Christopher Pearson - Blustering Barnacles

Bluster won't cover scandal

• CHRISTOPHER PEARSON   The Australian     December 01, 2012 

THE tagline for Steven Spielberg's Jaws 2 was: "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water ... " For Julia Gillard this week, beset by disaster at every turn, it was a case of just when she thought it was safe to go back in to the caucus.

Not only did the Australian Workers Union slush fund scandal continue to dog her, but the Prime Minister endured a near-death experience over support for Palestinian statehood and the party schism it revealed.
Gillard and her allies have thought themselves on the front foot in recent weeks, since her much-vaunted misogyny speech. Polling has improved only from portending annihilation to the prospect of a clear loss, but it has led to a misplaced confidence that the only way is up. A string of feel-good announcements with no tangible funding commitments added to growing optimism.
Last time the AWU slush fund scandal surfaced, Gillard came out fighting with a press conference and the speech that made the so-called gender wars front and centre. We saw a repeat performance this week.
A feisty press conference was supposed to lay all questions to rest, backed up by Greens leader Christine Milne and a chorus of Labor MPs and ministers invoking sexism and smear as the root cause of the trouble.
But this time there is a palpable difference in the scale of the damage to Gillard's integrity. Union figures including former AWU boss Bill Shorten and former ACTU chief Bill Kelty all but abandoned her publicly, moving to protect the AWU and the union movement at her expense. There was the sense that if Gillard is going to be brought down, better that the broader labour movement not suffer too.
The reaction to the admission by Julie Bishop that she had met briefly one of the principal players in the slush fund debacle spoke volumes. An almost hysterical bellow by Labor reflected the fears festering in cabinet and caucus. Bishop's brief conversations with Ralph Blewitt were suddenly the real crime. It was apparently of no moment that Gillard had dealings with the two alleged fraudsters across many years. Talking to one of them for 10 minutes was trumpeted as the genuine transgression.
Anyone paying attention to the affair will have noted the Prime Minister's carefully couched words about her off-file services provided to two union officials who set up a dodgy association and accompanying slush fund.
Gillard has been eager to answer questions at a press conference, where the consequences of misleading journalists are trifling, and avoid answering the same questions in the house. She couldn't even bring herself to give a straightforward answer about a power of attorney she witnessed enabling the purchase of her then boyfriend's house in the name of his bagman.
It was a repeat of her tactics in August. With the document trail slowly unravelling and a police investigation under way, it is wishful thinking to imagine that bluster can make this issue go away.
Most extraordinary in a tumultuous week were the late-night machinations concerning a UN resolution, which resulted in a humiliating backdown by the PM in caucus. No doubt the question of Palestinian representation at the UN is an important issue for Australians of Middle Eastern origins. For it to be the question that almost derailed a prime minister shows how far confidence has fallen in Gillard's leadership.
A variety of reports in this paper and in the Fairfax press detailed how it all unfolded. Gillard had decided to follow Australia's longstanding bipartisan policy on the Palestinian question. We support a two-state solution, but one that recognises it is a two-way street. Israel has the right to exist in peace and to defend itself against aggression. A no vote on the question of de facto representation of the Palestinian state at the UN is entirely consistent with Australia's policy and that of our allies, the US and Israel.
She made the logical decision to instruct the Australian ambassador to the UN to vote no. But when she took the issue to cabinet, there was a revolt and most of the cabinet disagreed. It was only by insisting on the convention that the prime minister's position carries the day that Gillard could get her way. If the head of government is rolled in cabinet it's likely to be their last cabinet meeting as leader.
Having survived with her preferred outcome barely intact, she quickly found she could not walk into caucus and be confident of holding the line. It appears the behind-the-scenes lobbying for a change in Australian policy by Foreign Minister Bob Carr and former prime minister Bob Hawke had considerable effect.
Labor has slowly drifted away from steady support for Israel. This has been the cause of considerable alarm in sections of the Right of the party, particularly MPs in Melbourne with large numbers of Jewish voters.
What is not clear is how much the internal intrigues of the party are responsible for this week's events. Ethnically based branch-stacking has long been the path to power in NSW and Victoria. We don't know to what degree the drift of support against Israel is inspired by the factional interests of left-wing warlords who rely on Turkish, Lebanese and other Muslim communities for the numbers in their party branches.
However, we do know Carr was instrumental in the decision to abstain from the UN resolution. It's uncertain whether this was a reversion to past form as a NSW premier, concerned to maximise the Labor vote in Muslim centres in Sydney, or a positioning for broad support in caucus. His repeated assertions that the whole thing was a triumph for Gillard rang hollow when it was clear his intrigues had prevailed. It has been a very bad week for the Prime Minister and a good one for Carr and Shorten, two of the leading pretenders to her throne.