Snap election dodged, but disarray drags on For a few moments in Thursday's parliamentary question time, it looked like we were on the brink of a snap election, triggered by a Labor leadership crisis that didn't actually eventuate. A motion of no confidence loomed. Labor's Anthony Albanese wore out shoe leather rounding up critical votes from the ornery crossbenchers. Liberal frontbenchers worked on Tasmanian Andrew Wilkie and their own turncoat, Peter Slipper. Wilkie sought a brief appointment with the doctor of the House of Representatives - Liberal backbencher and GP Mal Washer, who looked inclined to break out his blood pressure cuff. Perhaps the critical vote on confidence was always in the bag. Perhaps the frisson in the bearpit was like everything on Thursday - a shimmery, strange mirage. But spectators leaned forward in their seats, watching the eddying current of the conversations, wondering whether Labor's roiling existential crisis was about to be taken out of its own hands. After all, the government's media reform package had expired due to a lack of parliamentary friends earlier in the morning while Communications Minister Stephen Conroy was off-site speaking about a competition to name robots. It all looked pretty tenuous, that minority government: the sinew all strained and twisted. Confidence in the government was preserved in the end, a motion to suspend the standing orders lacked the required absolute majority. The shallow-breathing rubber neckers in the public galleries - the public and twitching press reptiles alike - relaxed back in their seats shortly after 3pm. But the leadership of the Labor Party seemed at the end of question time to be lurching towards the inevitable showdown. The Prime Minister had deemed the time to settle the matter was 4.30pm. Word had filtered into Camp Gillard late on Wednesday afternoon that Arts Minister Simon Crean had completed his journey to Kevin Rudd by forming a leadership ticket with the member for Griffith. People allege Crean had promised to deliver a clutch of critical votes; and the NSW Right had backed him for the deputy's job. After two conversations with Julia Gillard, Mr Crean faced the media just after 10am on Thursday. Colleagues watched the appearance with interest, given the expectation was he was going to blow up the Prime Minister's leadership by resigning his cabinet position. Crean did no such thing. He argued essentially that there was nothing about the Labor leadership that couldn't be fixed with some old-fashioned leadership. People needed to pull back from the disunity killing the party, Crean reasoned. Then he fled. Confusion reigned. After a few hours, at 1pm, Crean was back before the television cameras again. Internal accounts of the bizarre few hours differ. Some in Camp Rudd say neither they, nor Rudd, knew Crean was going to go out publicly and call for a leadership spill. Rudd - who is said to have known it in any case - was made aware by people who mattered that the caucus numbers just weren't there in the event of a challenge. But other Labor sources allege Crean's afternoon appearance was pure, bastardly (if incompetent) orchestration: having failed in his melancholy duty in the morning, he was sent back to finish the job. But if Crean's intention was to place an incendiary device under the Prime Minister, the only person he succeeded in blowing up was himself.