Bill Shorten paying for being too safe (Australia's socialist opposition begins to slide)

Herald Sun (Melbourne) ^ | 4th May 2015 | Andrew Bolt

[naturalman1975]

IN January, Tony Abbott seemed finished as Prime Minister. But how things have changed.

Now the leader under pressure is Labor’s Bill Shorten. Just ask his smiling deputy, Tanya Plibersek.

The mischief began last week, with Shorten away and Plibersek acting leader.

First, Plibersek declared Labor should now force its politicians to vote for gay marriage, rather than allow a conscience vote.

Many Labor MPs were outraged. MPs — including devout Christians — who would feel morally obliged to vote against party policy could be expelled under Labor’s rules. Labor could split. Shorten, on his return, quickly rejected Plibersek’s bullying approach, but then had to hose down more strife.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported former foreign minister Bob Carr claiming Shorten had agreed with frontbencher Tony Burke to ditch Labor’s pro-Israel policy.

Carr said Shorten had now backed a policy — allegedly approved by Plibersek — to move to recognising a Palestinian state if Israel kept building settlements in disputed territory. Burke wants such a change because more than 20 per cent of voters in his seat of Watson are Muslim.

But a Shorten spokesman later said the story was false. An unnamed Labor figure added that Shorten was furious with Carr.

[naturalman1975]

The political momentum in Australia is shifting back towards a conservative advantage - if an election was held today, the money would be on a Labor victory, but a couple of months ago, they would have been looking at a landslide - now the conservative coalition would be competitive - and Labor, and particularly Bill Shorten, have been very reticent to discuss policies on many issues because while they were in front, they didn't really have to - now that they will have to start explaining what they'd do if elected or be written off as not having any plans, I suspect the electorate is not going to like a lot of their answers. It's a lot easier to attack the government for trying to cut spending, when you don't have to explain how you'd get the budget under control. They'll have to talk about where they'd cut, or where they'd raise taxes.

As Labor people go, Shorten is also relatively moderate - and a lot of his party, including his deputy, Tanya Plibersek would like to drag him further left. And I don't think most of the electorate wants that - the left wingers will vote for Labor anyway (or for the Greens which with our preferential voting system basically winds up a vote for Labor anyway in most cases) - his electoral popularity comes from holding more of the swinging voters in the middle than Abbott does - Shorten shifting left would not do Labor any great favours.

[JSDude1]

Sounds like she’s a real b*tch!