Australian PM facing high-wire act

Gillard snatched the leadership from elected PM Kevin Rudd just 10 weeks ago and failed to win an outright majority at the Aug. 21 polls, ultimately relying on an unlikely quartet of minority MPs to get over the line.

Two conservative rural independents joined a lawmaker from the Green environmental party and an ex-Iraq war whistle-blower to give Gillard the one-seat majority she needed to rule.

“I think Julia Gillard is the greatest escape artist since Houdini,” said Monash University political scientist Nick Economou.

“She obviously has excellent negotiating skills and that has allowed her to hang onto the prime ministership, even though she suffered quite a big loss of support and loss of seats at the election. She's extremely lucky.”

But the “kingmakers” came at a cost — US$9.0 billion in promises for rural electorates alone — and Gillard will have to rely on their support to pass any legislation, explained Peter van Onselen.

“I think it's going to be inherently unstable,” van Onselen, a government expert from Edith Cowan University, told AFP.

“It'll be delicate and it'll require the government to take an issue-by-issue approach to its legislation ... (rather) than robust policy development.”

The eclectic mix of progressive and conservative views in her coalition will make it nearly impossible for Gillard to achieve consensus on flagship issues such as a tax on mining profits or imposing a levy on carbon emissions.

“I think balancing the budget's going to be difficult because the government's got a whole heap of additional spending that it's got to do now (on rural promises),” said van Onselen.

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