In theory yes. In practice no.
Conventions and the constitution control what the GG can do. Except in exceptional circumstances i.e. a couple of times in a century does the GG do anything other than act on the PM’s advise.
Technically they can reserve a bill for Her Majesty’s signature (ie refuse to grant the Royal Assent for a law) but I suspect the last time that happened people still got around in top hats and monocles and everything was in sepia.
Holy crap. Here’s CNN.com’s coverage of Gillard’s fall: http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/26/world/asia/australia-leadership-vote/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
I have to admit, I feel a little sorry for her. And Rudd has shown himself to be utterly unprincipled and blindly ambitious, having said as recently as March that he would not seek leadership again: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/in-depth/chris-bowen-quits-after-failed-leadership-tilt/story-fnhqeu0x-1226603128743. Ugh.
Give him a break. He HAD to take over. It’s not as if he is some self serving asshole who was willing to undermine his own party if they didn’t anoint him as leader. Or it is. Who cares they are politicians.
Aw, come on. The Australian Parliament is just a US Congress wannabe. Egos, political posturing and sticking it to the other party are more important than actual governance of a nation.
Except they didn’t stick it to the other party this time.
I suspect that there will be a big backlash after the events of last night. I don’t think that Rudd is going to get the poll turnaround he expects, and with the resignation of some of the current cabinet ministers and Independents, an even more disastrous outcome in the election might well be on the books.
I have voted Labor all my life. It’s in my genes you might say. Despite all the kerfuffle of the last three years, Gillard has done a remarkable job restoring some of the more traditional values that have been lost over the last thirty years or so, and with Swan as treasurer, we weathered the GFC storm with few major repercussions.
Unfortunately policies and past achievements have been absent in the media, instead focusing on the bullshit of personalities and backroom shenanigans. With friends like Kevin Rudd, who needs enemies?
I won’t be voting for the Labor Party this election, because as much as I loathe Tony Abbott and what the Liberal Party stands for, I detest Rudd and his smarmy cronies even more now. The Labor Party is dead I reckon.
In theory (remember the PM isn’t even mentioned in the constitution), but the GG is always one phone call from the PM to the Queen away from being dismissed. If a PM who’s lost confidence refused to resign (or call an election) does try to fire the GG before the GG fire’s him then Her Majesty would actually have a decision on her own.
Actually it still happens, but only when there’s an upcoming Royal Visit and the government wants the Queen to sign something in person. It’s the same in all her realms.
Democracy is the worst form of government there is; except for all the others.
If Parliament get’s dissolved ahead of schedule does that mean the House & Senate elections get thrown out of sync? 
I always thought it was extremely weird that Australia elections Senators almost most 9 months before they take office.
Only if the writs were issued before July 1st. That’s when the Senate election can be called.
Still grumpy about this, and I’m not even Australian.
So what’s the likelihood that Rudd, having heard all of the complaints about his leadership style last time around, actually makes an effort to be less of a douchebag and to govern more by consensus?
There’s a story about a young, newly elected government MP being shown around the British House of Commons by a veteran MP. At one point, the veteran MP points out where the Opposition sits.
“Ah,” says the newby MP, “our enemies.”
“No, lad,” says the veteran MP. “Those are Her Majesty’s Official Opposition. They are our opponents, not our enemies.”
Long pause, then the veteran MP continues:
“Our enemies sit on this side of the House, behind us.”
You USians think Chicago politics is viscious - just watch parliamentary politics during a leadership crisis…
:eek:
Well the populous don’t think he is a douchebag, it’s only other factions within the ALP that do. But I think he will try for more of consensus than before.
The real trick is not to repeat the mistakes Julia made, arrogance etc.
Kevin is in my view more electable than Julia.
As a woman, I fear Abbott over the RU486 stunt when he was health minister, as an atheist I fear him for his faith, as a humanitarian I fear his stance on refugees, as a pacifist I fear his aggressive behavior… but all that pales next to my fear as a citizen of the world that we are going to be locked behind a technological barrier with an ongoing monopoly situation, trading a future proof internet solution that would put us on par with the world with a bodged, barely adequate, electricity hungry network that will need replacing in under a decade… for 2/3rds the price. The opposition’s NBN is a nightmare. Telstra said their copper network was within 15 years of the end of its life 9 years ago. Telstra currently spend 1 billion dollars a year maintaining it. Basing our internet future around copper to save 7 billion dollars is madness.
You ever heard the story about William Buckley?
Rudd views this as 100% vindication for his style, his approach, his claim to status as a Labor icon with Chifley and Whitlam. The sound grabs, the micro-management and the tantties will be on again in spades behind the scripted faux connection to the tweeting demographic.
What he does have in his favour is insufficient time to irretrievably piss off his current supporters before we go to the polls. He doesn’t have to govern, he doesn’t need to deliver.
We were denied the opportunity of taking a wirebrush to him at the 2010 ballot. Something to savour. And yet if it all goes pear-shaped and Labor have a parliamentary rump of under 50 and take a decade to become electable …well, you couldn’t blame that on Kevin, could you?
Too bloody right you could.
To quote a colleague on Facebook: “The ALP only wants him to campaign–they don’t want him to govern.”
They don’t care if he’s seen the light or not (though once a petty tyrant, always a petty tyrant, in my experience): they just want to win the election.
May I sum up the views of all non-antipodeans members by saying “you have got to be fucking shitting me”.
That’s possibly true but not quite what I was referring to - I was thinking more of “reserved for HM’s signature” as a polite euphemism for “I think this is a really bad law and I’m not giving it the OK”, which is the original intention of the power as I understand it.
Of course, there’s some debate if the Monarch* can actually refuse the Royal Assent to a bill anymore - I believe it was thought there was some suggestion HM might do so with the law which banned fox hunting with hounds in the UK a few years ago, but it didn’t happen and she did indeed assent to it.
*As in His/Her Majesty the King/Queen of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth Realms, not the Venture Bros. villain)
Pushing the carbon tax through was pay off for the green’s support to form the government, not because she had a great moral belief in it. She’d probably sell her mother if it made her PM.
I think it’s hilarious that she called the secret ballot that got her assasinated by Wong among others.
Anyway, ding dong the **** is gone, hurrah.
University political courses will use her term as an example of how women in politics should not do it, including using the gender card and bringing up abortion when it’s not an issue, never mind pissing off most of the male electorate.
Looks like James Button got it terribly wrong. I bet people are laughing at him now, LOL.
I like your assessment of julia’s popularity amongst the voters, as opposed to the political class.
Charisma in a leader is not always a good thing, as proven by Rudd.
For myself, I do hope Abbott has an outright majority, so he can fix the illegal immigrant mess and get rid of that stupid carbon tax etc.
We did have something a bit similar in Canada 30 years ago, but it happened with the main Opposition party - leadership fights tend to be more likely when you’re out of power. However, the outcome was much different than what’s happening now in Australia, with, dare I say it, somewhat more mature politicians involved.
The leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, Joe Clark, was not very popular with some segments of his party, and under the party rules, there was a leadership review at the party convention. Clark won that vote, by about 66%, but he concluded that if there was that large a vote against him, the party needed a full leadership convention. At the convention, he was defeated by Brian Mulroney, who was generally considered to have been the one who had been leading the opposition to Clark within the party.
That part sounds similar to what’s happened in Australia, but the difference lay in what followed. Mulroney knew that if he wanted to lead the party to government, he needed a unified party. On the floor of the convention, in accepting the leadership, he immediately reached out to Erik Nielsen, one of Clark’s strongest supporters, saying, “Erik, I may not have been the man you wanted, but you’re the man I want as party whip.” The crowd in the convention centre cheered, and it was a very effective step in trying to bring the two wings of the party back together, right from the start.
Then, when the party took power in 1984, Mulroney made Clark the Minister for Foreign Affairs, one of the most important Cabinet positions - and Clark served Mulroney loyally in that position, and then as Minister responsible for constitutional relations, in the constitutional negotiations that were a key part of Mulroney’s policy initiatives.
So, maybe Mulroney may not have liked Clark’s policies, and Clark may have thought Mulroney engineered his downfall, but they behaved like grown-ups over it and worked together.