Greeny News

In the August 2010 election Labor clung to power only by deals with the Greens and two independents. To win their support, Ms Gillard had to ditch her previous promise and proceed with a carbon tax, thus allowing the opposition to charge her with deception. Mr Abbott's intention, which opinion polls suggest is being fulfilled, is to use the issue to prise Labor's blue-collar voters away from the party. Additionally, the Liberals now hope a developing scandal surrounding the Labor MP Craig Thomson, a former union general secretary, involving his alleged misuse of its credit card in a Sydney brothel, may come to deprive Ms Gillard of her majority.