Does Gillard have the guts?

Will Julia Gillard be a transformational Prime Minister?

Does she have what it takes not only to win elections but to boldly lead Australia at this pivotal time?

We cannot afford missteps.

The world is moving too quickly, with events subsuming governments and peoples around the world, for a nation to endure periods of poor or unsatisfactory governance.

Most nations look enviously towards Australia. After all, we are unbelievably resource rich. We are a wealthy and civil society. We sit geographically as part of the Asian phenomenon. We are friends with the United States. We are blessed with a temperate climate and we have a modest population within our vast shores.

It's in this environment that Australians make the decisions to keep or change their national government.

Yes, government at the state level matters in a nitty gritty way – and we may soon have change of government in Victoria and will have certain change in NSW. But at day's end, the decisions taken in Canberra are what determine our destiny.

There's no doubt that Julia Gillard is an impressive retail politician. She bristles with intelligence, confidence, clear talk and determination. She has the look and style of someone who is comfortable in conversation with ordinary Australians. The events of last Wednesday night also show that she was ruthless when she needed to be.

We've long known she's a smart politician. The instant decision to send signals to the mining industry regarding government advertising, as well as her symbolic call to by-pass life in the Lodge until (and if) she is elected as Australia's first female Prime Minister was politically shrewd.

But does this early impressive start mean that Julia will knuckle down and take the audacious decisions, and govern without fear?

The ANZUS alliance was nation-defining – as was the Snowy Hydro decision of a half century ago, the floating of our exchange rate, the abolition of tariffs, introduction of foreign banks, and the GST. So was the apology to the stolen generation, and perhaps the decision to create a national broadband network aimed at vastly improving our nation's capacity and productivity.

She has already said she will not just consult, but negotiate on the resource super profits tax and will "prosecute” the case for a price on carbon to the electorate in the coming months and years.
Both those issues were badly handled by Rudd. He took community support for granted. He assumed high polls numbers automatically meant he was loved and admired.

Gillard has also attempted to cool the temperature on the politically charged issue of asylum seekers. She was right politically and morally to condemn the attempts by some opposition front benchers win votes by stirring base instincts of fear and loathing.

The coming weeks will set the political course. Gillard will be out selling herself.
So far, as expected with such an historic move, media coverage has been saturating and overwhelmingly positive.

But right now she faces the agonising moment before all Prime Ministers – "when precisely do I call the election to maximise my chance”.

It's the biggest political call in any first term Prime Minister's life – let alone one that has been in the job for just days.

Events and luck – as well as community mood – all play their part in election results.
I remember sitting in Malcolm Fraser's office in late 1977. The discussion was about election timing. In the end, the decision was easy – go early while Gough was still the alternative. Make it a repeat vote of the previous contest just two years earlier. The result was another landslide.

Scroll forward to 1983, in that same office. Malcolm was driven to Government House in C-1 to advise an election, at the very hour the ALP changed leaders from Bill Hayden to the popular Bob Hawke. It was too late to recant. The result was inevitable.

I've written previously on this site that Gillard should make the call to go sooner rather than later (Gillard should rush to the polls, June 24).

She still has time to sell herself. She still has time for Wayne Swan and Martin Ferguson to negotiate a pragmatic deal with the mining industry, without selling out to the resources industry.

She has goodwill on her side. The polls say the electorate would vote her in Australia's first elected female PM.

In the weeks and months following the election she will have the time and the mandate to produce audacious policy in education, infrastructure and nation-building. No doubt she has been thinking about such matters for some years.

If she waits till September to call an October election, she could easily become hostage to unknown events and the pack of chattering journalists (many of whom have an unwritten brief to tear down an ALP government) and over-heated politicians gathered together from mid-August for mutual benefit in the tiny cauldron that is Canberra.

In other words, she should strike early and call the election in late July for late August – and avoid the faux debates of a recalled Parliament.

Over time, prime ministers grow in the job – it's a combination of experience judgement and that first election win as prime minister. They stop being novices.
The trick is to make sure you stay true to your principles, stick with instincts that got you there in the first place and show political courage.

Voters may disagree with some or many of your policies, but they expect you to show political gumption.

That's why Julia Gillard not only faces her moment of truth on election timing, but must also face the consequences of a victory.

Australia cannot afford long-term B-grade government. It needs strong, visionary, competent and audacious government.

And that will be the real task for her, or for her prime ministerial opponent – the man that has been swamped by the unprecedented events of recent days.