Gillard in danger

news.com.au reports:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard will have her hands full when parliament resumes this week, fending off fresh leadership speculation, facing a potentially heated caucus meeting and bracing for a new opinion poll.

Newspapers said Joel Fitzgibbon, the government’s chief whip, was openly canvassing caucus for votes to return Kevin Rudd to the top job.

When the Chief Whip starts lobbying for change you have real problems. The challenge for Labor is deciding between the leader the public hates and the leader the caucus hates.

Incidentally I was staggered to be listening to Morning Report this morning, and hear an interview between I presume one of the hosts and the RNZ Australian correspondent. The host said something like:

“So Kevin Rudd will just be getting on with the job of Foreign Minister” and the correspondent said “That’s right”.

Rudd resigning as Foreign Minister and challenging Gillard for the leadership earlier this year was a rather major news story.