- From: The Australian
- March 11, 2013
Labor frontbenchers have conceded the Gillard government dragged down the ALP's vote in Western Australia.
Portent (Oz): LABOR'S latest electoral rout has escalated warnings that voters have abandoned the party nationwide and raised new doubts about Julia Gillard's leadership.Bleak: PM a drag on vote.
Into line (Daily Tele): IN a stunning rebuke of a senior minister, the Prime Minister's office yesterday warned Stephen Smith to tone down his comments after he said federal Labor had been a "drag on" the WA branch.
Enough already (West Oz): Labor's thumping loss in the state election has sparked calls for Julia Gillard to fall on her sword, with party insiders saying the ALP's toxic federal brand undoubtedly cost Mark McGowan several seats.
Timbo: The Prime Minister's office was nervous last week about Kate Legge's upcoming story on Tim Mathieson for the The Weekend Australian Magazine. (Legge had been talking to sports administrators and public servants, among others, hearing he was a "shameless" lover of freebies and "seriously out of his league".) Anticipating the worst, the PM's press unit swung into action, teeing up a photograph with Fairfax of Mathieson astride a borrowed top-of-the-range BMW motorcycle outside The Lodge. Just the thing to prove he isn't living it up while the rest of us are hard at work. Mathieson will soon lead a charity ride to raise money for a Cambodian orphanage.
Cruel world: Life can seem so unkind, as former WA Green-turned independent MP Adele Carles learned over the weekend. While her former partner, chair sniffer Troy Buswell, was re-elected comfortably, Carles was mercilessly dumped in her seat of Fremantle after winning just 5 per cent of the vote. It's thought the result is the worst-ever for a sitting member.
Home truths: The West Australian election result will intensify the growing sense of panic in Labor's ranks federally. With a Newspoll due out this week, anything could happen. Julia Gillard will have to make some comment on the WA result. We're betting she isn't as candid as Stephen Smith was. He said the Gillard government had been a "drag" on WA Labor, and "there's no doubt that we haven't been helpful". No kidding.
Och, aye: Former WA Labor member Alannah MacTiernan was less restrained, saying there was no doubt WA voters didn't see Julia Gillard as a leader. "I don't want to be horrible ... (but) you can't be a leader when people don't want you as their leader," she said. We can only imagine what the PM's spin meister John McTernan might have made of the comments, coming from someone who might just be a distant relative.
Sober: Gillard government frontbencher and WA MP Gary Gray said the lesson of the WA poll was federal Labor must not panic. "Premier Barnett, the Liberal party, and the National party were able to work together in harmony by not sniping internally, by not back-biting, by remaining focused on good government and good governance. And focusing on that, rather than themselves." He urged his colleagues to view this week's Newspoll calmly, and reiterated Julia Gillard would lead the government to the election.
Finger pointing: Labor's politicised crackdown on 457 visas wouldn't have helped its WA result. The West depends on foreign labour, but Labor is pursuing its anti-foreigner campaign with Western Sydney in mind. Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor yesterday claimed the 457 scheme, run by Labor for the past five years, was unenforceable. "There is no capacity for us to properly test the claims made by employers that the job that they're identifying is genuine," he told Insiders. The government is effectively accusing itself of incompetence.
Silky smooth political skills there, champ.
