ANTHONY Albanese won himself a promotion this week, despite openly supporting a move away from Julia Gillard and back to Kevin Rudd.
It upset supporters in both camps.
But I'm not sure it's fair to label Albo disloyal to Gillard because most of his spruiking for Rudd has been about simply checking with people how they feel the Government is travelling, rather than offering negative assessments about the PM along the way.
If he'd done more, we may have a new PM by now (or more accurately, an old one returned to the position).
Yes, Mark Butler's defection to the Rudd camp was probably engineered by Albo explicitly or implicitly but had the PM fired Albo for alleged disloyalty she would have only hurt herself, not to mention risked an early election.
Apart from being a clever play promoting Albo because it takes the heat off the fact the rest of her reshuffle had allies rewarded and enemies ignored it was also necessary.
Necessary to promote Albo and to keep him as Leader of the House.
Albo's day-to-day job, when Parliament sits, is to keep the independents happy and make sure the Government doesn't fall over. No mean feat given Labor operates as a minority government and the fact it hasn't exactly been setting the world on fire (as Albo must surely know, or else he wouldn't have spent so much time thinking about the benefits of a Rudd comeback).
Had Gillard sacked Albo there is every chance the independents would have walked away from the Government, forcing an early election. Instead, she promoted him, into Simon Crean's old portfolio of regional affairs.
Albo has held the portfolio before, so he should take it back with consummate ease. And the independents will be happy, too, because they'll now have even more to do with him.
The only problem? What's Labor's most inner-city leftie doing running a regional affairs portfolio? Political pragmatism my dear fellow, that is your answer.