Abbott troubled as Wilkie sides
Tony Abbott offered Independent MP Andrew Wilkie more money, but Julia Gillard won him over with her responsible health spending and gambling reforms.
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Andrew Wilkie surprised his friend John Valder when he signed up yesterday with Julia Gillard. Valder, the former Liberal Party president who bonded with Wilkie over their mutual discomfort with John Howard, thought he would remain more rigorously independent, like the South Australian Nick Xenophon.
Valder predicts Wilkie will be, in practice, a ''prickly'' supporter of Gillard and the ALP. This is, of course, a compliment from a Liberal-turned-rebel. ''Andrew is genuine, he stands up for what he believes in. I would regard him as a fine character,'' he told The Age last night. ''I can see stoushes over all sorts of things.''
Wilkie yesterday ended a long and tortuous journey, from Canberra outsider to would-be king maker.
The mercurial Wilkie was first soldier, then analyst, then whistleblower. In 2003 he publicly stood up to Howard over claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. For his pains he faced considerable retribution, shunned by the dominant political class, subjected to a whispering campaign in the capital. His marriage was ending; he was unstable, went the ''background'' to political reporters after he quit his post at the Office of National Assessments - one Liberal senator even made the claim publicly. Wilkie was ''at the very best, unreliable; at worst he is flaky and irrational''.
The long path to yesterday's decision began in the seat of Bennelong in 2004, where he stood as a Green candidate against Howard, pushing him to preferences. Valder thinks the hook-up with the Greens was situational rather than ideological.
Wilkie's roots are conservative. Born in Tamworth, he was once a member of the Liberal Party. He should have taken on Howard as an independent, possibly the disillusioned voters in Bennelong could have been lured by an independent - but not, Valder argues, by a Green.
''[Wilkie] was a lost soul and a bit friendless. The Greens extended the hand of friendship and he grasped it.'' The relationship between Wilkie and the Greens extended to a Senate tilt in 2007, but didn't last.
Wilkie was looking like the serial candidate when he had another go as an independent in the recent Tasmanian state election. But then success - federally, this time; Wilkie prevailed in the Tasmanian seat of Denison despite securing only 21 per cent of the vote. Preferences from the Greens and the Liberals tipped him over the line.
Wilkie's campaign was run as ''a pox on both your houses''. In the days following the poll, he said both Labor and Liberal had failed his test.
''It was a vacuous campaign, both have disgraced themselves in some ways. People want solutions, they are sick to death of the theatre.''
Wilkie clearly overcame his aversion to Julia Gillard and her party. Tony Abbott was a good person, but essentially the argument Wilkie made yesterday was the Prime Minister had impressed him as being more competent.
Well, that seemed to be the argument in any case; given the nature of the candidate there was an element of mystery.
Gillard had ''made the best offer''. He had the ''higher level of confidence'' that Gillard ''will do the right thing by Australia over the next three years''.
Katharine Murphy is Age national affairs correspondent.
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