Julia Gillard wins the day
Julia Gillard promises to heed the lesson handed to Labor at the election and govern with a new style of openness.
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JULIA GILLARD won the contest to lead the next government because of her weakness, as well as her strengths.
The two independents who crowned Gillard yesterday wanted the leader who is more likely to run Parliament to its full three-year term.
One of the new kingmakers, Tony Windsor, said that Tony Abbott was more likely to run to a new election as soon as possible. Asked why he thought so, Windsor replied: "Because I think they would be more likely to win."
Labor, however, is "more likely to be here for a longer period of time''.
The longevity of the new government, he added, was "key" to his decision. In other words, Windsor has chosen deliberately to side with the party that he thinks is more afraid of facing the Australian people at another election.
Asked at his press conference specifically if he were favouring the party that was less likely to win the support of the voters at an election, he replied: "That's my call."
And it was also the call of many Coalition backbenchers, he added.
It was a strikingly candid remark from the member for New England. Together with the independent member for Lyne, Rob Oakeshott, his support for Labor will give Gillard the barest possible majority - 76 seats in a 150-seat chamber.
This lays bare the calculus of self-interest. On his own confession, Windsor is prepared to support the weaker party so long as he can prolong his own position of extraordinary leverage in holding the balance of power.
Like an insecure lover seeking an emotionally needy partner, Windsor has found happiness in a dependent government.
And Gillard's strengths? Windsor and Oakeshott said that they favoured a Labor government because it was the party more likely to attempt ambitious reforms.
Indeed, where Labor has lost its political spine on big, transformative reform measures like an emissions trading scheme, this pair of independents will try to inject new steel.
Specifically, both cited Labor's national broadband policy, and its approach to climate change and renewable energy.
Labor's plan for a world's-best, fibre-to-the-home internet system was "an enormous opportunity for regional Australia to engage with the infrastructure of this century", said Windsor.
On climate change, Oakeshott wants a government that will impose a price on carbon emissions. Labor is notionally committed to this, though it has wavered on specifics. The Coalition has ruled it out.
And Windsor is an enthusiast for renewable energy: "It's obvious to me that regional Australia would be a major beneficiary of renewable energy opportunities."
Oakeshott cited a third key policy concern, "the crisis in regional education". He was critical of the cuts that the Coalition had threatened.
Both men were blunt in stating that they would use the newfound power that electoral fortune has granted them for the benefit of rural Australia. Under both Labor and Coalition governments, Windsor said, country people were "always sidelined".
No longer: "This is about using the political system to the advantage of the people we represent," said Windsor.
And so it is. Gillard has offered the independents a "regional package" with a notional price tag of $10 billion, of which $1.1 billion is net new funding.
Oakeshott said that "no one living in the city needs to be scared - we are looking for equity" for country people.
Further, the independents have persuaded Labor to agree to a national summit on tax reform by next June.
"This is not going to be a weak Parliament," said Oakeshott.
"It's going to be a strong Parliament."
It is this paradoxical combination - Gillard's political weakness and policy strength - that proved critical in winning the chance to lead Australia.
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