media, probably won't do much for voters, who would only have seen two leaders they dislike tearing at each other; such moments tend merely to confirm existing voter sentiments anyway. That it was in the service of supporting someone like Slipper won't help either. But his narrow survival and the warnings of Tony Windsor, a man whose common sense and straight thinking have been invaluable in this Parliament, meant Slipper's time was up, something even the man himself realised. Labor's defence of him had been for nought, except for a crystallising moment of gender politics between a female Prime Minister and her male opponent. There'll be much speculation about which way Slipper will vote as an independent, but the important point is that the government has already secured passage of its key reform legislation for this term. The Gonski reforms remain, but that's one issue where Labor very definitely wants a fight with the Coalition, indeed is counting on it, and in any event doesn't need to pass legislation before the election? -- ?it currently proposes to pass a kind of aspirational bill about educational outcomes. This was Gillard's argument to Caucus yesterday? -- ?the strategy for this term had always been a "long game" in which big reforms were introduced by mid-term and the government focused on governing thereafter. Bills that won't pass will simply be held back to preserve the government's legislative record, until the election or a deal with an independent can secure an extra vote. There