Kevin Rudd has ousted Prime Minister Julia Gillard as leader of Australia’s Labor Party.
He won by 57 votes to 45, in a leadership ballot of Labor lawmakers.
The change comes ahead of a general election due in September, which polls suggest Labor is set to lose.
This is the latest twist in a long and bitter rivalry between the two politicians – but it could be the last as Ms Gillard has said she will now leave politics.
“I will not re-contest the federal electorate… at the forthcoming election,” said Ms Gillard, Australia’s first female prime minister.
“What I am absolutely confident of is it will be easier for the next woman and the woman after that and the woman after that, and I’m proud of that,” she added…
The ballot followed months of speculation over the party’s leadership, and came after a day of drama that saw Mr Rudd’s supporters push for a vote.
Shortly before the vote, a key power-broker, Bill Shorten, switched his support to Mr Rudd, saying Labor stood a better chance in the polls with him.
Many people do not think Mr Rudd will win the election but he may mitigate the losses and shorten the time Labor could spend in opposition if the party loses, our correspondent says.
– BBC News
27 Comments
And if Labor is re-elected, just how long would Rudd remain PM? Six months? One year? Two years? The Unions loathe him, and have supported him only because the polls indicate that he could save the party – they’re holding their nose whilst they pretend to work with him and in the meantime, continue to deceive the electorate. Rudd is a narcissist and is only for Rudd, he’s not one of the Union boys so he’s not their preferred candidate. The odds of him getting rolled again and the Unions’ preferred candidate getting installed I think would be pretty high. All the people voting Labor just for Rudd would have to keep that in mind. Labor = Unions. For the last few years Labor has governed only for the Unions and not for the country. We need a new Government, so Labor can go away for a long while to reform into something that is pro-Australia and less in bed with the Hard-Left Unions.
My prediction is this: Rudd will not win the election. The Labor party will still be wiped out but maybe not quite so much, particularly in Qld. Then Shorten (aka Judas) as leader.
The whole thing yesterday made me feel sick. Whether one thinks Gillard has been a good Prime Minister or not, one had to admire the courage with which she went into the fray yesterday (head held high) and the dignity with which she resigned. It was horrible to watch allies suddenly turn. I wouldn’t have the stomach for politics – I don’t like nights of the long knives.
I don’t think Rudd was any better than Gillard as a PM; in fact, in many ways, he was the architect of many of the problems which beset her. She added to them, of course, but he’d set the train in motion. Personally I think he is an intense narcissist without much principle. He is a terrible manager who treats those who work under him badly (doesn’t seem very in keeping with “Labor” values to abuse workers, surely?) – that says more about him than whether he goes to church or not. How you act towards others shows your real qualities. I don’t want him in charge of our country again. But the Labor MPs want to save their own skins. That’s what it’s all about.
Finally, I resent the fact that I have not been given a chance to express an opinion at the ballot box about the Gillard government specifically. I disapproved of the original rolling of Rudd and I disapprove of the rolling of Gillard. Let us vote on the performance of these people.
Hi Legal, I agree with your comments and especially agree with your final statement. The Australian people have been marginalised by Labor who are selfishly thinking only about their survival and their jobs. I’ve heard a great deal of ‘talk’ about the nation, but precious little action, in fact everything Labor does is either to win power, or entrench themselves further in power – and the nation can go hang. I too feel sick, especially at the thought of gullible voters thinking that a change in leader will mean better days for the nation. Don’t these people remember what Rudd was like first time around? Labor is for Labor/Unions and if they spare a thought for the nation, then it’s only in the context of how Labor/Unions can benefit. I’m trying to think of one good, honest, and honourable thing that they’ve done for Australia over the last six years and I’ve come up with naught – even the disability scheme and gonski are really just about empowering and/or enriching various Unions and also brainwashing innocent children, and the superfast broadband scheme has blown out our national debt, and exposed workers and residents to formerly quiescent asbestos; and the less said about our non-existent border control the better (Rudd was the architect of that shermozzle)!
At least the Kevin and Julia show will be over, if not now then at least after the election. It’s a pity that some of the better policies of this government has been overshadowed. For the most part I don’t think it’ll make that much difference in the running of the country, nor for that matter even if/when Abbott takes over.
Desipis, yes, from that point of view, at least it’s all over. I couldn’t stand the past three years of jockeying and uncertainty. But I don’t think it will make any difference at all.
It is a pity that all this has overshadowed proper policy debate. For example, I think the NDIS is a great idea, but I remain doubtful as to how it would be funded and how people would qualify for it. I’d like to have heard more from both sides on that.
I should say that my passion for the NDIS comes from watching a friend’s family struggle with caring for her severely disabled identical twin sister. My friend got enough oxygen at birth; her sister did not. Once her sister hit 18, they had great difficulty finding activities for her to go to and for people to care for her because she was an “adult”. Never mind that she did not even have the capacity of a one year old. I would be fully supportive of anything that helped that family.
If Labor is elected, Lurker, Rudd’s position would be absolutely impregnable, though of course that’s very unlikely. If Labor is thrashed then the survivors will get rid of Rudd post-haste – no-one likes him and they can rightly blame him for most of their predicament. Gillard would certainly have won the last election easily if not for those deliberate leaks.
The tricky question is what happens if they lose the election fairly narrowly. Then it will be a case of wanting to get rid of Rudd but ensuring the Abbott government’s easy and early re-election if they do.
Just an aside to all the hurly burly (or should that be ‘argle-bargle’ – according to Justice Scalia?) of the past couple of days. I often read, and have nodded in agreement, about how badly we are served by a ‘biased press’ – never mind which side, or what cause.
I was following the ‘Live blog’ on the SMH site today – byline Stephanie Peatling, Senior Writer – and noticed a quite glaring (from my point of view) factual error. So I emailed her politely, and was very surprised to receive a reply within 90 minutes (no doubt written for her by a fact-checker) which acknowledged the error, and promised to correct.
And then she/they (or ‘it’?) promptly did just that!
[email protected], I wonder that’s why they waited so long to change over to Rudd so he doesn’t have a chance to boost Labor support enough to actually win. I suspect that unless Labor does win, Rudd will go pretty quickly no matter how close the election. However, there does seem to be quite a few Gillard supporters walking away from politics in light of what’s ahead, so who knows. It might be a matter of who survives rather than how many.
My local member is leaving politics–she is not contesting her seat at the next election–so the Rudd and Gillard show is definitely over.
Rudd would have to stage an extraordinary poll reversal to win. Which is unlikely, given that everyone knows when the election is, so the polls are probably fairly predictive; not effectively “by-elections” where voters kick the incumbents.
Particularly as there only has to be one brain-snap and all the negatives will come roaring to front and centre.
What do you all think of this snap poll?
I tend to agree with Lorenzo – one loony moment from Rudd and he’s gone. Can he hold it together? What will the former Gillard backers do when he does behave like a loon? (it’s when rather than if, please note)
The Gillard and Rudd show is over but the scars will last.
[email protected] There is often a surge in poll support for a new Leader. Downer got one, for example. The trend is the thing.
FIrst – my take at https://plus.google.com/110690210342823992560/posts/KjqBuoK4iRs
The real question is about the following two figures from a couple of weeks ago, Aus Fin Review
Preferred ALP Leader: 58% Rudd, 32% Gillard
Prefereed Lib Leader: 62% Turbull, 32% Abbott
Readers Digest 100 Trusted Australians:
Turnbull, number 68 (top politician), then, down in the 90s, in order Rudd, Gillard, Abbott.
Given how they will contort previously declared core principles for a couple of percent advantage ….at the drop of a hat … why both party back rooms for so long ignored the electoral potential of a (former) leader almost twice as popular as the one they have, and in the case of Turnbull, the most trusted politician in Australia, …. strange, and says a lot about back rooms loving leaders racing to the bottom of the scumbucket.
The stated reason for Rudd being toppled in the first place was the likely loss of an election … so at least the ALP is consistent swapping back. And, if we say that politics and reporting has been going downhill in recent years, then you cannot complain about going to former leaders.
The thing is, the biggest bit of political bastardry in the last decade is nothing to nearly a century ago, or, more correctly, just over half a century to almost a century ago. Rudd, Gillard, Shorten … the lot are wimpy little amateurs compared to Billy Hughes (5 parties, 50 years, so on average, a decade of loyalty to each!)
Rudd, Gillard, Keating … they could only get a governing party to knife a sitting PM. It you are a /proper/ bastard, and you are PM, you knife your entire governing party in the morning, and remain PM with a new party in the afternoon, without raising a sweat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Hughes
I’m not a member of any political party, I’m just a Conservative voter, however all I know is that although the Left love Turnbull (although they don’t love him enough to vote for him), the Conservatives in Australia, and I suggest the Libertarians too, can’t stand him, and it was his playing footsies with Rudd over the original ETS which fired up the Conservative base which I believe was the catalyst for leadership change in the Liberals. In my opinion the Liberals are not going to be spooked by Rudd and throw away three plus years of solid leadership by Abbott just because the Left are pining for Turnbull. Rudd is a narcissist, Turnbull I reckon has similar attributes although moderated. He is known as the Member for Goldman Sachs for good reason – and good enough reason for not putting him back as leader.
Lurker, I think some on the left would actually vote for Turnbull over Rudd. I’d consider it, although I agree with you that Turnbull has narcissistic problems of his own. The problem is that the conservatives would not vote for him and that the Liberal Party hates him in a very similar way to the way the Labor Party hates Rudd. So similar in many ways.
But I’m one of the few centrist left people I know who didn’t like the carbon tax and is prepared to publicly say so. One of the problems I had with Gillard was that I would not have voted for Labor in the last election if I had thought they were going to introduce a carbon tax in that term. I took her as saying she’d not introduce one in that term, but that she was committed to it in the longer term (maybe second term) and would look into options. I did feel betrayed when they then introduced the carbon, and I thought having such a high fixed price was utter lunacy, particularly given how the European price has behaved. Looks like that’s one of the first things that’s going to be wound back under Rudd…
I really don’t understand the angst against Abbott. As a non-Catholic (actually non-practising Christian) I don’t have an issue with his beliefs. As a woman I don’t have an issue with his stance on abortion. He’s put in the hard yard volunteering – rural fire brigade, surf life saving, helping out at remote Aboriginal communities, plus fundraising for various worthwhile causes, which to be honest, is more community work than most of us would ever do in one lifetime, and more than most politicians would ever consider doing in their spare time. His wife works, he’s raised seemingly well-balanced daughters, he seems to me to be a good dad and a loving husband. He’s got a sharp intellect and an excellent educational background – so why are people so fearful of him?? I really don’t understand – it seems to me to be very irrational when you balance out all that’s he’s done in his life. Turnbull on the other hand seems to me the complete opposite – narcissistic, looking out for #1, ie Turnbull. Why anyone would want to swap Abbott for Turnbull is beyond me. Perhaps you LE, as a Centre Left person could explain to me just why Abbott is considered such an ogre.
Yes, I think I can. As you correctly intuit, the religion is one aspect which freaks people out (particularly non-religious, small-l liberal women). I think that people are afraid that his conservative views on certain things (contraception, abortion, gay marriage, the role of women etc) are reflective the Catholic Church’s views, and they are afraid he will somehow get those views back into the mainstream when he is Prime Minister.
There’s been a few quotes going around Facebook in the last day among my left wing feminist friends which may give you a flavour of the fear.
The quotes that are doing the rounds are as follows:
and
My left wing female friends in particular are afraid that he is going to wind back womens’ rights and that he has a very old fashioned view of what a woman’s role in society should be. They see him as aggressive, unpleasant, bullying towards a female PM, and as someone who represents a threat to women more generally. This is why Gillard’s misogyny speech was so successful and resonated so much among these women: because it plugged precisely into that fear. It didn’t work so well for me for the simple fact that I happened to be watching the whole parliamentary session from the beginning, and I saw how she was shielding Slippery Pete, so I saw it as a very cynical move on her part to toss up a new ball to divert attention from that. But a lot of my friends posted the speech on Facebook in a YouTube clip which just showed the speech and was devoid of the context. Perhaps if I’d seen it devoid of context I would have cheered it too? I don’t know. If you have friends only amongst that demographic you might think Gillard’s misogyny speech was a great success, but I saw from my very varied Facebook friendship group that it had mainly been successful among a certain sector (non-religious, highly educated, left-wing women).
I know I’m not comfortable with Abbott myself. I don’t hate him like some do. I concede that there are aspects of the man which are honourable and admirable (help to indigenous people, charity work, hardworking etc) but there are aspects of his views which directly clash with my own small-l liberal feminist principles, and like my friends, it bothers me. I think SL (who is libertarian both economically and socially) would have worries for similar reasons to I.
My mum always told me that men and women have different roles in life. I took that to mean that it doesn’t make men superior, or women inferior, just different. That being said, my mum or my dad never said I could not achieve my dreams because I was a girl. Those barriers, those limits were never placed in front of me.
So with that mindset I did some pretty adventurous things in my life, some pretty dangerous too – like abseiling, mountain climbing, white water kayaking, water and snow skiing etc, and at this point in my late middle-age, I still am working towards other personal goals (many more achieved).
My Christian, highly socially-conservative parents never stood in my way, so I never had a mindset that somehow as a woman I couldn’t achieve the stars – my only limitations were the limits I placed on myself, either through so-so academic results, or sheer laziness.
So this fear the feminists hold is totally foreign to my mindset as a Conservative – why should I fear Abbott winding back women’s rights, because as a Conservative I don’t believe in this day and age any barrier exists for a determined, talented, ambitious (and honourable) woman. If the women you speak to are so anxious, then perhaps they are projecting their own inadequacies and fears onto Abbott, because frankly I see nothing in Abbott’s life and philosophy that tells me he will wind back women’s rights.
In order to get a balanced viewpoint, perhaps the women of your acquaintance should move out of their Progressive circles, and interact with the wider community.
In conclusion, and to be brutally honest, Abbott came down hard on Gillard because his job as Opposition Leader is to hold the Government to account – and he did that, because that is what he is in Parliament to do.
So here is a parting thought – in my opinion Abbott was in a lose/lose situation – if he treated Gillard as an equal and held her actions to full account, then the feminists would yell that he was being mean and a misogynist; yet, if he acted differently, the feminists would accuse him of being condescending, and demand that the first Australian female PM be treated as an equal. It was a no-win situation for him. At least with Rudd as PM, Abbott can do his job and properly interrogate him without accusations of misogyny being unfairly flung at him!
p.s. Apologies for the lengthy post.
The ‘context’ that LE speaks (italics are mine) of:
– from a session of Parliament that I also watched.
And, given the context, I applauded her response.
As to ‘ogre’ well that’s a little over the top. I am basically a rusted on Liberal voter, but the thing I particularly dislike about Mr Abbott’s political approach is his reducing complex issues to simple one-liners. It is as if he holds the electorate in contempt – believing that such nonsense as “stop the boats” and “great big new tax” will suffice to gain him office.
Anyway, enough of that. Both he and she are very good examples for a push to limit terms of office to no more than two election cycles. Because after that the only thing they seem to get better at is ‘politics’.
KVD, see the thing that rubbed me up the wrong way (and it may be that my legal debating antennae were too sensitive?) was that the speech had the ring of something which had true passion behind it, but which had also been rehearsed to bring out at a convenient moment. Abbott was a fool (totally left himself open to the attack in debating terms) but there was a level in which I thought her speech was at least a partly tactical move, although there was also a part which was genuine. I also thought that (a) the recruiting of Slipper and (b) the defence of Thomson was some of the worst politics I’ve ever seen. In a non-hung parliament there’s no way they would have ever contemplated dealing with those men, surely. I think that’s the thing – I was never sure with Gillard what was genuine, and what was some kind of political gambit. But at the end, I thought she behaved exceptionally well and genuinely. And I do think some of the criticisms of her were unfair (the freaking knitting photos – not the best photos – but who CARES?).
Lurker, thanks for explaining. Perhaps part of your comfort with Abbott is that you have had a very positive experience with conservative Christianity and have not felt that it held you back as a woman. I have no religion of my own and nor do my parents, so the whole thing is a bit of a mystery to me.
Moreover, I have had dear friends who have not had a good experience with a variety of conservative and inflexible religions. A friend who was brought up in a strict Christian sect was gay and she hated herself and became severely unwell. [To her parents’ everlasting credit they exercised true Christian principles once they found out what was going on and they continue to love and support her, and attended her wedding. I salute them. But she’s not Christian any more.] Another friend wished to marry someone outside of his religion (which he eventually did). At least he has now reconciled with his father and his father did not sit a funeral for him (as he had often threatened in the past). It goes without saying that he has left that religion. I have friends who have been brought up in conservative religious environments by loving families and are happy and raising conservative religious families of their own. And I have friends who have been brought up in liberal environments and who have explicitly chosen to enter into a religiously conservative movement, and it appears to have made them happier and more secure people (although they don’t talk to me much any more, and one of them does not physically contact me any more as I may be “dirty” as a woman, even though I’ve known him since he was six – yes, that really hurts). Takes all sorts. I try to understand all their choices as best I can.
Anyway, my point is that if you’ve had negative experiences with conservative religious principles, or if you have only had glancing dealings with religious people who seem to regard you as lesser just because you are female, or who seek to lecture to you, you will be fearful of Abbott. If you have had positive experiences (as you have) you will be less fearful of Abbott. Does that make sense? (And now this really is a long comment).
The Gillard misogyyny speech was so, so interesting. In the context of the day there’s no denying it was a distraction, and intended to be a distraction from the Peter Slipper issue. But it was also an attempt at seizing the high moral ground, making yourself and your party a defender of strong moral principles and defining yourself against the other party. (Perhaps it wasn’t even fully intended as such; often rhetoric can take on a life of its own, separate from the person speaking.) But for me, I just can’t get over the Slipper issue; the media rightly saw that this was an important part of the story. Some Gillard enthusiasts didn’t. That’s life!
I agree with KVD that Abbott’s approach is too simplistic: I saw his press conference held straight after the news of the Labor shenanigans and sure enough, he reeled out the same slogans he always does – ‘stop the boats, bring the budget back into black, and axe the carbon tax’. It seemed an incredibly tone deaf and strangely insignificant thing to say.
Oh, re – the extent to which the misogyyny speech was prepared, well, on the same day, prior to the speech being given, Anthony Albanese gave a doorstop to the media in which he used *exactly* the same examples and arguments Gillard did. Credit to Gillard, of course – she knitted all the examples into the perfect weapon (pardon the mixed metaphor) with which to slice and dice the opposition. Still, for me the examples used weren’t even individually very convincing – several were simply examples of Abbott being thoughtful, and entertaining interesting, if politically incorrect, thoughts about the sexes.
LE: I also thought that (a) the recruiting of Slipper and (b) the defence of Thomson …
Yes …. that goes to character … not the relatively inconsequential things about narcissism, but to basic decency.
I was hopeful about Gillard at the start, but as her willingness to race to the bottom, in word and deed …. the unwillingness to take a stand on things like equal marriage as strongly as any other social conservative … I found her unprincipled.
I would rather have as leader a person who was principled, looked at evidence … no matter whether they were arrogant or not, male or female …. and even if they were coming to an issue from the “opposite corner” to my assumptions.
If Barnaby was in the lower house, I’d rather have him as PM than Abbott – he might not be as smart as Abbott, he has many of the same sky-fairy-fan biases, shares much of the same worldview … I disagree with most of what Barnaby Joyce says … but I recognize him as being honorable, and thus much more qualified to be a politician than Abbott, or Gillard … or indeed most of the clowns in Canberra.
This. I agree.
Of course, there is the other wonderful thing about Gillard leaving … the other ‘worthies” who have taken a tumble or a slap in the face: Howes (slap in the face, not as hard as he deserves), but Conroy and Swan out of cabinet at long last …
Combet is a talent lost, but he hasn’t really lived up to his potential. Emerson … well … another reasonable guy out of cabinet. Garrett – not actually /bad/ so much as dead wood.
The more I think about it, almost no matter how good a PM was, if it meant giving Conroy and Swan a knifing …. it would be worth it.
Maybe Conroy could ask for a front bench spot under Abbott – Conroy would fit right in with the other unprincipled social regressives.
Not to defend either person, but remind me again of what, specifically, has either Mr Slipper or Mr Thompson been convicted of? Wasn’t so long ago that the presumption of innocence, and the right to a fair trial (even if the population at large thinks you should be hung) was being loudly declaimed here.
And you miss the point of Ms Gillard’s speech. Just read the italics; she was not actually defending his actions; just denying Mr Abbott’s simplistic claim that this disqualified him from high office.
Plus of course getting the boot in where it hurt 🙂