An Australian Prime Ministerial staffer has been linked to yesterday’s ugly protest incident in Canberra, forcing his resignation and acutely embarrassing PM Julia Gillard.

In an early evening statement, the Prime Minister dismissed as ‘false’ claims that one of her staff had spoken to people at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy prior to yesterday’s angry protest that temporarily trapped her and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.

But Ms Gillard acknowledges that a member of her media unit ‘did call another individual yesterday and disclose the presence of the Opposition Leader at the Lobby restaurant. This information was subsequently passed on to a member of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy.’ …

He is Tony Hodges, one of four press secretaries working in Julia Gillard’s media unit.

The link is deeply embarrassing for the Prime Minister and leaves her shouldering some of the blame for an incident where many had pinned responsibility on Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott.

This is typical Australian Labor tactics.  The press secretary would have leaked the info, hoping it would lead to anti-Abbott protests.

Instead it led to his own boss having to be dragged out by Police. And now they can’t blame anyone else for it.

“I’m a very happy little vegemite being Prime Minister … being Foreign Minister of Australia,” he told ABC Central West today while on his way to Condobolin, west of Orange, to open a rotary-funded indigenous studies centre.

One can forgive Kevin for the slip-up, as regaining the top job must be at the top of his thoughts most of the time.

Recent polls have shown he would do much better against the Coalition than Julia Gillard. However she is genuinely liked by many of his colleagues and Rudd is not, so the decision is not as easy as it might otherwise be. But this latest poll is a shocker for Gillard:

Ms Gillard is now neck and neck with Mr Abbott as preferred prime minister among female voters, 39 per cent to 37 per cent, compared to 52 per cent to 33 per cent at the last election.

Abbott has always been considered a total turn-off for female voters. If he is only 2% behind amongst women, then his biggest weakness has been overcome.

The date is now thought to be 21 August, so it will e a short sharp campaign, trying to pit it as a leadership choice between Gillard and Abbott.

The election will be for all 150 MPs and 38 out of 76 senators.

I rate Gillard as the favourite to win, but campaigns generally can and do matter, and we’ll see what happens. The Coalition needs to win 11 seats.

Her fix to the boat people issues is coming a bit unravelled, and it is also becoming clear the compromise with the miners was in fact a $7.5 billion backdown.

Abbott has come up with a plan to tax big business – those earning more than A$5 million ($6.25 million) a year – to pay for a surprisingly generous compulsory leave scheme.

Under his proposal primary carers would be paid at their full rate of take-home pay up to a maximum income of A$150,000 a year ($187.5 million) for 26 weeks. Abbott estimates the scheme will cost about A$2.7 billion a year.

A rather desperate election bribe. First of all, taxing large businesses to pay for the entire costs is blatantly unfair. If it is deemed desirable to have paid maternity leave, then it should be funded by all taxpayers.

Secondly it is massive welfare for the rich. If you were on $40,000 you will get $20,000 maternity leave. If you were on $150,000 you will get $75,000.

Rudd’s scheme, due to be launched next January, pales by comparison. This scheme will pay the minimum wage of about A$544 a week to the primary carer for a maximum 18 weeks’ leave after the birth of a child.

It will cost an estimated A$260 million a year, paid out of consolidated revenue.

Rudd’s scheme seems far more sensible to me.

Not a good sign for Australia, if both parties are getting into a bidding war of spending money they don’t have.

Australian Opposition Leader Tony Abbott on the right. Photo from Sydney Daily Telegraph.

Captions below please.

news.com.au reports:

TONY Abbott has rolled Malcolm Turnbull to take over the Liberal leadership in a spill forced by deep divisions on the Opposition’s climate change policy.

Mr Abbott, Mr Turnbull and Joe Hockey contested a three-way spill at a special partyroom meeting in Parliament this morning.  Mr Abbott won by a single vote, 42-41.

Mr Hockey – who had been expected to win in a landslide – was eliminated in the first round of voting.  That sent Mr Abbott and Mr Turnbull into a head-to-head vote for the leadership.

But those deep divisions remain.  Yesterday Mr Hockey was demanding a free vote to decide Coalition policy on climate change early next year, if he were to agree to take on the leadership.

That angered right-wing Liberal powerbrokers and prompted Mr Abbott to stay in the race for the top job.  Turns out that was a good call.

A very good call. But the real winner is Kevin Rudd who will easily win re-election now I would say.

The vote to have a contest was 48 to 34. Then the first round ballot was Abbott 35, Turnbull 26 and Hockey 23. Turnbull almost got wiped out on the first ballot. Abbott picked up seven votes from Hockey and Turnbull picked up 15, for a final result of 42-41.

Abbott is a brawler, but hard to see him attracting widespread support to become PM.