New dawn no easy task for Labor

PM Julia Gillard will lead the first minority government since the 1940s but it'll be no easy task.

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This poll ended on 30 April 2011.

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PRIME Minister Julia Gillard will lead the first minority government since the 1940s but it will be no easy task for Labor and its new allies as a new political dawn rises.

A day after she was handed power by NSW independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, Prime Minister Julia Gillard will set to work to ensure her and party's survival with a wafer-thin majority.

On Tuesday she vowed to open up the curtains and let the sunshine in to create a more open parliament than the nation has ever seen.

But Nationals senate leader Barnaby Joyce said it would take only one person to change sides or retire to bring the new minority government to an end.

People should get their popcorn ready as they poised to watch Labor appoint a ministry of a divisional party, including Kevin Rudd, he said.

"You'll be able to sell tickets to this, this will be the best show in town," Senator Joyce told ABC Television on Tuesday night.

Mr Windsor was making no apologies for backing Labor despite saying on Tuesday he thought the coalition would have won if the nation had gone back to the polls.

"There is real self interest in this, not for me but for regional Australia," Mr Windsor told ABC Television on Tuesday night.

Senator Joyce said the coalition would concentrate on being the best opposition it could rather than eyeing off seats it could wrest off the independents at the next election.

He praised Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and Nationals leader Warren Truss for getting so close to toppling Labor at the polls.

Ms Gillard stated her priorities before the year's end were to have a parliamentary sitting and to start trying to deliver on her election promises.

Sitting dates will need to be set and there is the issue of who will be speaker and deputy speaker at a later date.

Mr Oakeshott was homeward bound to Port Macquarie, desperate to see his children and pregnant wife, as he pondered if he would take up a ministry offered to him by Ms Gillard.

There has been no offer of a ministry for the Greens, which also helped Labor to power.

Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said the government would have to work hard to convince both houses of parliaments of its legislation.

Senator Brown said the Greens was a senate-based party which would continue to "have its hands full" in the new parliament, where it would hold the balance of power.