Labor's silent leadership battles

The corridors of power were eerily quiet yesterday, brightened for a few moments by press conferences with Bob 'I might form my own party' Katter, and Senator Christine 'No more coal mines' Milne. But where were the others?

Part of the quiet was a lack of Senate theatrics – no bellowing Barnaby Joyce or gyrating Mary Jo Fisher to disturb the afternoon slumber of journalists in their gallery offices next door. Senators were instead crammed into committee rooms for the latest round of Senate Estimates hearings.

Even proceedings in the House of Representatives, while not exactly quiet, lacked the bile and venom with which parliament returned from its summer break in February.

Sure, Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison and Warren Truss lined up to attack the government on the carbon tax and illegal boat arrivals. And sure, Treasurer Wayne Swan, Immigration Minister Chris Bowen and Foreign Affairs Minister Kevin Rudd all leaned into the dispatch-box microphone to deliver thunderous replies.

But both government and Coalition front benches were distracted. Metaphorically, they were glancing over their shoulders, watching for the quick flash of a blade – the knife that would bring down their leader and change everything in the party room.

Perhaps the only MP without any hint of fear for his political future was Kevin Rudd, who made the most of his relative political immunity. He smiled broadly as he outlined to the house his latest discovery – China 2.0, the source of a new boom in services trade with Australia. I hope he remembers to tell the Chinese they've been upgraded.  

Rudd's colleagues will be less sanguine. While all eyes have been on Malcolm Turnbull's defiance of Tony Abbott last week – the oblique attack he made on his party's leader through a damning critique of the Coalition's carbon policy – and Joe Hockey's supposed run-in with Abbott over the taxing of family trusts, there is series of political battles being fought, unnoticed, on the Labor benches.

Before the NSW election, as senior Labor figure told me of his grave fears for the party nationally once the most important Labor state machine imploded. Suddenly unemployed NSW MPs, and their long-standing staffers – the real machine – would be turning up on Capital Hill in their droves, creeping from chamber to chamber, seeking new power and influence in the federal sphere.

The NSW model of Labor politics would infect Canberra, he warned me, and it could destroy the Labor Party for good.

And so this is what we should be watching for in the months ahead – both Labor and Coalition instability.

On the Coalition side there is no doubt that old wounds are being reopened. Malcolm Turnbull's apparently wanton trouble making will, I believe, be revealed to be part of a larger strategy. There has been a queue of Liberal party commentators coming out in the past few days to explain why he'll never lead the party again – though surely the party doth protest too much.

Joe Hockey's supporters stand by his abilities despite a bad run off gaffes since his bank-reform imbroglio last year – his family trusts back-down, his testy post-budget speech, and an ongoing spat with Labor's Gary Gray over just how many 'public servants' Labor has employed. If anyone is in the frame to replace Tony Abbott, say party insiders, it is he, and not Andrew Robb, who gets a mixed billing within his own party.

And some party insiders are now naming Shadow Immigration Minister Scott Morrison as Abbott's heir apparent. His poor handling of the Christmas Island tragedy of late last year will soon fade in the public consciousness. When it has, he may well be pushed forward as a capable and intelligent contender.

On the other side, Labor's battles are, so far, silent – like faceless men in the night. Bill Shorten, Greg Combet, Kevin Rudd (in the mind of Kevin Rudd) and Wayne Swan all get a mention from time to time. Of these, only the first two look at all likely to succeed Gillard. Privately, some Labor figures mention Tony Burke, though he has some major battles looming on the Murray Darling Basis to take care of first.

But the point is this: with so many displaced NSW, and now Victorian, Labor operatives on the loose, and with Julia Gillard's opinion poll figures taking the low road, it is only at a matter of time before we begin to see as much leadership intrigue spilling over on the government benches as we are now seeing on Tony Abbott's side of the house.

To my mind, a challenge to Gillard's leadership before the next election would all but finish the Labor Party. But then Labor pessimists tell me that the pent up ambition in the Labor's factional units is too great to contain. The Bracks/Carr/Faulkner review of Labor's appalling 2010 and the party's 'undemocratic' structure is yet another source of conflict within the party – a good half of the party wish it had never been conducted.

Certainly the knives are being sharpened for a time when, if miracles do happen, Labor scrapes home to form government again. But that is two years away at least. In the meantime, watch for fault lines – now on both sides of the house.