To my Labor mates ..

A better way than making a meal of yourselves.

By Gary Scarrabelotti

Now listen, mates. I’ve told you once what you’ve got to do about Julia. So I’m not going to repeat myself. What’s the point, anyway? Too many of you are too scared of Rudd Redux and you just don’t know where else to turn.

As one of you put it to me the other day (in reply to my blog Bring back Rudd now),

“I’d rather eat my arm!”

Now that really got to me. Hit me right here in the bowels of compassion, it did.

Look, I just want to help. If you won’t let me, you’re all going to die … poor Labor coots … all going to die … fighting for Julia.

For Julia!

That I do not understand. Die, by all means, if that’s the way you want it. But with Julia? The PM who reckons she wasn’t in the loop? The PM who runs away from her Ministers when the union faeces hit the fan?  But then expects her desertion to be repaid with loyalty? C’mon, fellas (and Labor shielas too) you have to do better than that.

OK. You would rather eat your arms. Alright. Alright. But I wish you wouldn’t do that. Just think. You do have alternatives to death with Julia or making a meal of yourselves.

As I look around, I see some Labor stars among you.  I see Chris Bowen.  I see Martin Ferguson. I see Gary Gray.

Maybe I also see Bill Shorten. But I’m not sure about that right now. His performances in the House and media are too wooden and hesitant.  His public stick-by-Julia posture looks so goofy.  I suspect an uncomfortable insincerity. Sure, got some great ideas. Loved the speech he gave to the conference of union deaf and blind the other day. Could be another Hawkie in the making. But he ain’t there yet. Anyway, you can’t have a Prime Minister whose mum-in-law is the Governor General. That wouldn’t do at all. No, too immature and the timing’s all wrong. Man for another day, maybe.

So I am thinking of Bowen, Ferguson, and Gray. Enterprise Migration Agreements, fantastic. Manifestly, these fellas can generate new ideas and co-ordinate policy development. Obviously, they can think through to what is in the national interest.  And, for my money, they are more than smart enough to hitch what they have done for the good of Australia to the advantage of the ALP.

So, I’ll give you a scenario alternative to Rudd Redux. Make Martin Ferguson Prime Minister, Chris Bowen Treasurer, and Gary Gray Resources Minister.

No more prizes

Julia should get nothing. Send her to the back bench. She’s been getting it wrong ever since 2004 when she was sold that pup Medicare Gold. She lost you the election over that.  It wasn’t the Tassie loggers what did it. It was Julia’s mighty Medicare stuff up that was the turning point.  In the post-election wash up you should’ve taken the stick to her.  But you didn’t.  Didn’t have what it took, did you? Uppity girls don’t get smacked down in the ALP, do they? They just get more prizes. So you’ve brought it all on yourselves, haven’t you?

Still, mates, there’s always hope: never a cloud that doesn’t have a silver lining. It’s always possible to be different, you know; to do better. The past needn’t predestine the future.  History is only fate for those too afraid to read in it where we went wrong. We can think outside the box. We can strike out in a new direction. We can break the rules.

Hey, isn’t that what Labor is all about, anyway: breaking with conventions?

Ferguson, will steady the Labor ship and he’ll make a good Prime Minister. He might only get a year in the top job, but the people will come to like him – like him a lot, I predict.  Yep, I reckon — especially if he got rid of that albatross around your neck by putting right Julia’s big fib about No Carbon Tax. And, what with being a real bloke, he might even win you the next election.

Question for you is: is the Federal Labor caucus just a bunch of girls?

Well?

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