A showdown over the ALP leadership, and therefore the Prime Ministership, has been inevitable for some time, and Kevin Rudd has finally brought it on, resigning as Foreign Minister in the face of direct personal attacks from Simon Crean (himself, apparently, a covert contender for the top job) and others.
Readers won’t be surprised to learn that I support Rudd. I have two reasons for this.
First, whatever his problems with interpersonal relationships and administration, Rudd is a serious leader with ideas for Australia’s future. Gillard has shown herself to have no ideas worth the name. Her policy agenda has consisted, almost entirely, of implementing policies introduced by Rudd.
Second, Gillard has totally lost the trust of the Australian people and if she leads the government to the next election, there is no chance whatsoever of a Labor victory. The result will be the election of Tony Abbott, someone who matches Gillard in terms of a lack of any consistent principles or concrete achievements, but adds to it a reactionary ideology and determination to undo the policies brought forward by (Rudd) Labor. Labor’s only chance of retaining office is to go back to Rudd.
Anyway, feel free to have your say.
This post was first published on John Quiggin’s Blog
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Gillard appears to have a successful, progressive legislative record, accomplished under the difficult circumstance of a coalition and an extremely hostile Capitalist press. Is there something more that Is required of a PM?
Rudd alienated his colleagues, was unable to accomplish anything, thoroughly annoyed the Chinese, and is a religionst given to unprovable beliefs.
Am I missing something?
Kevin Rudd was and is a politician and statesman of world class. His fatal mistake as Prime Minister was to treat with contempt those who deserve to be treated with contempt, namely the factional hacks and backroom thugs who had previously controlled the caucus and ministerial appointments.
Rudd was a great Social Democrat, as his response to the Global Financial Crisis and the benefits he delivered to working-class people clearly showed. In a Caucus distinguished for the most part only by its mediocrity, Rudd was a giant surrounded by intellectual pygmies. He was a Leader with vision surrounded by the kinds of unprincipled paragmatists who have also destroyed other Social Democratic parties in other parts of the world.
The only way forward for the Australian Labor Party is to break the power of entrenched factionalism by allowing the ordinary members of the Party ( the "rank and file") to elect the Parliamentary Leader directly and to appoint his own Cabinet without having to accommodate the nonentities put forward for promotion by the various factions. Rudd was and is the Leader preferred by the majority of the members and, judging by the 2007 election results, the Prime Minister preferred by the majority of Australians. His political assassination by backroom factional thugs would never have been possible, if his authority and position as Leader had come from the rank and file.
It is quite plain that his most vocal and malicious critics are those Ministers who have gained in
power as a result of tearing him down. The only way they can maintain their positions is by propping up Julia Gillard. At least there is one thing she is useful for.
There is one Minister, however, who is pursuing his own strategy: Bill Shorten. His interest is to block Rudd's return so that the Labor Party will be defeated at the next election, and he himself will become 'leader'. However, if ever Labor's self-respect and sense of purpose falls so low that the Party turns to Shorten as its 'saviour', Labor will be committing electoral suicide : the Party will be decimated at the Polls and will be consigned to the political wilderness for the next generation.
Every member of the Federal Labor Caucus has a decision to make : move forward with Rudd, or go down the plughole of history with Gillard.