The next election is lost.
What the Prime Minister is doing now in her fury and selfish desperation is making Labor unelectable at the following election as well.
The past week proved what damage Gillard is doing to Labor.
With no justification, she is trying to impose government control on the free press, apparently to punish her critics.
Labor, the party of censorship.
She again played the victim, falsely vilifying Opposition Leader Tony Abbott as "misogynist Tony" in Parliament.
Labor, the party of division and victim politics.
She allowed frontbencher Anthony Albanese to again slur Tony Abbott by once more asserting "in your guts, you know he's nuts".
Labor, the party of abuse.
She repeated her rabble-rousing attacks on temporary 457 visas for skilled foreign workers, here to do jobs Australians can't fill, by portraying them as job-stealers.
Labor, the party of xenophobia.
She claimed a big rise in new jobs last month as proof of her economic success, even after the Australian Bureau of Statistics warned a statistical fluke had exaggerated the true rise by about 100 per cent.
Labor, the party of deceit.
All that in just one week.
These are not just examples of practical incompetence, but of moral failings.
This is more damaging in Labor's longer term than even Gillard's repeated examples of mismanagement, not least her disastrous failure to stem boat people arrivals, now running at 1000 more than at the same time last year, itself a record.
This is what Labor must now realise: dumping Gillard is no longer about merely saving Labor seats at the next election; it is about saving Labor's good name.
Gillard has made the same mistake as so many arrogant leaders: confusing her own interests with those of her party, even those of the country.
She apparently thinks anything that helps her to survive also helps Labor.
It is not so. Gillard is, in fact, trashing Labor's brand, stripping it of the moral authority the next Labor leader will need to rebuild the party Gillard is decimating.
It was already bad enough for Gillard's successor that she - with predecessor Kevin Rudd's enormous help - has already trashed the reputation of financial responsibility Labor painfully won back after the Gough Whitlam disaster.
The surplus she promised to deliver this year - "no ifs, no buts", "failure is not an option" - will now become yet another huge deficit, which is not just bad for the country. It is also bad for Labor.
FORMER prime ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating fought to challenge the stereotype of Labor being the party of mad-spending Budget wreckers.
But Gillard has now endorsed that stereotype, going into the election broke but still promising massive new welfare spending with borrowed money.
But Gillard has now endorsed that stereotype, going into the election broke but still promising massive new welfare spending with borrowed money.
Her successor will have to start all over again to persuade voters their money really is safe with Labor.
He or she will also have to undo the damage done by Gillard's craven appeasement of the unions which, through the numbers they control in the parliamentary party, have so far kept her in office.
The sops she's offered those unions in the past month - attacking foreign workers, promising to enshrine penalty rates in law, expanding union rights of entry and imposing more compulsory arbitration of disputes - make not only Gillard seem a captive of unions, but Labor, too.
Again Gillard is destroying years of work by Labor reformers.
Ever since Whitlam was kept waiting outside a room by the "faceless men" deciding his party's policies, those reformers have fought to make the party seem more independent of union bosses.
Ever since Whitlam was kept waiting outside a room by the "faceless men" deciding his party's policies, those reformers have fought to make the party seem more independent of union bosses.
Gillard now makes Labor seem once more the toy of the faceless men.
But far worse than returning Labor to its wastrel, union-dominated past is that Gillard is destroying its moral appeal.
Consider the shock of Kerrie Kahlon, Young Labor's national president, to find Labor trying to put the free press under government control.
"(Labor) is pursuing a regulatory act that would breach fundamentally the liberal ideal of a free press," Kahlon protested yesterday.
"For the many members of the Labor Party at a youth level who are strong advocates of civil liberties, the abridgment of these freedoms should never be an election issue."
Is this really the party Labor MPs joined? One that under Julia Gillard will shackle our freedoms, demonise foreigners, divide Australians and resort to abuse and deceit simply to save the job of a hopelessly incompetent Prime Minister?
Shame on them all. And pity the rest of us.
Ben Fordham's 2GB interview with the Prime Minister demonstrates the venom, nastiness, and feisty determination of Labor to destroy its hope of returning to government in the near future. The problem is that, similar to the Queensland scenario, most of the current opposition do not really want to be in power. Campbell Newman seems to want to be there, but many of his team don't, It is much more comfortable in Opposition and that is a disgrace.
And a classic Pickering Post ...
The media Bills were indelibly tied to Gillard's survival.
Their execution was an exercise in stupidity and an expose on how inept this Government really is. Conroy exemplifies this ineptitude.
It doesn't matter who wins this contest, he or she or some other, the ALP are crippled beyond recovery and an early June election is now likely.
It is impossible for either to govern from now on and the Independents now know that.
Rudd, if elected Leader of the ALP, will be utilised only to drag the Party to another election.
If he is successful, that will be his only role as many of the front Bench will resign their Ministries.
Gillard will not lay down, ever. Her shooting of the messenger, Simon Crean, is testament to her brash defiance.
She will not accept that what she did to Rudd can in turn be done to her, but that is what is happening.
When Julia finally crawls into bed early tomorrow morning she can muse over how she arrived at this point.
The coup de gras was inadvertently administered by none other than her closest ally, Stephen Conroy.
Within an hour of Conroy's media Bills being pulled, Simon Crean had pulled the trigger on Gillard.
It is ironic that the ALP installed the hated Rudd for the 2007 election, then sacked him.
Now they need him again to win another election.
Of course he can't, but this time he might save some furniture.
http://pickeringpost.com/article/conroy-buries-gillard/1028
And a classic Pickering Post ...
Their execution was an exercise in stupidity and an expose on how inept this Government really is. Conroy exemplifies this ineptitude.
It doesn't matter who wins this contest, he or she or some other, the ALP are crippled beyond recovery and an early June election is now likely.
It is impossible for either to govern from now on and the Independents now know that.
Rudd, if elected Leader of the ALP, will be utilised only to drag the Party to another election.
If he is successful, that will be his only role as many of the front Bench will resign their Ministries.
Gillard will not lay down, ever. Her shooting of the messenger, Simon Crean, is testament to her brash defiance.
She will not accept that what she did to Rudd can in turn be done to her, but that is what is happening.
When Julia finally crawls into bed early tomorrow morning she can muse over how she arrived at this point.
The coup de gras was inadvertently administered by none other than her closest ally, Stephen Conroy.
Within an hour of Conroy's media Bills being pulled, Simon Crean had pulled the trigger on Gillard.
It is ironic that the ALP installed the hated Rudd for the 2007 election, then sacked him.
Now they need him again to win another election.
Of course he can't, but this time he might save some furniture.
http://pickeringpost.com/article/conroy-buries-gillard/1028
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