Australia General Discussion

[Knives]

My question is who becomes opposition leader?

[Phony Moderate]

My question is who becomes opposition leader?

I think it'll be someone incredibly dull, such as Stephen Smith perhaps (if he keeps his seat).

[morgieb]

Swan if he keeps the seat.

Otherwise? Smith makes sense.

[RogueBeaver]

Turnbull and Swan are informally floating republic proposals. Not that I think Round 2 will be happening anytime soon.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

It always ends up happening on royal anniversaries... since today is the 60th anniversary of the Queen's coronation, I expected it.

It's funny, the support for the Monarchy is strongest in the old and the young. I can't imagine any Republican option having a prayer until the Queen's death, even then... the moment was the late 90s and the Republican side screwed themselves.

Reading the comments, they seemed to be 40+ leftists saying "cut the apron strings" and everyone else saying... "why?"

15-20 years time, give me a yell...

[tik 🪀✨]

Julia just got Julia'd, and a slew of MP's have announced they won't run for re-election. I hope the debate changes drastically now, I'm so tired of hearing about this.. though I'm eating it up at the moment. If it were just my speculation in play, people would have even less confidence in Labour. Still would take them over Mr. Rabbit

[RogueBeaver]

The once and future PM will have a winter job. Switch leaders based on polls (or at least that's the reason Shorten gave) whose own authors said were based on a fantasy scenario.

[tik 🪀✨]

Winning the upcoming election, or at least dampening the blow, was always a fantasy scenario. Might as well shoot for the stars. Personally I was hoping for some rogue third candidate to contest and win. That would have been exciting.

[Smid]

Abbott the only leader brave enough to take questions. Abbott = real leader, real solutions.

[Hash]

The ALP continues to be a massive embarrassment and piece of fail, though I'd still take KRudd over that slimy reactionary.

[Leftbehind]

Yeah, even the clowns in Labor still piss all over Abbott from an astronomical height.

[MaxQue]

I'll still take the one which isn't a crazy fundamentalist.

[RogueBeaver]

Election will be moved up to August as expected, we don't know when yet. Dissolution in a couple of weeks.

[Mr. Morden]

So after the bloodbath of resignations in the Cabinet, who is the current favorite to succeed Rudd as ALP leader if the party still loses badly in the election?  I presume folks like Combet still might come back and contest the leadership in three months?

[Хahar 🤔]

My guess would be that Crean would be a player, but it looks like 2013 hasn't really been good for him, particularly now that he's lost the Deputy Leader election (and by a wider margin than Gillard's loss).

[Mr. Morden]

Is Wayne Swan retiring from politics altogether and not contesting his seat again?  I've heard contradictory things today.

[Platypus]

Abbott the only leader brave enough to take questions. Abbott = real leader, real solutions.

Shame he can't actually ask them on matters of importance.

Milne did too, btw.

[Platypus]

Is Wayne Swan retiring from politics altogether and not contesting his seat again?  I've heard contradictory things today.

He's said he's contesting his seat, but will not be on the frontbench under Rudd.

[Peter the Lefty]

I never thought I'd feel so sorry for Gillard, but suddenly I do.  It was an extremely slimy thing to do, stabbing Gillard in the back after she restored humility and gentility to the party's leadership (by all accounts, she treated her cabinet far better than Rudd did), and now they've stabbed her because they want to lose by a smaller margin.  Slimebuckets. 

And while I'm on a rant: Gillard, despite all her faults, has been a far better PM than Rudd was.  Australians have no idea how lucky they are to have an economy as healthy as the one they have compared to the rest of the world.  And while I'm not one to use the "bigotry" card easily, it's obvious that if Gillard were a man, her poll numbers would be far higher, probably higher than Rudd's. 

*Deep breaths, deep breaths*

[RogueBeaver]

We'l probably agree to disagree, but gender isn't why Labor's in extremis. Leadership- live and die by the sword. She knifed Rudd and he knifed her back. That said, I agree that dumping her for the reason you mentioned is total BS.

[Peter the Lefty]

Okay, let me rephrase what I said.  Gillard's government is a trainwreck, no doubt about it.  But considering that basically every government in the world right now is a trainwreck, hers is actually probably the most minor one.  And the Aussie economy is a miracle compared to others in the world right now.  She at least deserves a bit of credit for that.  And even if she were a man, I'm still certain that she'd be behind Tony Abbott in the polls.  But she'd have better numbers than Rudd does.

[Peter the Lefty]

Rather tearjerking thing to watch.
http://m.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/in-depth/your-father-would-be-proud-rob-oakeshott-tells-julia-gillard/story-fnhqeu0x-1226670902348

[RogueBeaver]

Rudd will announce his new Cabinet in a couple of hours. No word on when they'll be sworn in. Here's an interesting read from Carney on Gillard's premiership.

[Mr. Morden]

Greg Combet is retiring from politics altogether:

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1783804/Greg-Combet-to-retire-from-politics

With all the retirements from anti-Rudd MPs, does Rudd actually stand a good chance of hanging on as ALP leader after the likely Coalition win in the election?

[Peter the Lefty]

With all the retirements from anti-Rudd MPs, does Rudd actually stand a good chance of hanging on as ALP leader after the likely Coalition win in the election?

Hopefully not.  The only reason they returned him to power was to mitigate the scale of their defeat.  They couldn't stand working under him before, and unless he actually has changed, they'll be eager to get rid of him once he's served his purpose of saving some of the furniture.