Gillard's precarious grip on power is doing immense harm to Australian governance. Whilst I’m sure most of us are sick to the teeth of following the Thomson and Slipper saga, the real harm being done is to our confidence in governance. We face a constitutional crisis, not unlike that which ousted Gogh Whitlam from power in 1974. The governor general has at her disposal the ability to enact her constitutional obligation to intervene and install a caretaker government until an election is called, and from where a political party is soundly elected to govern in its own right. Back in 1974 Whitlam asserted the primacy of the House of Representatives and his right to govern so long as he retained a majority there, whereas Fraser claimed that a government denied Supply by the Senate should resign. Neither Abbott nor Gillard and their respective political parties can claim to that they can govern in their own right. I believe the Governor General is now obliged to intervene and set in place a caretaker government that provides in the short term, much more confidence in how we are currently governed, but in the longer term, substantive confidence that our federal system being able to right itself.

I am so extremely glad it will never happen, and too that it has no need to.
A closer and honester look will see nothing new in the Thomson affair, conservatives cover their tracks better,AWB/Children over board.
HUNG PARLIAMENT those words best describe our current problems.
Sorry but must swear to tell of the largest reason for Parliament Dysfuncionalism.
Look the other way if you are likely to be offended.
ABBOTT sorry forthat!,his school yard bully team, Pyne, Bishop, a second Bishop, if someone is around to lead her to the dispatch box.
We do not have a Sir John Curr as GG.
We have the mum in law of the next PM!

The next PM will be Abbott Belly, not the shortarse you mention.

As for the GG fiddling in this, there is no opening for her to do so.

And she would not be able to live here anymore if she did, after the Curr debacle.

People should listen to Windsor and the other chap, who weighed things up and went with Gillard not Abbott.

Gillard could have handed her commission back, but those two were never going to support Abbott, and he's dreamin' if he thinks they would have.

When wishing for a 'definative' outcome, see what happened in Qld.

Well deserved though the ALP thrashing was, it has left the state in a dictatorhsip situation.

Cando may well govern wisely, in fairness we have to wait to see, but it's highly unlikely he will, or can with the calibre of his team.

And that is why a tension in power balances is needed.

Howard went berko when he had the Senate in his palm, and lost badly.

Abbott was nearly in due to the madness of Rudd and the floppyness of his colleagues and their failure to challenge his shocking behaviour.

Again, the ALP lost grip when they allowed no tension in their internal power arranegments.

There is no need for an election, and anyway Abbott will lead the next government, and it will end up like Qld is today.

Still, at least Latham will look like a hero compared to Gillard when she gets dumped so viciously, and joins Anna Bligh in the 'do not open' file in the ALP history books.

Abbott will be in jail for the election. doing 6-12. And the one that gillard wouldn't wipe the floor with will be leader.
The great big Carbon tax is loooming, scarey.
Abbott is in the wilderness sounding like a cross between a blood curdling dingo howl and a swiss yodel.
The only thing that is not constitutional is Abbott's attempts to have an elected member dismissed from parliament.
Until Thomson is actually charged with something, it's only play acting.
Abbotts hopes were on the money poured into his electorate, that fizzled out now it is something else.
I say he is edgy about the implementation of the worlds biggest carbon tax.

What Constitutional Crisis?

It all seems to be functioning perfectly normally to me. Not particularly satisfactorily, but that's the way it always is. At any one time half the population is bound to be upset by the government's actions - I recall this being the case when Howard was PM, when Keating was PM, when Hawke was PM etc. etc.

At least we can now be sure that whichever Party next finds itself in Gillard's position, they will know that the bargains they make for cross-bench support will inevitably turn out to be a form of political suicide.

TBC love your work! makes me laugh, what ever turned you against Labor it must have hurt.
Yes what crisis?
We have a woman pushing great policy's past the house, mixed with miserable failures.
She has hypnotic like support in the house, in her team, and very little even in the party that put her there.
Seems those who pushed her in to the job, shared Rudd's blood with her, made commitments too.
BUT opposed to that?
A pathetic small man, in statue and mind, surrounded by Pyne and the two Bishops, once contender Hockey now the stooge for them all.
5 foolish ranting raving fools, what a front bench what a shame.
And left of center pleading for them to kill Labor so?
The dream that greens can become the next opposition!
Never ever going to happen, if greens are not halved by 2020 I know nothing about politics.
If by that year too Labor has not reformed and won back east coast states and confined federal conservatives to the sin bin?
Same again, some pain now but massive gain as a result of the Gillard failure