Gillard gets down to business

[depakid]

Prime Minister Julia Gillard informs Governor-General Quentin Bryce
that she has the numbers needed to form a minority government.
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Ms Gillard starts a new term of Government today which will be marked by a focus on the regions after promising Mr Oakeshott and Mr Windsor a $9.9 billion package for rural Australia and pledging to restructure Parliament and the public service to better meet the needs of the regions.

The Prime Minister's minority Government is so tight that one person changing their mind would cost her the job, as Mr Windsor warned last night. "Well we've got provisions for no confidence if they're not performing well and there could be a change of baton on the floor of the Parliament," he said. But Mr Windsor says he hopes the Gillard Government survives.

"There is real self-interest in this not for me, but for regional Australia - if this Parliament can be held together there'll be some enormous benefits accrue to regional Australia," he said.

Ms Gillard says she is well aware that she is depending on the support of independent MPs Mr Oakeshott, Mr Windsor, Andrew Wilkie and Greens MP Adam Bandt. "I am going to be held to higher standards of accountability than any prime minister in the modern age," Ms Gillard said.

Ms Gillard insists the next election will be in 2013 and she has begun shaping the team that she hopes will get Labor through the next three years.

She is working on a new ministry which she hopes will be sworn in early next week, but can not finalise it until Mr Oakeshott decides if he will accept her offer to be the Minister overseeing the regional portfolio. Even if he chooses against becoming a Gillard frontbencher, he will get a say on when the next election is held.

Ms Gillard says she will let the independents and Greens help choose when that is. "I think it is fair that I say to them we will work together to set the date of the next election," she said.

Greens Leader Bob Brown told Lateline he is not worried Mr Oakeshott has been offered a ministry and Greens MPs have not. "We have a big job, we are a Senate-based party with a fantastic member on the floor now of the Parliament representing Melbourne in Adam Bandt, but we still have nine of our 10 members in the Senate and the job there is to ensure we make government accountable. So we'll have our hands full," Senator Brown said.

More: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/08/3005452.htm?section=justin

[Matilda]

1. What is she going to offer Kevin Rudd?

She needs to keep him inside the tent, pissing out. If he wants Foreign Affairs, he should get it (and that's something he's done before and can do well).

She was part of the cabal that knifed him, and she owes him bigtime.