It's a good thing that we don't get Liberal Party members to elect Labor Party leaders.

Since the time of Malcolm Fraser, the prevailing political wisdom has been “put the one out front that no one wants standing behind them”.
That'd be Shorten.

This whole indulgent Labor selection process is an ongoing sign that Labor hasn't learned. Hasn't learned that Australia's 12+ million voters (not only the Labor faithful) are plain bored with Labor's inability to just sort out its leadership and identity problems.

Albanese looks very average, with a long plodding career.

Albanese is probably the first (or second after Shorten) in a succession of Opposition leaders. That succession will likely include Rudd - again - who can't help seeing himself as Labor's perpetual leader in waiting.

Latham, Rudd, Gillard .... not sure if anyone would like their name on the leadership board. Thankfully we now have adults running the show.

Well, I also prefer Albo, however, I believe a better performing Shorten has the numbers? As does Plebersik as the deputy?
In any event, we will all know by Sunday.
If some of the caucus thought they could get rid of this more democratic method of selecting their leader, by voting for Shorten, then they are sorely mistaken.
As some senior labour party officials have confirmed in writing, they will FIGHT to retain this new and more democratic method of selecting the leader!
Caucus is made up of parliamentarians, and they owe their ongoing preselection/election to the wider party, not this or that power broker!
It would not be too hard to lose an uncooperative rebel or serial backstabber, by voting for the opposition in this or that seat, or Griffith perhaps!?
I mean, who do you think approves of; and or, hands out the how to vote cards, the sitting member?
This is a change who's time has come, and members will desert in droves, anyone who tries to change it.
Besides, the new method ends the possibility that a few faceless men can ever again undermine the leader, who as a consequence, will be able to Lead or promote reform, with more courage!
Rhrosty.

runner,

".....Thankfully we now have adults running the show."

Guffaw!

(Go Albo!)

Not only adults, Poiret, but led by a Suppository of Wisdom as well!

Shame his knuckles drag on the ground though.

A $200,000 travel rort for Poirot, who is the forum expert on such things,

<Taxpayers slugged $200,000 to fly MPs to Canberra for ALP leadership meetings

TAXPAYERS will fork out up to $200,000 to fly Labor MPs to Canberra so they can vote for a new parliamentary leader.

As the Opposition ramps up its attack on Tony Abbott over entitlements, News Corp can reveal the public will pay a high price for the ALP's bold leadership experiment.

And several Labor MPs have expressed disgust at the expense of flying around 80 Caucus members to the national capital - for two separate meetings within the space of a few days.

With some business class airfares costing around $5,000, Labor MPs will firstly fly to Canberra on Thursday where they will vote in a leadership ballot for Anthony Albanese or Bill Shorten.

They will then return to parliament on Sunday where the winner will be announced. Labor's new frontbench will then be elected by the Caucus on Monday.

ALP national secretary George Wright confirmed the Labor Party will not be footing the bill to fly MPs back to Canberra for the first time since the September 7 election.

Instead the public will pay for flights, Comcar and other expenses. Opposition MPs will also be entitled to claim $268 in travel allowance if they stay overnight, adding to the cost of Labor's leadership experiment.>

http://www.news.com.au/national-news/taxpayers-slugged-200000-to-fly-mps-to-canberra-for-alp-leadership-meetings/story-fncynjr2-1226735036208

Labor business, labor cost. It shouldn't even be possible for them to claim this.

´The results of our poll on the Labor leadership should buoy Anthony Albanese, not only is he overwhelmingly the preferred ALP leader by a significant margin, but he comes with some of the most positive ratings that I have seen for a politician."

Graham, how many did you poll? How 'reliable' are your polls?

$200,000 is a slug that taxpayers should not have to bear. It could be avoided by having the leadership meeting when the Labor pollies return to Canberra for the next session of parliament.

Leadership ballot cost have been covered by the tax payer in the past how is the current agreements any different, another news corp/lib beat up/smoke screen.

I'm sure the Labour party would foot the bill of their ballot if the Libs agree to do so as well. Should be a spill coming soon.

Shorten is a care taker leader while Labor sorts out the mess. I think they'll expect to lose the next election and plan to win the following one with a more credible leader.

In the meanwhile the rest of us are looking for honest alternate parties to the two present corporate controlled ones.

Only $200,000? In that case it has been well worth it.

Government looks much better with a leaderless Labor.

It will be much worse when they elect one of these dills, & the new leadership struggles start.

Yep a headless Labor is much more attractive than it has been in years, with all the dreadful heads it seems to be able to pull out of some rubbish pile every time.

Hasbeen ,all our polistitutes care not for this country or the people. Both Labor and Liberal play the game of distraction from the real issues and screw us into more poverty for their corporate masters.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=15564

Graham Young has presented a masterly analysis of the state of play over the Labor leadership. The combined pollies-plus-members vote will, as Graham points out, default to a straight members vote if there is an overwhelming difference between Caucus and the membership. Shorten was more focused than Albanese but Albanese was more open and has a better reputation.

But I have to differ with Graham over the so-called “carbon tax”. The Libs led by Abbott and the worst of the Press led by News Ltd and the shock jocks lied and lied and lied over Gillard’s supposed pre-election promise, and Labor never had the wit to call them on it [1]. Here is what Gillard had told commercial TV in the run-up to the 2010 election:

“There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead, but let me be clear: I will be putting a price on carbon and I will move to an emissions trading scheme.”

The consequence of the lie campaign is that although the next Global Financial Heist is already in the planning stages [2] Australia will no longer have a government willing and able to protect us from its devastating effects. This will be why foreign billionaires like Murdoch were busting a gut for years to get rid of the government in favour of their own placemen, while some public wealth is still available for private acquisition as in Europe.

The irony is that CO2 emission curbs can’t perceptibly affect climate even based on the IPCC’s scare stories as clearly demonstrated at http://topher.com.au/50-to-1-video-project/

[1] They could even now unleash a relentless flurry of repetitive Question Time Questions demanding that Abbott declare whether he knew the government in which he was a Minister was lying its head off about Iraqi WMDs and did he support the war joined as a followup to the lies?

[2] e.g. http://consortiumnews.com/2013/10/08/the-koch-brothers-samson-option

I agree Anthony Albanese is Labors best choice, and I hope he wins.

At least we will have one mature party leader who speaks well and wouldn't embarrass us when representing Australia overseas.

Go Albo!

Emperor Julian

I had to check the name at the bottom of your post to make sure it wasn't me who wrote it. :)

Yep he probably is the best Labor have to offer, pity he's so dumb.

His IQ is probably a few points above Swanny, but would not top 90 on a good day. I suppose that makes him easier to control.

So with Albo it will be Roman Catholic Albo + plus Roman Catholic missus versus Roman Catholic Abbott plus Roman Catholic missus?

After the attention poor Tony Abbott has been getting for his Catholicism from the very upset anti-Christian 'Progressives' and equally anti-Christian atheists, he and Margie will be pleased to have Anthony Albanese and Carmel to share the spiteful tirade.

Bit of a grin for the rest of us who reckon that while we ourselves might not be church goers, we would still defend the right of all including politicians to their religious beliefs. It is called tolerance, although there is not much of it about among the serial whingers, particularly the religious atheists (well, that is how some behave).

Fun times ahead with plenty of buzzing apparent in the hive.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to discern what the Labor Party stands for any longer, except as a featherbedded home for superannuated union officials and party apparatchiks.

We now have the ridiculous situation where the "faceless backroom powerbrokers" have actually turned up in the front line. How on earth either of these two career politicians - the most pejorative term I can think of short of libel - can expect to engage with the general public is beyond me. And the thought of either of them representing Australia to the rest of the world is depressing.

Politicians never seem to learn. The UK Labour Party has provided a perfect example of how it can be achieved, sustained and then lost. Create a charismatic figurehead who speaks directly to the people (Blair), and you sail through consecutive elections. Put up a dyed-in-the-wool party faction-fighter (Brown), and you fall at the very next fence. Replace him with an even more inner-sanctum party factotum (Milliband) and you forfeit every gain you have made, and are back fighting the same tedious class-war games that bore people to tears.

Neither of these candidates deserves to lead a political party in Australia, since both prove beyond doubt that we have permanently dumbed-down our aspirations for inspirational leadership and genuine, issue-driven, debate.

p.s. I always thought that Blair was a charlatan and a narcissistic hypocrite, by he way. But he did win elections by connecting directly with the populace, rather than through the lens of this-or-that ideology-driven faction.

Pericles, a long-winded way of saying you like conservative politicians and you don't like Labor ones.

"Neither of these candidates deserves to lead a political party in Australia, since both prove beyond doubt that we have permanently dumbed-down our aspirations for inspirational leadership and genuine, issue-driven, debate."

If any party has tried to break through to debate policy and not slogans it is Labor. Abbott, Hockey et al aspired to power with a simple vision, to dismantling Labor's progress on every front, from disability insurance, super reform, NBN, education, climate, the list is long.

The "faceless men" slogan has run its course. Albanese and Shorten were a part of formulating the Labor vision and would make a good Leader, Deputy-leader team. But that cannot be so, and Plibersek has shown herself to a worthy 2IC. Of course, she will have to deal with being demonized should the next election look like a contest, but she'll handle that

I'm not sure where you pulled this from, Luciferase, although I do have a suspicion.

>>Pericles, a long-winded way of saying you like conservative politicians and you don't like Labor ones.<<

If this thread were about Liberal politicians, I would have offered an opinion on them. It isn't, so I didn't.

But you do highlight an interesting aspect of OLO comments in general. The assumption of so many one-eyed supporters of one political colour is that anyone who doesn't share their every party-related opinion, must automatically represent the most extreme opposite view. It spoils so many otherwise potentially profitable lines of enquiry, when bigots from both sides simply wade in with their shallow pet theories.

>>If any party has tried to break through to debate policy and not slogans it is Labor<<

Oh, come on. They are as bad as each other, a fact that you would recognize if you took off the eyepatch over your right eye.

>>The "faceless men" slogan has run its course.<<

Wishful thinking. Once again we have two backroom numbers-men fighting over the opportunity to represent their faction. Not the Labor party. Nor the populace at large. Show me how it has changed for the better.

>>Albanese and Shorten were a part of formulating the Labor vision<<

This might well be true.

But do they actually have a vision, apart from the desire to acquire more votes than their opponents? And how does it differ from what Rudd and Gillard offered us?

Graham, it looks as though Shorten nobbled the Caucus with promises of jobs for the boys and girls if he got the nod.

Of course, it would be hard to prove anything but votes gained in the Caucus were much higher in value than votes from the members, unfairly so.

Our Shorten is quick on the uptake when he needs to be! I guess you don't get rid of two Prime Ministers unless you are Machiavellian by nature.

You reap what you sow eventually! Ask Gillard!

It appears that Caucus was put off by the initials AA, but not BS.

Caucus voted defensively.
Where's the safest place to put a back stabber?