Its beautiful in its elegance and simplicity yet the best part is that Gillard really has no other viable option left.

Its interesting the way that political events will have unintended consequences as I am sure Julia Gillard and the Labor party are appreciating today with her Malaysian solution having turned from a life saver into a weight belt at the announcement of one little high court judgement. As she tries desperately to think of a way to spin yet another failure and a way to return the settings that Brother Number One so flippantly threw asunder. Sadly for the PM she does not get a chance to travel to her past and enjoy a “do over” so that that seemingly small and  simple change would not have had such destabilising ripples in the political pond now. Fortunately The Coalition are prepared to be magnanimous when Labor finally decides to admit that John Howard had it right. So they will help Labor  to reopen Nauru and to reintroduce TPVs:

click for source of screenshot

With her public standing at an all time low there can only be one thing that is preventing her making the necessary public back-down and that is her personal pride and fear of the inevitable barrage of criticism from the loopy Greens and their fellow travellers from the left wing of her party. However no matter how loudly those people scream and shout the benefit to brand Labor in its heartland must surely be greater. It may not be enough to “save” Labor from a crushing defeat at the next election but it probably will be enough for some voters not to irrevocably abandon the party into the future. From the coalition’s point of view making the offer to help Julia reinstate their own policy settings is a win win situation, they will be able to tell the voters that they had it right all along and that Labor was so incompetent that it took them four years and billions of dollars to finally admit the error of their ways, secondly they will have a head start on a return to sanity on the issue without having to bore the public (or themselves) by continuing to chant the “we will stop the boats” mantra. Its beautiful in its elegance and simplicity yet the best part is that Gillard really has no other viable option left.
Cheers Comrades