Australian PM rolled?

[Parihaka]

Rudd's backers concede defeat

By political editor Chris Uhlmann


Supporters for Mr Rudd dispute the size of the margin, but have acknowledged that Ms Gillard will take over as Prime Minister.

This morning Ms Gillard's supporters told the ABC there was a push to get Mr Rudd not to contest the vote.

One supporter of Mr Rudd said: "You can't have a show where you have got to look over your shoulder all the time. It's clear where you end up. You end up as New South Wales."

A win for Ms Gillard would install her as Australia's 27th prime minister and its first female leader. She is expected to have Treasurer Wayne Swan as her Deputy Prime Minister.

Senior West Australian MP Gary Gray says he has no trouble supporting Ms Gillard. "From my own personal position, I'll be supporting Julia," he said. "I think Julia will win today."

Mr Rudd called a late night press conference to announce the spill after a long meeting with Ms Gillard and party elder statesman, John Faulkner, last night.

"It's important I believe, in the interests of the Party and the Government, for these matters to be resolved as a matter of urgency," Mr Rudd said.

The moves against Mr Rudd began several weeks ago when one of Mr Rudd's supporters, New South Wales right powerbroker Mark Arbib, approached his Victorian counterpart David Feeney to sound out the possibility of a leadership change.

That was prompted by a series of disastrous polls which showed the Prime Minister's approval plummeting and taking the party's primary vote with it.

Yesterday morning the two powerbrokers met with Ms Gillard. They returned at noon saying that they could guarantee the support of the majority of right wing Caucus members in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia.

They told the Deputy Prime Minister that the party would lose the election if Mr Rudd continued to lead it. They said they believe the party will win under Ms Gillard.

Party sources tell the ABC that Ms Gillard agreed that the party faced electoral annihilation with Mr Rudd at the helm.

As a series of secretive meetings were held around Parliament House the ABC became aware of the moves against the Prime Minister and broke the story on air and online at 7:00pm AEST.

That accelerated events as the conspirators were hoping to finalise their plans without the media catching on. As it played out it became clear that even senior ministers were unaware of the power play.

One Cabinet minister told the ABC: "I am sitting in my office watching all this unfold on TV. I have no part in this and no idea what's going on. This is madness."


Rudd's pitch

Announcing the party room spill, Mr Rudd listed his achievements and unfinished plans.

"I was elected by the people of Australia as Prime Minister of Australia. I was elected to do a job," he said.

"I intend to continue doing that job. I intend to continue doing it to the absolute best of my ability. Part of that job has been to steer this country through the worst economic crisis the world has ever seen in 75 years. I believe the Government has acquitted itself well to that task.

"Part of the reason the Government was elected was to deliver fundamental reforms in the health and hospital system. I believe the Government has acquitted itself well to that task as well.

"Part of what the Government was elected to do was also to deliver fair outcomes for pensioners in Australia, and I believe we've done that well by increasing the pension to the extent that we have.

"These are important reforms; infrastructure, education, health, hospitals, closing the gap with Indigenous Australians, also the apology to the first Australians. As Prime Minister of the country I'm proud of each and every one of these achievements. There is much more to be done and we intend to get on with the job of doing it."

And after weeks of denying the internal disquiet at his leadership style he admitted that he knew some in his ranks were out to get him.

"It's become apparent to me in the course of the last period of time, the last several weeks, that a number of factional leaders within the Labor Party no longer support my leadership," he said.

"That is why it is imperative that this matter be resolved".

"I was elected by the people of Australia to do a job. I was not elected by the factional leaders of the Australian Labor Party to do a job, though they may be seeking to do a job on me, that's a separate matter."


Never popular

Mr Rudd never enjoyed the popular support of his party and his autocratic style has further soured the relationship. His centralisation of decisions and the narrowness of the group of ministers he consulted is being blamed for many of the party's woes.

The feeling against him is visceral.

One powerbroker said: "This crypto-fascist made no effort to build a base in the party. Now that his only faction, Newspoll, has deserted him he is gone."

The collapse in the polls followed hard on the heels of the decision to suspend the Government's push to set up an emissions trading system.

Having declared climate change the greatest moral and ethical challenge of our time, the electorate reacted viciously and polling on both sides showed many voters lost faith in the Prime Minister.

Others in the party say it is the steady flow of asylum seekers that is killing the Government in marginal seats.

Last night Mr Rudd suggested he was not behind those decisions and suggested that, if he was removed, the party would lurch to the right chasing votes.

"I believe it is absolutely wrong for this country and absolutely wrong in terms of the values which we hold dear, to get engaged in some sort of race to the right in this country on the question of asylum seekers, I don't think that's the right thing to do," he said.

"That's the direction the Liberal Party would like to take us, under my leadership we will not be going in that direction.

"Furthermore, can I say this, on the question of emissions trading which you have raised and obviously is a matter of great controversy in the community.

"Let me be very clear. Action on climate change cannot be achieved in the absence of an emissions trading scheme. We need a price on carbon. And that price on carbon needs to be put on it within a reasonable timeframe. That would be the decision of the government, assuming I am re-elected as Prime Minister."

This Prime Minister usually doesn't sleep much. He won't have sleep at all last night.

This is unprecedented. These are historic times. And should he fall today, history will not be kind to Mr Rudd.

It goes to a vote in a bit less than an hour.

[crooks]

Well that's surprising - I was under the impression Gillard was on the left of the Labor party, why are the righties happy to back her?

I've always taken the view the ALP is quite conservative in general, certainly compared to Western European labour parties.
Rudd going would be no great loss to Australian politics, though it's surprising to think of how popular he was just a couple of years ago to such a defeated finish.

Labor has guided Australia through the turmoils quite well, they shouldn't be afraid of facing the Liberals, unless Rudd is really that unpopular to drag them down past 76.

[Parihaka]

Well that's surprising - I was under the impression Gillard was on the left of the Labor party, why are the righties happy to back her?

I've always taken the view the ALP is quite conservative in general, certainly compared to Western European labour parties.
Rudd going would be no great loss to Australian politics, though it's surprising to think of how popular he was just a couple of years ago to such a defeated finish.

Labor has guided Australia through the turmoils quite well, they shouldn't be afraid of facing the Liberals, unless Rudd is really that unpopular to drag them down past 76.

Over the last six months Rudd has been a slo-motion train wreck. THis vote relects Labors poor poll rating and the fear that they'll be a one-term government.
The problem for Gillard is that to regain popularity she's going to have to reverse a number of Rudd policies, all of which she backed to the hilt until yesterday. The mining taxes have to go or at least be watered well down and to regain their votes from the greens the ETS has to be reintroduced.
Good luck to her with that.

[bigross86]

I worked near plenty mining towns and cities in Queensland. I knew that they were having a problem with the mines, I didn't know that it was bad enough to topple the government...

[Parihaka]

I worked near plenty mining towns and cities in Queensland. I knew that they were having a problem with the mines, I didn't know that it was bad enough to topple the government...

Rudd thought it'd be a good idea to tax big mining companies more to fund his spending initiatives. Standard lefty idea with everyone expected to go hooray. Unfortunately for him the mining companies ran an extremely good PR campaign pointing out that it would cost thousands of jobs both directly and downstream in the smaller support companies and backed it up by cancelling a number of projects. People out of work, small contractors going bust.

Gillards problem is that if she cancels or seriously amends the mining tax then she has to totally re-write the last budget to stop handing out the lollies they (Labor) had planned for election year. Oops.

[bigross86]

Sort of puts her between a rock and a hard place, doesn't it?

[Repatriated Canuck]

Labor has guided Australia through the turmoils quite well, they shouldn't be afraid of facing the Liberals, unless Rudd is really that unpopular to drag them down past 76.

Labour did SFA. The Australian mining industry pulled Australia through.


I hate Julia Gillard as well, she is an arrogant cbomb. Ramming the school exams down the throat of people who didn't want it without even a discussion is just one example. I think she will be even worse than Krudd.

[Bigfella]

Well that's surprising - I was under the impression Gillard was on the left of the Labor party, why are the righties happy to back her?

I've always taken the view the ALP is quite conservative in general, certainly compared to Western European labour parties.
Rudd going would be no great loss to Australian politics, though it's surprising to think of how popular he was just a couple of years ago to such a defeated finish.

Labor has guided Australia through the turmoils quite well, they shouldn't be afraid of facing the Liberals, unless Rudd is really that unpopular to drag them down past 76.

Crooks,

First I'll state my position. I havfe never liked Rudd & I've said so publically since he was a shadow minister. He is a smug, superior, moralizing tvrd. I liked some of the things he did (beating Howard for a start), but I have never liked him. That said, I think he would have won the next election & the party took a MASSIVE risk. The only upside is that they did it clean & Rudd took the honourable course - a bloody fight or a wounded PM would have been an unholy mess. There is a lot to like about Gillard, particulary her ability to communicate.

The notion that Gillard is 'left wing' has never been all that accurate & has been dramatically less so since she got into Parliament. I know actual lefties who tangled with her at University & they have never seen her as one of their own. If you look at her record as a minister she has taken on unions on a number of occasions (in particular the Teachers). She was from the 'left' faction, but you wouldn't know it to watch her work.

The reasons the right backed her are actually roughly these:

1) First & foremost is that they want to stay in power - Rudd's slide in the polls & more worryingly his increasing inability to communicate with the electorate made him an electoral risk They figure that Gillard will communicate better (which she will) & that communication is the major issue here (which it mostly is).

2) While Rudd was very conservative for an Australian PM (of either party - he would have fitted neatly into the Liberal Party 20 or 30 years ago) he has never had a sound factional base. The right prefers people who play the game & who it thinks it can control. The fact that Rudd didn't have a secure factional base meant that when the polls turned bad he didn't have a firm base of support to work from. This was observed even before he became PM - he needed to stay popular as PM to stay as party leader.

There is another aspect to this. Tony Abbot scares the ALP & the unions sh1tless. He combines pretty much everything the left despises - neo-liberal economics & conservative moralizing with a statist streak. He would be even more right wing than Howard & a lot more dangerous. If Turnbull or Nelson had been in charge & everything else was the same I suspect this wouldn't have happened. The possibility of a Abbot government spooked the party big time.

I'll leave a discussion of the new mining tax for another time - not least because few people (myself includes) really understand it. Virtually everything the mining industry has said about the tax & its impact are lies or exaggerations. A very similar tax has been applied to the petroleum indistry since the 1980s & they like it - essentially you only pay when you make a big profit & the government actually covers a fair proportion of losses when they occour. The government did the world's worst job of selling it & got spanked.

Because she is new in the chair Gillard will actually be able to change direction on a number of issues. Rudd was known to be a control freak & she will be given some grace. One of her first moves was to ask the mining industry in for talks, offer to end government adds in favour of the new tax & asked them to do the same. VERY smart move - the miners will look nasty if they keep pushing. They have already pulled their ads. This will be resolved within a month.

She has also refused to move into the PM's official residence until she actually wins an election. Another sharp move.

My bet is that the 2nd unhappiest man in Canberra tonight is Tony Abbot. They are old adversaries - she shadowed him for a time & he shadowed her when the government changed. She has always been able to best him 1 on 1. he already has high negatives with women & will not be able to use his bovver boy tactics as freely now. The lines of attack in public will be on her failures as a minister, her support for unpopular Rudd policies & some idea that she is a 'mad leftie'. Because new leaders here tend to get their political virginity back (to a point) the support for past policies won't hurt her too badly (if it did, Abbot would not have any chance). They have already tried the 'leftie' bit & it didn't stick. Then there will be the whispering campaign on the far right. She is unmarried (she has a long term partner) and no kids. Before the last election a senior Liberal referred to her as 'deliberately barren'. There will be lots of oblique references to her lack of children (I'm expecting housewives to pop up in adds talking about how hard it is to manage a household) & endless photo ops with the Abbot children.

She has already promised an election within months - October perhaps (I'm not sure when the last date it can be called is). My bet is that she wins, probably with small losses. The other big news of the day is that the Finance Minster - one of the best ministers in the govt - is resigning. I live in his seat & it will probably go green. Lindsay Tanner will actually be a bigger loss than Rudd.

My bet is that history will judge Rudd a good PM but a poor ALP leader who was the author of his own downfall. The negatives now will slide into he mists of time & his successes will be remembered - particularly his handling of the financial crisis (note, it was government intervention & NOT mining that made sure we escaped that) and his apology to the Stolen Generations.

[Bigfella]

Some analysis

In new PM, Abbott has a tougher opponent

June 24, 2010 - 11:04AM

Julia Gillard becomes Australia's first woman prime minister after as ruthless a slaying of a leader as you'll see in politics. She owes her job to the opinion polls, Labor panic, some tough powerbrokers, and the attractive, smooth image she has built up since the ALP's election.

She's been swept to power on Labor MPs' instinct for survival. The ambitious Gillard has been been handed the top job without personally having to fight for it. Rudd was mortally wounded by his own hand, and the hand of others, who then installed Gillard.

Extraordinary as it's been, that may have been the easy part. The job ahead of her is awesome. Gillard has the overwhelming support of her party — Rudd's decision to stand aside attests to that. But she will have to persuade the voters that Labor, which has been floundering, should be given a second term.


She can expect a honeymoon, and she'll get the advantage of being a celebrity in an age of celebrity politics. Many people will want Gillard to succeed, because they like her, or because they don't want the country's first female leader to flop.

But policy will be harder. She will have to position herself convincingly on issues including emissions trading, the mining tax and asylum seekers. How she deals with policy will test her enormously, especially as she has been pivoted into this job because key policy issues have gone wrong.

She'll need to distinguish herself from Rudd, but also square off her own past. As deputy PM Gillard has not just been Rudd's righthand woman, but also part of the four member "kitchen cabinet" that has run things in the Rudd government.

She has set high standards for herself in the different style of leadership she has promised. In her ABC Australian Story interview, replayed on Monday, she said: "If I were to end up leading the Labor party at some point, that in and of itself would be a different perception by the nation of what leadership is. I think people are over the kind of really highly managed suited white bread style politicians. I think people are looking for more than that and different to that, and you know I think I am different to that."

Gillard said those words in opposition and before Rudd, with his autocratic style, became leader. After the Rudd experiment, Labor will expect a more collective approach from Gillard. But taken too far, this could have its own problems in a government that will need firm direction. It will be a delicate balance. As Rudd found, expectations, if they are too high, can be your downfall.

For Tony Abbott the ascension of Gillard is bad news. If you are a tough guy, how do you beat up on a woman who comes through the door wearing a halo?

Michelle Grattan is Age political editor.

Julia Gillard First Female PM

[crooks]

Over the last six months Rudd has been a slo-motion train wreck. THis vote relects Labors poor poll rating and the fear that they'll be a one-term government.
The problem for Gillard is that to regain popularity she's going to have to reverse a number of Rudd policies, all of which she backed to the hilt until yesterday. The mining taxes have to go or at least be watered well down and to regain their votes from the greens the ETS has to be reintroduced.
Good luck to her with that.

If she really is aiming to be different to Rudd though policy reversals go hand in hand, or at least re-selling older policies - you get a second pitch with a changed leader, as well as big boosts in the short term polls.

If she was to talk about it being a 'fresh start' it'd be hard to argue with any reform in policy, bar calling her a flipflopper.

[crooks]

Labour did SFA. The Australian mining industry pulled Australia through.


I hate Julia Gillard as well, she is an arrogant cbomb. Ramming the school exams down the throat of people who didn't want it without even a discussion is just one example. I think she will be even worse than Krudd.

The Australian government made the news here for bringing in an effective stimulus, as well as having tighter regulations than most places, helping the economy avoid recession - they're obviously doing something right!

At the same time the impression is undoubtably that Australia is blessed in natural resources, the economy minus the primary export industry would make for interesting reading.

[StevoJH]

Rudd had to go, but the influence that the unions appeared to have in this leadership change disturbed me.....

[crooks]

Crooks,

First I'll state my position. I havfe never liked Rudd & I've said so publically since he was a shadow minister. He is a smug, superior, moralizing tvrd. I liked some of the things he did (beating Howard for a start), but I have never liked him. That said, I think he would have won the next election & the party took a MASSIVE risk. The only upside is that they did it clean & Rudd took the honourable course - a bloody fight or a wounded PM would have been an unholy mess. There is a lot to like about Gillard, particulary her ability to communicate.

The notion that Gillard is 'left wing' has never been all that accurate & has been dramatically less so since she got into Parliament. I know actual lefties who tangled with her at University & they have never seen her as one of their own. If you look at her record as a minister she has taken on unions on a number of occasions (in particular the Teachers). She was from the 'left' faction, but you wouldn't know it to watch her work.

The reasons the right backed her are actually roughly these:

1) First & foremost is that they want to stay in power - Rudd's slide in the polls & more worryingly his increasing inability to communicate with the electorate made him an electoral risk They figure that Gillard will communicate better (which she will) & that communication is the major issue here (which it mostly is).

2) While Rudd was very conservative for an Australian PM (of either party - he would have fitted neatly into the Liberal Party 20 or 30 years ago) he has never had a sound factional base. The right prefers people who play the game & who it thinks it can control. The fact that Rudd didn't have a secure factional base meant that when the polls turned bad he didn't have a firm base of support to work from. This was observed even before he became PM - he needed to stay popular as PM to stay as party leader.

There is another aspect to this. Tony Abbot scares the ALP & the unions sh1tless. He combines pretty much everything the left despises - neo-liberal economics & conservative moralizing with a statist streak. He would be even more right wing than Howard & a lot more dangerous. If Turnbull or Nelson had been in charge & everything else was the same I suspect this wouldn't have happened. The possibility of a Abbot government spooked the party big time.

I'll leave a discussion of the new mining tax for another time - not least because few people (myself includes) really understand it. Virtually everything the mining industry has said about the tax & its impact are lies or exaggerations. A very similar tax has been applied to the petroleum indistry since the 1980s & they like it - essentially you only pay when you make a big profit & the government actually covers a fair proportion of losses when they occour. The government did the world's worst job of selling it & got spanked.

Because she is new in the chair Gillard will actually be able to change direction on a number of issues. Rudd was known to be a control freak & she will be given some grace. One of her first moves was to ask the mining industry in for talks, offer to end government adds in favour of the new tax & asked them to do the same. VERY smart move - the miners will look nasty if they keep pushing. They have already pulled their ads. This will be resolved within a month.

She has also refused to move into the PM's official residence until she actually wins an election. Another sharp move.

My bet is that the 2nd unhappiest man in Canberra tonight is Tony Abbot. They are old adversaries - she shadowed him for a time & he shadowed her when the government changed. She has always been able to best him 1 on 1. he already has high negatives with women & will not be able to use his bovver boy tactics as freely now. The lines of attack in public will be on her failures as a minister, her support for unpopular Rudd policies & some idea that she is a 'mad leftie'. Because new leaders here tend to get their political virginity back (to a point) the support for past policies won't hurt her too badly (if it did, Abbot would not have any chance). They have already tried the 'leftie' bit & it didn't stick. Then there will be the whispering campaign on the far right. She is unmarried (she has a long term partner) and no kids. Before the last election a senior Liberal referred to her as 'deliberately barren'. There will be lots of oblique references to her lack of children (I'm expecting housewives to pop up in adds talking about how hard it is to manage a household) & endless photo ops with the Abbot children.

She has already promised an election within months - October perhaps (I'm not sure when the last date it can be called is). My bet is that she wins, probably with small losses. The other big news of the day is that the Finance Minster - one of the best ministers in the govt - is resigning. I live in his seat & it will probably go green. Lindsay Tanner will actually be a bigger loss than Rudd.

My bet is that history will judge Rudd a good PM but a poor ALP leader who was the author of his own downfall. The negatives now will slide into he mists of time & his successes will be remembered - particularly his handling of the financial crisis (note, it was government intervention & NOT mining that made sure we escaped that) and his apology to the Stolen Generations.

That's really interesting actually - how have factions maintained their relevance in the ALP?

In Ireland the Labour party's factions are nearly all finished, since the 80s as the old Workers Party far-left elements (that used to blow up stuff in their spare time..) reformed and became mainstream, as did the Labour Left elements, so gradually the cliqueness dissapeared.
British Labour is somewhat similar in that Militant and Clause 4 Labour have slowly eroded in importance, and a more united message has been delivered.

the ALP not only has serious factions, it also seems to be the only Labour Party that has a 'right' faction - it boggles in some ways, I'm surprised leadership heaves don't happen more often.

For Gillard, she seems to be in a strong position now, especially vis a vis the opposition - I've heard Abbot before, from the stances he takes would it be fair to say he's divisive and perhaps would have trouble winning over swing voters?

Being 'bully boy' could play right into Gillard's hands if she's able to paint him as a chauvinist and out of touch with modern Australia, and him being so loathed by the left will surely throw the entire party behind her to minimise losses - the biggest danger for parties after heaves is that the defeated nurse their wounds but decide they won't be as vigourous or urgent in campaigning for a new leader.

The enemy that Abbot presents could force them back together, and they can tackle the (still by the looks of it weak post-Howard) Liberal Party head on.

Gillard presents something new and fresh, the kind of leader Labor possibly should have had in 07, to really go with the 'change' mantra - I suppose she has her chance now!

[snapper]

It always seems a little 'undemocratic' to me when a group of MPs decide who should be Prime Minister... Perhaps she will for a General Election to get a propper mandate?

[Parihaka]

The press certainly love Gillard so that'll be considerable support going into the election. The question is: will she ride that support into a quick election of do a Brown and try and hang on as long as possible before calling one?