Peter Beattie’s non-resignation is an interesting gambit. Tony Blair made himself a lame duck twelve or so months ago when he said he would resign in this term of the British Parliament. John Howard will obviously resign some time, unless of course he loses his seat, but he has a forumula which allows him to duck the question and stay anything but lame.
Beattie’s announcement falls between the two, but is much closer to Blair’s position. But Beattie is not Blair. Is this the reverse sell? “I’m going to leave, now tell me you love me”? Or has he been told he must go, as Bob Carr was, but is trying to change the dynamic of public opinion? If Beattie is going then the limelight shifts towards Anna Bligh. Will the public warm towards her, or will they be looking for alternatives. What will the caucus think?
If Beattie does resign, and isn’t just playing another game, then the Labor Party will need to make a clean break and take the Iemma option. That means electing someone as leader who is competent, but not a public face of the government. A leader who is not identified closely in the public mind with the existing leadership can win the next election for Labor. That leader is unlikely to be Bligh who will wear the likely failures of the government’s water policies, and is persistently identified in the public mind with the problems of asbestos in state schools. It probably won’t be Transport Minister Paul Lucas. But it could be John Mickel who, while Minister for State Development, Employment and Industrial Relations, has managed everything so smoothly that some back-benchers have a higher public profile.