Is this Gillard's biggest mistake?

By Graham Cooke

The decision by Julia Gillard to head into an election campaign less than a month after becoming Prime Minister is beginning to look like the biggest mistake of her political career.

As well as Australia's first woman Prime Minister, she is in serious danger of becoming one of shortest-lived.

At the time of writing the Tony Abbott-led Coalition, while not exactly having the Government on the run, has certainly seized the initiative. There is still plenty of time for Labor to pull back the lost ground, but any thoughts of a comfortable cruise into a second term have evaporated.

The early election strategy revolved around two major factors: Capitalising on the honeymoon period a new Prime Minister normally receives and enthusiasm for the fact a woman held the office for the first time.

It seems the honeymoon has failed to survive the blistering spotlight of an election campaign, while the expected support for a woman PM among woman voters has not crystallised - at least not yet.

Instead, the man she deposed, Kevin Rudd, has become a factor, with many potential Labor voters turned off by the ruthless way he was deposed in the wake of significant, but far from catastrophic falls in his popularity rating.

Add to the number of leaks and counter-leaks springing from the Labor camp and the Opposition is successfully portraying Gillard as an opportunist who doesn't have the full confidence of her own party, let alone the electorate.

Hindsight is wonderful, but had she waited until later in the year - the end of November or even early December - the Rudd 'assassination' would have faded in the public's memory.

As I said, Labor can still turn it around. A key factor will be Rudd, and how he conducts himself when he returns to the campaign trail after his gall bladder operation. Unqualified support for Gillard and a willingness to campaign for her nationally, will be a major plus.

But as things stand the Coalition must be seriously contemplating a return to government that would have been unthinkable less than a year ago.

Gillard caves in to reactionaries

By Graham Cooke

The Australian Labor Government's new policy on asylum seekers is a bitter disappointment.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has caved in to reactionary forces and produced a position that is little different from what existed under the previous Howard Government.

Instead of the Pacific Solution we have the Timor Sea Solution.

It is to be hoped that the proposal will be roundly rejected by the Government of East Timor and that it will not give in to the financial inducements that will inevitably be offered to allow a 'Regional Processing Facility' to be set up on its soil.

In a prime example of the spin employed by governments of all persuasions these days that Gillard has attempted to dress up this objectionable plan as a way of halting the people smuggling trade, while trying to hide it behind the announcement that processing will begin again on asylum seekers from Sri Lanka.

The Coalition and Labor are now engaged in a disreputable race to the bottom, with eyes firmly fixed on how their pronouncements play out in the opinion polls. The concept that governments provide leadership on the important issues of the day is dead.

The sad fact is that this is really a non-issue. As the prominent lawyer, Julian Burnside, has pointed out, even at the current rate of arrivals, it would take 20 years to fill the Melbourne Cricket Ground with boat people.

The problems existing in some of the outer suburbs of our major cities are real, but they are caused by poor planning and incompetent local authorities, not by asylum seekers arriving by boat.

We are entering a new and dangerous era in Australian politics where opinion polls and the pronouncements of populist media shock jocks form government policy and, therefore, the way we live our lives.

A not so brave new world.