Noon From the AFR:
Senior Labor minister Simon Crean has brought the Labor leadership issue to a head, calling on Prime Minister Julia Gillard to call a spill of all leadership positions and, if not, called on the Caucus to petition her to do so.
He has called on Mr Rudd to stand for the leadership, saying he is sick of the former prime minister playing games.
He says a change of leadership alone will not resolve the issue and that what the public wants is for the party to show leadership.
“It seems to me the party and the government is in stalemate and something needs to be done to break the deadlock and resolve the issue once and for all and enable us to get along with the job of campaigning for Labor values”, Mr Crean tells a press conference.
Crean said he would stand only for deputy and called for caucus to force the spill if the Prime Minister resists.
Looks like it’s risk awwwn.
2pm Gillard has called for a vote at 4.30.
2.30 From the AFR:
Laura Tingle reports the latest numbers estimate from the Gillard camp: Gillard 58, Rudd 35, undecided 9.
2.44 I notice a lot of comments about who is going to win. It’s already over. If he doesn’t win today, Rudd will continue to destabilise and kill the government’s polling until they have no choice, a la Keating. Something Costello never had the cojones for.
3.20pm Julia Gillard has stripped Simon Crean of his ministerial responsibilities. One hour of revenge, anyway.
3.33 The SMH poll is in no doubt:
4.23 ABS sees numbers this way (Gillard on the left):
| Swan Feeney Shorten Bradbury Combet Perrett Mitchell Ludwig Conroy Danby D’arth Dreyfus Emerson Evans Farrell L Ferguson Garrett Gray Leigh O’Neill Plibersek Rishworth Ripoll Roxon Lundy Grierson Wong | Marles Albanese Jones Stevens Furner Hall Saffin Griffin Byrne Fitzgibbon Smyth Bowen Brodtmann Cameron K Carr Champion Crean Crossin Elliott Faulkner M Ferguson Husic Kelly McClelland |
4.18 Christ, from the AFR, Rudd says:
Kevin Rudd has come out of his office. He said he would not be standing for the leadership.
…“I am here to inform you that those circumstances do not exist and therefore in the absence of any such draft, notwithstanding what Simon Crean said this morning, I am adhering to the commitment I gave to the Australian people and my parliamentary colleagues.”
4.30 Comment: Rudd is going to win this. The party will have no choice in the end but to ask him on its knees to return. The polls are not yet bad enough. But they will be.
