ALP anarchy reaches its breaking point

BILL Shorten has ruled out being drafted to take over from Julia Gillard as Labor MPs meet this morning desperate to find a circuit breaker to the crisis around the Labor leadership.

The former union boss and Labor powerbroker has denied he was being urged to run or that anyone was running numbers for him.

And supporters of Kevin Rudd were adamant the former PM would not even stand for the job if the caucus were to bring on a spill of the leadership. Senior Labor figures last night declared the party was now in a state of "anarchy" and that a "three-way stand-off" had emerged between Mr Rudd, Ms Gillard and her senior cabinet backers such as Wayne Swan, Stephen Smith and Stephen Conroy - who sources claimed were seeking any option that would block a Rudd return.

Mr Conroy denied he had been calling MPs seeking support for Mr Shorten.

"Conroy hates Rudd with such a passion, he would look at any option that would prevent that from happening," said one senior MP. Mr Shorten has told colleagues he is not interested and last night denied Mr Conroy or anyone else was ringing around on his behalf.

Mr Rudd's supporters, despite agitating behind the scenes, are also trying to play down any prospect of a showdown this week.

Mr Rudd's key strategist and Labor campaigner Bruce Hawker said that Mr Rudd would not even put his hand up if Ms Gillard called on a ballot.

"I don't think we're going to see a change in the next fortnight," Mr Hawker said.

Special Minister of State Gary Gray, a former Labor national secretary during Paul Keating's leadership, said he "didn't think" there would be a leadership change. "Mate, its anarchy. No one knows what's happening, which means anything could happen," said one senior minister.

Ms Gillard faced calls over the weekend to resign following a disastrous election result for Labor in WA.

But supporters of Ms Gillard hosed down suggestions her meetings with factional leaders in Canberra were anything more than normal planning meetings.

Despite the leadership speculation, Ms Gillard will take some heart from the latest Newspoll out today.

The figures, published exclusively in The Australian, show a 3 point rise to 34 per cent in primary support for the government and Ms Gillard back in front of Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister.

She went up from 36 per cent to 42 per cent while Mr Abbott fell from 40 per cent to 38 per cent.

It comes as a Galaxy Poll conducted for The Sunday Telegraph revealed Labor's primary vote had fallen 3 points in the past month to just 32 per cent.

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