| davidrtaylor | Date: Wednesday, 2013-11-13, 0:55 AM | Message # 1 |
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In the Right faction, it was more brutal. Jacinta Collins rise from virtually nowhere to be part of Rudd's leadership team as No4 in the government (even though she voted for Gillard) came to an abrupt finish.Stephen Conroy decided to end his self-imposed exile on the back bench by replacing her as Senate deputy leader. The boys in the Victorian Right couldn't find room <a href=http://varmaandvarma.com/jerseys.html>Wholesale Jerseys</a> for Collins so she was back to being nowhere.Yet there's still a frontbench job for the South Australian faction leader known as the Godfather, Don Farrell, even though he lost his seat at the election and will be out of Parliament in June (although another Senator might suddenly decide to retire so he can have their seat).There are always winners and losers, joy and anger when a frontbench is decided. Tony Abbott demoted several MPs and some took the news very badly. Yet one of Abbott's great achievements as Opposition leader was to keep the Coalition broadly united, despite the occasional outbreak of dissent.The cracks exposed by Labor's reshuffle shows there's still more to be done to cement the <a href=http://vishalaindia.com/images/cheap-nfl-jerseys.html>cheap nfl jerseys</a> so-called friendly leadership campaign between Shorten and Anthony Albanese that portrayed the ALP as one big political love-in.One Labor MP insisted the critical mass of MPs want to move forward from the Rudd-Gillard years but as that period also showed, it only takes a few disgruntled types to cause havoc.Shorten has put his team on notice that there will be "zero tolerance" for disunity. But unity is only the first building block Shorten needs to put in place.The man who probably has one of the most recognisable faces in politics needs to convince voters he is more than just the ironically-named faceless man who as a factional warlord helped with the extraordinary act of tearing down Rudd in his first term and then did the same to Gillard. Bill the Knife.There's a lot more Cheap New <a href=http://varmaandvarma.com/jerseys.html> Wholesale NFL Jerseys</a> York Giants Jerseys Sale to him than that. His evangelical campaign to make the National Disability Insurance Scheme a reality is Shorten at his best. He needs to show more of this side of his make-up and to quite simply "be real".That's one reason why he won't follow the Abbott tactic of relentless negativity. It won't work for him.Shorten now has the most thankless and hardest job in politics - Opposition Leader after your party has been thrown out of Government.Not in <a href=http://vishalaindia.com/images/cheap-nfl-jerseys.html> nfl jerseys online for sale</a> 100 years has the person who has taken this job led their party back to power. And not since the election after the Great Depression in the early 1930s has any political party been thrown out of office after one term.The task is monumental and he will have to defy history, but don't write off Shorten. Kim Beazley almost led Labor back to power just two years after John Howard beat Paul Keating.Abbott was written off as being "unelectable" and won his party's leadership by one surprise vote, but within a year was almost PM and within four had claimed the prize.Shorten is likely to be one of the most conservative and cautious leaders in Labor's history. His aim will be to rebuild the party and its support in the community by consultation, not Rudd-style big proclamations.Rudd talked a big game by saying climate change was the "the greatest moral, economic and social challenge of our time", declared political advertising a "cancer on democracy" and wanted to overhaul federal-state relations and health care by "ending the blame game". His grand rhetoric fell short as he came unstuck with delivery and process.Gillard said Labor had "lost its way" but the issues she nominated to fix continued to be problems.Shorten is trying to rebadge Labor as being about "hope" and "optimism" and having credible policies that are relevant to people's lives.But the biggest test will be the carbon tax. Shorten insists Labor will not vote to repeal it. Environment Minister <a href=http://thestagecraft.com/New-York-Giants-Jerseys-Sale.html> Cheap New York Giants Jerseys On Sale</a> Greg Hunt says Labor is thumbing its nose at the verdict of the people in the election.How Shorten manages this minefield will be vital to whether he has what it takes to win back the one million voters who have deserted Labor since 2007.Phillip Hudson is national political editor
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