Twelve Months of Julia Gillard as Prime Minister

The Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard has now been in office for 12 months, a year that can only be described as turbulent at best. After scraping back into government, with the help of Independent and Green Members of Parliament at August’s federal election that has forced Labor into minority government the Australian political landscape is almost unrecognisable.

Before ascending to the Prime Ministership after ousting Kevin Rudd in a much criticized leadership challenge, Gillard was renowned as a formidable, decisive politician and by far and away the strongest performer in Parliament. 12 months on and with her approval ratings at a record low level (27 per cent approval rating) the Prime Minister is struggling for traction in what is undoubtedly the most challenging political environment in recent memory.

On a whole range of policy matters the Government is facing stiff resistance.

The most heated and scathing of  issues affecting the Government’s popularity is the its proposal to introduce a price on carbon emissions to be imposed from mid-2012 has sparked a furious debate across the business and political communities.

The model backed by the independent Rob Oakeshott and the Greens party proposes a two-stage plan for a carbon price mechanism that will start with a fixed price period for three to five years before transitioning to an emissions trading scheme.

The debate has been a political gift for the opposition and their leader Tony Abbott. The carbon tax plays to Abbott’s strengths, with the support of several right wing columnists, climate skeptics and shock jocks, Abbott has been able to relentlessly attack the proposed scheme as a “great big new tax on everything”.

Abbott’s energetic and persistent pursuit of the Government over the broken promise by Gillard on the eve of the last election that there would be no carbon tax under a government lead by her has put the government on the back foot across the entirety of it agenda. Abbott’s perpetual negativity in no credible substitute for a Prime Minister at this stage. 

While the opposition is scoring political points on a regular basis it does seem bereft of sound policy ideas leaving it lacking as a real alternative as a government.

In short, while the government is slowly and methodically progressing its agenda within in the parameters of judicious policy development in a complex parliament, it makes for poor politics and makes the government a big target for all of its detractors.

Not helping matters for the Government is the constant tension between the Prime Minister and her predecessor, the now Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd. The one key factor in the government’s favour is that it is still over two years out from the next election and with the implementation of the National Broadband Network, the introduction of a carbon tax and a return of the federal budget to surplus in 2012-13, the government is banking that the next 24 months will run a great deal more smoothly than its previous 12.

Most political commentators agree that the Australian politics is at a low ebb. It’s hard to disagree with that assessment, but its also easy to forget the dynamic nature of the current Australian parliament and the undying thirst of the 24 hour news cycle. It’s not easy being a politician in 2011.