PM, rather advise him that he'd support a no-confidence motion and try to trigger an election. His seat may forgive him for that, although he'd probably still need Liberal preferences to get across the line, and who knows whether or not he'd get them. Regardless, if he decided to try to bring down the Government, it would probably be after the budget, because I can't imagine Hockey wanting to push through Labor's budget (since that would confuse the message of whether or not the Coalition supports the budget), and there would not be time for a newly-installed Liberal Government to write a fresh budget and have it pass both Houses before 1 July, and there would certainly not be time to call an election, have a 36-day campaign (I think that's the minimum length, Constitutionally), wait for the declaration of the poll in all the seats, swear in the new House, introduce new Appropriation Bills and then have them pass both Houses... there's just not enough time to do that. Therefore I can't see the Opposition using a vote against the Budget as a defacto no-confidence motion, nor see them wanting a no-confidence motion prior to the passage of the Budget. After the Budget, there is the winter recess for a couple of months, so the first real chance after Wilkie's deadline for the Government to fall would be August or September, I think, which would only be a couple of months short of full-term anyway (enough so that I don't think it would count as an early election), indeed if there was any rumour surrounding the possibility of that happening, I think the PM would just take a drive up to see the GG before it happened.

I don't have any inside knowledge or anything, that's just my speculation.

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Seriously? Qantas? She got tipped off three hours early that they were grounding flights, refused to call Joyce (who, let's face it, was only doing it so it would go before Fairwork Australia), didn't send I to Fairwork Australia and just generally did nothing, leaving it for the NSW an Victorian state  governments to refer it. If she'd acted in the three hours between finding out and when they were to be grounded, the entire crisis could have been averted. At the very least, she could have phoned Joyce and told him she'd refer it if he postponed the lockout until Monday morning - which would have prevented it. I think it was extremely poorly handled.

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Senators can be PM, and it's happened before, with Gorton iirc. Or McEwen? One of the coalition 60s/70s gang.

Either way, it is highly, highly unlikely that she would be the leader. I haven't seen a specific poll on her favourability ratings, and I doubt one exists, but I'd expect the numbers would be very similar to the government's in general.

Gorton is the correct answer. He was only in the Senate for a brief while as PM, though... He became PM following Holt's disappearance, and then contested the Higgins by-election (which was Holt's seat). This was somewhat easier as he was already a Victorian Senator and therefore on the electoral roll in Victoria (I don't know if he would have been able to contest the seat if he was a Senator in another state, to be a candidate, you must be on the electoral roll and not necessarily in the electorate in which you are a candidate, however there may be a rule that requires you to be on the roll in the same state... probably not, but possibly, my knowledge of the relevant legislation is not that detailed).

Section 64 of the Constitution states that Ministers need not be a Senator or Member of the House of Representatives, and I believe this would extend to the Prime Minister. Okay, okay - I put that somewhat out of context to prove the point, what it specifically says is that if a Minister is not a Senator or Member of the House of Reps, he or she must become one within three months of taking office as a Minister, although the point remains that they could be a Minister for three months, while not serving in the Parliament.

Edit: Going back to the initial question, if Minister Wong seriously wanted to contest for leadership of her party, the indication would be her contesting a House of Reps seat at the next election. You often see Upper House Members with leadership potential be moved down, just as part of a succession plan (which could be ten years off). Bronwyn Bishop is an example - there was talk of her becoming Opposition Leader and she moved from the Senate to HoR, but it never panned out. There are other examples, too, but that's probably one of the more well-known ones.

[Smid]

Interesting speech to the Press Club