Jew World Order

Kevin Rudd and Therese Rein leave the fashionable Balthazar restaurant in New York’s Soho district yesterday. Picture: Jason Nicholas
Source: The Australian

Julia Gillard listens during question time in parliament yesterday. Picture: Ray Strange
Source: The Australian

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LABOR powerbrokers are standing by Julia Gillard despite discontent among Labor MPs about her failure to deliver on her proposed Malaysia Solution on border security.

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd’s return from sick leave appears to have sparked a change of mood within the Labor caucus, with several MPs previously strongly supportive of the Prime Minister now convinced that her leadership is terminal.

While no one is discussing any short-term change, former Labor powerbroker Graham Richardson, writing in The Australian today, claims more than 20 Labor MPs are now behind Mr Rudd, who is the Foreign Minister, returning to the leadership.

However, the Labor powerbrokers who backed the Prime Minister to oust Mr Rudd in June last year remain firmly committed to Ms Gillard, rejecting leadership speculation as Liberal Party mischief-making.

Mr Rudd, who is in New York for UN meetings, yesterday categorically ruled out angling to retake the Labor leadership, amid rumours he was testing party numbers to unseat Ms Gillard.

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The Foreign Minister said yesterday that claims he had been talking to Labor colleagues about a possible leadership challenge were incorrect.

Mr Rudd also deflected tensions with Ms Gillard about big spending on overseas travel, claiming that an email from the Prime Minister’s chief of staff directing him to keep costs to an “acceptable minimum” reflected a reminder to all ministers.

Celebrating his 54th birthday, Mr Rudd stepped out to dinner with his wife, Therese Rein, at top French restaurant Balthazar in the SoHo area of New York.

He later sent a tweet to his alleged band of one million followers: “Just had a wonderful birthday dinner with Therese. Got a kindle for my birthday. So a very happy soul.”

The leadership tension came yesterday as parliament rose for two weeks without voting on amendments to the Migration Act that would legitimise offshore processing of refugees, which was declared illegal by the High Court late last month.

With the issue now in limbo, Ms Gillard must work on marshalling support from four of the six crossbenchers to pass the amendments in the lower house or face an embarrassing legislative defeat in the House of Representatives on an issue she nominated as one of her key priorities after ousting Mr Rudd.

Tony Abbott, sensing the difficulty, moved to heap pressure on Ms Gillard yesterday by hardening his opposition to her Malaysia Solution on asylum-seekers and using her failure to deliver the policy to demand her resignation.

“If the Prime Minister cannot command the confidence of this house and of this parliament for an issue as important as this, the question then arises should she have the confidence to remain as Prime Minister?” the Opposition Leader said.

Ms Gillard hit back, accusing Mr Abbott of giving a “green light” to people-smugglers to advance his personal ambitions and destabilise her government.

Since the August 31 High Court decision, Ms Gillard has been appealing for opposition support for her amendments to allow her to proceed with her plan to send 800 asylum-seekers who arrive in Australia by boat to Malaysia in exchange for 4000 proven refugees.

The government needs the opposition’s support because the Greens are implacably opposed to offshore processing.

Mr Abbott will back offshore processing only in nations that have signed the UN convention on refugees – ruling out Malaysia, but clearing the way to reopen a Howard-era processing centre on the Pacific island of Nauru.

Ms Gillard’s tactic this week has been to demand that Mr Abbott back her to empower the government to follow its own policies. Mr Abbott has used the issue as a political bludgeon against Ms Gillard, aware that her failure to resolve the issue has been feeding into caucus concern about Labor’s prospects.

That was fuelled on Tuesday when a Newspoll published exclusively in The Australian put the party’s primary support at a record low 26 per cent.

On Wednesday, Coalition MPs were spreading rumours that Mr Rudd, who has recently ended a two-month convalescence from heart surgery, had been “working the phones” from New York. It is understood Mr Rudd has not been canvassing support, but several MPs previously hopeful of a Gillard recovery have confirmed they believe she will be unable to recover from her long period of poor polling, particularly while Mr Abbott confounds progress on the asylum-seeker issue. It is understood several MPs are promoting Mr Rudd among their colleagues.

The faction leaders who elevated Ms Gillard remain staunch.

Assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten described the speculation as “a Liberal beat-up”. Another senior minister said: “I don’t know anyone who says they have had a call from Kevin.”

Multiple sources have backed Ms Gillard in line with a party-wide understanding that she should have until the end of the year to lift the party’s fortunes after the first part of the year was dominated by her development of her proposed carbon tax in the face of relentless Opposition attack.

Regional Development Minister Simon Crean told The Australian: “The revolving door of leaders has not worked the miracle cure that some assert and we have to get on to the task of understanding who we do have to beat. And beating ourselves ain’t a smart way to go.”

Yesterday, Greens leader Bob Brown continued to attack offshore processing and made it clear his support for the minority Labor government was not contingent on Ms Gillard being the leader.

Independent MP Rob Oakeshott said any change in the Labor leadership would force him to “reflect” on his deal struck to form the Labor minority government.

Fellow independent Andrew Wilkie told The Australian: “My support for Julia Gillard is unchanged. Moreover, as I have said repeatedly, my agreement with Julia Gillard is with her personally and I’d be hard-pressed to support a successor if there was a change of leadership.”

Additional reporting: Milanda Rout