The Parliament may be in hiatus for the holidays but it appears Prime Minister Julia Gillard may not necessarily relish the break as she needs to map her strategies come resumption of sessions next year and one of those is staying in power, reports said.

As much as Ms Gillard wishes to focus much of her energy on the economy, with experts hinting that 2012 could prove overwhelming as the financial situation in Europe deteriorates, the nagging issues on the domestic front leaves her hand quite full.

Her tenure as Prime Minister has been beset by lingering fissures within the Australian Labor Party, with the possibility that Ms Gillard may eventually lose her post not through election but in the same way that she gained it - via backdoor manoeuvrings that ousted her predecessor, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd.

While numerous surveys have suggested that Ms Gillard will likely lose out when pitted against Opposition Leader Tony Abbott if elections were held today, the biggest threat, analysts said, comes from within.

The swirling speculations that Rudd may be mulling a comeback get stronger everyday and when the Prim Minister moved to revamp her cabinet, more stories that touch on her impending exit emerge as more and more ALP members appear disenchanted by Ms Gillard's style of leadership.

One notable Labor figure, Senator Kim Carr, who was instrumental on Ms Gillard's ascension to the top post, did not hide his disappointment when he was unceremoniously stripped of his cabinet portfolio during the reshuffle last week when he declared: "I'm obviously at a loss to understand some of these matters."

Carr told the Sydney Morning Herald that he was completely clueless why his boss decided to remove him as analysts pointed out that one thing is clear, Ms Gillard had lost another key ally in the party, a spectre that could further embolden future leadership challenges in the not-so-distant future.

Yet the top ALP leader was clearly adamant on staying put when she told SMH over the weekend that she plans to finish her three-year term.

"I've never had the slightest doubt that this government would go to the next election at the normal cycle in the second half of 2013 ... and I'd hope that as we leave 2011, more people will share my view than perhaps used to," the SMH Saturday story quoted Ms Gillard as saying.

She brushed aside suggestions that a growing number of ministers on her cabinet are supporting Rudd and insisted instead that pressing economic issues, domestic and global, merit more of her attention.

Ms Gillard said that the situation in Europe is alarming and further slides would definitely harm Australia though she stressed that "if circumstances worsen, there is plenty of room for our nation on the monetary policy side, the interest rate side."

The Prime Minister believes that more rate reduction from the central bank would "give our nation opportunities to deal with impacts on global growth if they are more profound than we can see now."

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