I really *really* hope you are right about the Australian public.

After watching Labor get slaughtered here in Queensland, then observed the cries of anguish and betrayal when they proceeded to gut the public service.

I hope the "You're either on the bus or you're under it" attitude isn't forgotten before September, and I hope the public have learned not to trust a party that only plays the game of politics rather than run the country - something both are guilty of, but one does almost exclusively.

For Ben,
I doubt the Queensland experience will be forgotten for a long time and when people look back at where the bus went with Beattie and Bligh for those that were on it, many will always remember how they were run over for many years and wonder just how or why did they let it happen.

The same thing has happened with Rudd and Gillard in less than six years and thankfully people remember that there were better days when John Howard may have been long in the tooth but at least the country was being run very well.

Just so you know, I have no illusions about there needing to be many tough decisions to be made by a new government, many decisions not too appealing but then in the light of ever skyrocketing debt, many people can sensibly understand that you can not go on forever on endless credit.

Susan - the faults of the government are obvious and acknowledged. What commenters here object to is Michell's simplistic, biased, broken record attempts at being a columnist. If she's such a well-connected Canberra politics expert how come she wasn't able to question whether Rudd had the numbers to succeed?

Instead she writes today: "Gillard has once again showed her tactical strength. But if Labor is trounced at the election, history won’t laud how she saw off Rudd this week but condemn the way she left Labor a badly depleted party in the wilderness."

Journalism may be the first draft of history, but this ain't journalism. Historians will probably be interested to what has happened to the ALP in NSW, Queensland and W.A. for example; they may look for all the factors involved rather than blaming one individual. Anne Summers notes that this week marks 1000 days of Julia Gillard as PM - surely an opportunity for a decent journalist to give us a considered piece on her achievements and failures, rather than the tripe dished up by Michelle.

A bit manic there, Susan.

Bowen is unrelated to Lionel. Sadly, Joe Ludwig is not unrelated to Bill

Fred - have you seen much of a cheer squad for Julia here? It's been almost all criticism of Michelle and the MSM for not giving us intelligent journalism. My impression is that there is not a lot of enthusiam for the government (could Bowen, Crean and Ferguson take Swan, Macklin and Conroy with them?) but we would like to see informed analysis of the whole of Australian politics, not gossip about the ALP leadership, over and over.

I really liked a comment by Jake Lynch on another thread - in case you missed it:

"By concentrating purely on process frames, the majority of Australian political journalism constructs an impression that politics takes place in its own hermetically sealed world. Readers and audiences (voters) are not shown or reminded how political debates relate to their own world. That is not politically ‘neutral’ - over time, it eats away at their willingness to invest hope in the capacity of collective action to bring about progressive social change"

In a nutshell, Russell, yes I have seen a Gillard cheer squad here. I suggest you peruse the political threads for yourself.

In regard to the Jake Lynch comment, I would only add that as far as ALP politics goes, it IS taking place in its own world, divorced from the concerns of the rest of us. The recent events are merely the latest demonstration of just how disconnected they have become.

Roll on the election so the Party can get rid of the dead wood, the "unrepresentative swill" that run the show behind the scenes, without whom Gillard would not be in a position to have ballsed things up so comprehensively and the imported liars-for-hire who are her primary source of political advice.

I hope those that remain have the guts to stand up to the standover men and women who run the Party through their control of unearnt voting proxies and the use of threat and intimidation. The pseudo-Stalinist brutalism that is the trademark of Gillard and her backroom backstabbers has already done enough damage.

I agree with you on Bowen, Jena. He was a dud in Human Services as well.

I don't agree about Tanner. Whilst a dyed-in-the-wool Party machine man, he was and is a very smart and decent man who got out when he saw the writing on the wall. Can't blame him really, the walls are now crumbling and the writing's all in blood on the floor.

Why did he leave? Because, as Crean demonstrated so clearly, there is no room for smart and especially no room for decent men in a party in which a Gillard can become Parliamentary leader.

"I don't understand why Tanner and Crean could not just weather it out."

Perhaps because they are men of principle?