A couple of points that have emerged in the debate over the Labor leadership need a response
First, there’s the claim that there are no policy differences between Rudd and Gillard. This is often presented as if the two had independently arrived at the same position. In fact, as the equation in the post title implies, it’s because Gillard is a policy-free zone. Her independent ventures into policy making amount to a disastrous set of pre-election moves on carbon policy (no tax promise, consultative assembly, cash for clunkers) and a series of failed attempts to resolve the asylum seeker problem. Now that the Rudd agenda has mostly been passed or abandoned, Gillard has no policies whatsoever, a point I made some time ago. Her abandonment of the Gonski report, which she used as an excuse for doing nothing when she was Education Minister, is typical.
Second, and with somewhat more justification, there’s the fact that Gillard has been successful in getting policy passed where Rudd failed. The unusual circumstance of a House of Reps minority has led most people to overstate the relative difficulty of Gillard’s task. She has needed the Greens and three of five independents, normally being Wilkie, Oakeshott and Windsor. Rudd needed the Greens, Xenophon and Fielding, which was obviously harder. It’s true that Rudd made the mistaken choice of freezing out the Greens and trying to negotiate with the Liberals, which made no sense given that the Greens were bound to hold the balance of power sooner or later. A more comparable test is that of asylum seekers, where Gillard has done no better than Rudd, arguably worse.
*This equation was allegedly written by a notable, but somewhat obscure economist with his own name in the place of Rudd, and that of a better-known researcher in the same filed in the place of Gillard
John Quiggin 
Does it matter? It appears now that Rudd has a poisonous relationship with most of the current cabinet. Even if he did win a leadership ballot, what talent would be left on the front-bench? Nope, it is now anyone but Rudd.
Rudd = Romney
Consider this scenario. In 2013 the choice is Abbott vs. Rudd. Abbott gets up but there is a massive Green vote rendering the country ungovernable. For example PM Abbott tries to repeal carbon tax but is punished at every step because of a slim majority. Let sleeping dogs lie.
I came here to say what aidan said. Whatever his policy merits, I just don’t see how the ALP can govern with Rudd as leader given how much is he despised by most of those qualified to serve as ministers.
Consider this scenario. In 2013 the choice is Abbot v Gillard. Abbot gets up with a massive landslide on the pattern of the NSW result and repeals the carbon tax as his first bill. The dogs can go on sleeping but I know which scenario I prefer.
@Alan
That’s really hard to do, as it means taking money back from low-income families.
I don’t buy the arguments that personality difference is the reason they got rid of Rudd. I DO think Rudd was a control freak, and was known as one from way back when he ran the Qld Office of Cabinet under Goss. But everyone in Labor knew that before he became PM. So why raise it three years later? It was the excuse, not the reason, for the change.
It all got messy when Arbib, Bitar and Shorten started to muscle their way into power once Labor was elected. Rudd’s biggest error (CPRS delay) was made after listening to their advice.
John Howard was also a control freak, under whom the PM’s Department virtually ran Canberra. Yet the rest of the MPs didn’t care as long as they won elections.
Gillard has one area where she has genuine policy views – IR – because of her personal background. But after that, I agree, it is pretty light.
It’s a pity the two of them can’t work as a team and accept their strengths and weaknesses. Let Rudd be the big picture guy but make him pass everything through to Gillard to manage, implement and delegatie. It appears as though she has done a creditable job getting things done even if she has no vision of her own apart from pandering to the coalition’s small minded agenda.
@Alan
The irony being that if it wasn’t for Gillard we wouldn’t have a carbon tax to repeal.
Alan
The one comfort I take in this mess is that, regardless of who wins the Labor leadership, and regardless of who wins between Abbott and the Labor leader, the Greens are still very likely to hold the balance of power after 2013. Their recently elected senators are not up for re-election, and Fielding is gone.
If any of you want to give it a burl:
http://nowhiring.com.au/424936+job+Prime+Minister+of+Australia+ACT.aspx
Howard was a control freak who could hold it together. Kevin just got weird, stopped sleeping and became incredibly paranoid by some accounts. I just don’t think he has what it takes for that position. Is there a single cabinet minister from that time who has come out to support him? (Including any who are no longer in cabinet, and not bound to solidarity)
I find Julia’s comments about Rudd’s disorganisation amusing. I constantly feel the same way about my boss. Does that make me feel qualified for his job? Yes. Do I want it? Hell no.
I think it also needs to be said that Gillard has butchered some of Rudd’s very good policies. The mining tax is a case in point. The original design of that tax (the RSPT) was of a ‘rent tax’ which would not have distorted incentive to invest in new mines (sovereign risk aside). Ironically, the re-named Minerals Resource Rent Tax (MRRT) is not a rent tax at all and will distort/delay investments at the margin, as do the royalties it replaces.
@Hermit
The irony being that if it wasn’t for Gillard we would probably have had a carbon tax to repeal in 2009.
Yes, the mining tax was half as good as Rudd’s original proposal. On the other hand, the carbon tax was twice as good (the probable price of the original ETS was about $10). Taking both policies as a whole, I’d call it a draw.
I’ll just reiterate my previous statement too; some of Rudd’s “Big Ideas” are also disastrous ones. Gillard’s policy-free zone is much preferable to the Big Australia.
Plus, remember the Orwellian “clean feed” proposal? Another Rudd policy big idea that also happens to be terrible. Gillard killed it. Never trust a christian with the internet!
If rudd =romney his victory is assured and i m not so sure about that.
i do agree with quiggin on the above
@sam
I agree with you that the CPRS price would likely have been too low to drive immediate change, but in the long run the ETS’s price floor is a bad idea, particularly if we do have a depression in economic activity. Also, and this view won’t be popular on this blog, you are ignoring the billions that will be wasted on funding poorly chosen renewable energy projects. These wasted billions should be recorded as the ‘price’ of negotiating with the Greens.
In the end, Gillard’s pitch to the nation is that she is a good administrator not a visionary. At best this is the pitch of a good deputy, but in reality I think Gillard will throw the baby out with the bath water in order to notch up a political victory.
@Jason
It’s debatable just how bad a price floor is here, especially since the “real” price of carbon is at least $50/t. I also don’t know whether the renewable energy projects were that poorly chosen. I’m not saying they’re not, just that I haven’t any evidence that they are. What makes you think this?
So who’s the Santorum of Australian politics?
@Ram
Abbot, surely?
@Ram
Mirabella?
Pr Q said:
So Hawke + Keating = Hawke? R-i-i-i-ght.
Westminster government is supposed to be a team, not a one-man show. It is false to seperate Rudd from Gillard in the business of policy formation during ALP (v.1), giving star billing to the former whilst air-brushing out of history the latter.
The notion of a “Rudd agenda” putting Rudd on the same pedestal as Whitlam is risible. It would probably be more accurate to call the ALP (v.1) government as being driven by the “Ken Henry agenda”.
This government was run by a Kitchen Cabinet of Rudd, Gillard, Swan & Tanner, the so-called Strategic Priorities and Budget Committee (SPBC). All major policies strategies and political tactics were signed off by this group.
Of course SPBC policy decisions were supposed to rely on detailed technical analysis by departmental officials before being given the green light as Major Reforms (MR). But, according to this report, this process fell victim to Rudd’s micro-managerial analysis paralysis and temper tantrums.
Does the phrase “dysfunctional decision making style” ring any bells?
No wonder marginal seated ALP members would prefer to go down with the ship rather than be skippered by this guy again.
Gillard wins – but fails to increase support by the end of the year and the third candidate (not Rudd – perhaps Shorten, Combet or even Crean) takes the PMship in the traditional killing season. New PM has summer recess to consolidate/develop new policy agenda and then 6-9 months to sell it and demonstrate ability.
My gut feeling is that 40% of the population would blanch at voting for either Abbott or Rudd. That leaves the option of voting informal or for ‘way out’ candidates like the Shooters Party. In all likelihood it could mean a record lower house vote for the Greens.
If you think Federal politics won’t get any more bizarre Tasmania provides a foretaste. An overseas parliamentary delegation is trying to drum up timber export business. Later a Greens delegation including a State minister will tell customers why they should stop buying timber. We can look forward to a hamstrung Abbott government running along similar lines.
Kim Carr and Martin Ferguson both in the Rudd camp, both carbon price skeptics, both with strong anti-environment credentials. There was some talk yesterday of business leaders calling for a Rudd government to reduce the carbon price to $10.
Gillard + Rudd = Abbott
If Rudd takes over, Windsor and Oakeshott may walk. This could lead to an early election and to an uncontrollable destruction of the ALP at the ballot box. I can see the Liberal electoral adds now, painting the ALP as little more than knives, blood, chaos and catfights. This will sweep up huge swathes of swinging voters.
With luck, Rudd gets the Christian vote + Doug Cameron + Martin Ferguson and little more.
Odd how it’s Labor academics (and a couple of parliamentary former unionists) who actually want a workplace to be run by a former bastard of boss.
I don’t think there is any evidence of Rudd changing at all: journalists and MPs know he was a running a “stealth campaign” – he was briefing journalists in his office, according to Barrie Cassidy last week, for God’s sake, and then he turns up on TV denying it, and today suggesting those who are criticising him are “unAustralian”. He’s still a devious faker in my books.
I always said Rudd got the Prime Ministership by his earnest, gee willickers, Milky Bar kid persona on Sunrise; that combined with an “it’s Time” factor about John Howard who unwisely hung on for too long. It is obvious Rudd is playing up to that old image with the public again today and I find it all kind of creepy how effectively it seems to work. (The other odd thing about him is how he doesn’t seem to have traumatised his kids, despite appearing to have traumatised hundreds of co-workers in his career. People are strange.)
@steve
It should be obvious to Gillard supporters that given the way in which Rudd was removed, any complaints about his “stealth campaign” are likely to backfire.
Rudd was removed in a covert, swift and undemocratic way in which the caucus was effectively denied proper deliberation, for reasons that seem to have been more to do with personality clashes than delivering the ALP’s legislative agenda.
In the aftermath, the ALP under Gillard performed extremely poorly at a federal election, which has led to the foundering of its agenda in office in minority government, and the seeming inevitability of Tony Abbott’s election.
I say, screw the bastards who made that happen and abandoned the people of Australia to a self-serving unprincipled bigot who’ll do huge damage to the nation.
@Tom
I don’t see what was covert about it. That it was swift was entirely Rudd’s decision. Julia approached him about a challenge, Rudd called for a spill the next morning, then failed to challenge when he realised he didn’t have the numbers. Furthermore, Gillard hadn’t undermined him in the media for the year leading up to it all.
@steve Covert? Mark Bahnisch summed it up well at LP:
http://larvatusprodeo.wordpress.com/2010/07/20/the-untold-story-of-how-kevin-07-bit-the-dust/#comment-29485
“… Ministers such as Lindsay Tanner have gone on the record saying that they knew nothing of what was occurring until it was effectively over”
Perhaps more importantly, the public had no idea what has happening until it was effectively over either. The people that brokered the deal wanted to present it as a fait accompli because they knew if they conducted their plan in the open, it would be far more difficult to push it through.
Now they’re in the difficult position of knowing that after they defend Gillard from Rudd, they’ll probably have to start grooming her replacement.
@Sam
Gillard may or may not have been part of a covert campaign of leaks against Rudd, but that doesn’t mean one didn’t occur. How quickly and selectively history is forgotten.
I’m not sure who I want to win, but I am surprised by the vehemence of the attacks against Rudd which just reflect badly on the whole government. They wouldn’t risk making fools of themselves like Swan and Crean have unless Rudd posed a real threat. It must be a hell of a lot closer than anyone is letting on. Before they started putting the boot in for real I didn’t think Rudd was anywhere near having enough numbers to pose a serious challenge.
Actually speaking for myself, last time I voted it was for my local member, the party he represented, and most importantly the policies that that party promoted, that was the labor party. Incidentally the leader at that time was Mr Rudd, senior labor party members and ministers decided he was unsuitable and we now have PM Gillard. So was the Labor party leader endorsed by me and my vote, yep sure was, my vote amongst others gave the Labor party the authority to decide on the best leader, that is what they did, in a democratic process of voting I believe.
@Steve from Brisbane “I don’t think there is any evidence of Rudd changing at all: journalists and MPs know he was a running a “stealth campaign” – he was briefing journalists in his office, according to Barrie Cassidy last week, for God’s sake, and then he turns up on TV denying it, and today suggesting those who are criticising him are “unAustralian”. He’s still a devious faker in my books. ”
There is just zero evidence for this, ‘he said’, ‘I was told’, ‘according to’; this is not evidence or even flimsy proof, it is simply heresay, taken as fact.
Sorry but I believe we have all been very very ill served by a lot of the mainstream media journalists. How many of you remember this………… http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3813404.html “You couldn’t get a better example of the way news values are being eroded across the media.”
Pr Q said:
Umm…aren’t you forgetting something?
Rudd had the support of the leader of the opposition (Turnbull) to pass his signature piece of legislation. He failed.
Gillard had the enmity of the leader of the opposition (Abbott) who is willing to sell his own mother in order to stymie the government. She succeeded.
Rudd had it politically easier and did less. Gillard had it politically harder and did more. Its that simple.
I would concede that Gillard’s political ear has been as tinny as an old transistor. She has negotiated some solid achievements but has struggled to convert them into political capital:
There are plenty of lower-order policies that she can take some credit for: kicking Disability Insurance down the road, restructuring federal-state relations in the health and education sectors and championing Community Service pay claims. Sure, not exactly the thing to set the pulse racing, but better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.
As far as Gillard being a “policy-free zone”, her major “independent ventures into policy” have focused on rectifying Rudd’s monumental stuff-ups: the scuttling of Pacific Solution and “Big Australia”. Those are the areas where Rudd got the support of the GREENs and characteristically it ended in tears.
All the evidence to date points to Rudd being a bit psycho and not fit for government.
@Jack Strocchi
Umm…aren’t you forgetting something?
The corpse of Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership is in pieces, bagged separately, in the Liberal Party HQ deep freeze, because he tried to deal with Rudd on the ETS.
As for the Pacific Solution, have you got any evidence whatsoever that Australian asylum seeker policy (anything on or near the table, anyway) has any effect on the volume of arrivals?
Possum from Crikey demonstrated that there was nix.
Graham Richardson in 2010:
No one moved against Rudd merely because he treated colleagues with total disdain. But it ensured that when the challenge came, success could be achieved at record pace. The margin, had a ballot occurred, would have been embarrassingly large. Faction leaders didn’t make caucus members hate Rudd; no, that was all Kevin’s own work.
Hate, by the way, was the right description. From lowly backbenchers to cabinet ministers, I have never come across such loathing towards a leader before, let alone a leader who achieved the biggest swing to Labor since World War II at the 2007 election.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/fear-and-loathing-of-rudd-was-his-own-doing/story-e6frg6zo-1225885406376
On a lighter note, Annabel Crabb today:
Mr Rudd rejects the criticism levelled at him and is, he says, hurt and confused by the attacks from colleagues who label him psychotic, or chaotic, or chronically indecisive. But he is exhibiting, it must be said, some fairly recognisable Ruddly behavioural patterns, viz:
Holding press conferences in the middle of the night.
Holding press conferences to announce that he will be holding another press conference in the near future.
Fan-stalking Hillary Clinton.
Commissioning what sounds like a small-scale White Paper into the question of whether he should run for the leadership.
Hoping that people power alone will win his colleagues over.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-23/crabb-gillard-rudd-challenge-psychotic/3848084
Since the struggle has now gone nuclear it looks like neither Rudd or Gillard will be able to unite the party, a third candidate needs to be found in a hurry. My vote goes to Combet.
It’s also time for a front bench cleanout. They can’t possibly trash the Labor brand any worse than they have already so they might as well gets some fresh faces in to get some experience before a term in opposition, while the public remembers what the liberals where like.
John, are you saying Rudd will push for the Gonski report? Or anything else?
It is interesting that not even Rudd is making the argument for his ideas, but for his popularity.
This is about popularity versus competence. It’s depressing, because we need both.
@rog
We have hearsay, not evidence, that Rudd is psycho sic. (Whether ‘psycho’ is an acceptable way to describe someone is another issue)
We have the evidence of our own eyes and ears to observe Gillard orchestrating a torrent of attacks on Rudd, before and after his resignation, that reads like the records of a show trial in the 1930s. ‘traitor’, ‘psychopath’, etc etc.
Moreover. apparently Gillard’s various campaign bungles are now exclusively the fault of Rudd.
You have most of the cabinet coming out against Rudd, citing instances of dysfunction. You have an intense media campaign from last Xmas (either all the media is conspiring or Rudd was advising) and you have the damaging leaks during the 2010 election. Not the actions of someone with the national interest at heart.
I am not a supporter of ALP but I do dislike Tony Abbott much more than anyone else so what is going on doesn’t make me happy. The ALP party is imploding now, it is not that Kevin Rudd is a psychopath, the whole ALP leadership is a bunch of psychopaths bent on self-destruction of their organisation. The current round of public mud-slinging makes all of them 100% unelectable. These people have lost their sense of public service long time ago now they have turned their knifes on themselves, on their own organisation. They stand for nothing except for self-promotion, telling people tall lies and running dodgy business deals at a local level.
People will not vote for ALP just because the Government has returned the budget to surplus, burning and slashing everything. People will not vote for ALP because the refugees are left to drown in the sea due to legal and humanitarian concerns rather than end locked up. These people who want austerity, a smaller state and impenetrable border control will vote for the Coalition anyway.
In my opinion the best possible outcome would be to disband ALP and form a new progressive party which could win the next elections together with the Greens. I know that this is not going to happen and we will have to endure many years of Tony Abbott. His ascent is now inevitable.
The second best outcome would be for Kevin Rudd to leave the ALP but do not resign from the Parliament thus triggering immediate elections. The farce has to end now – the sooner the better – for the sake of democratic legitimacy of the government and our political system. It is probably better to have Abbott doing silly things with the people’s mandate than lame duck Julia Gillard with no democratic legitimacy doing nothing better.
@rog
So far you have equal numbers of ministers supporting Rudd and Gillard. That is not ‘most of the cabinet’. You have significant figures like Smith and Plibersek refusing to join the Two Minutes’ Hate prescribed by Gillard. And the more than faintly nutty allegations some Gillard supporters are making is not evidence of anything beyond their own folly.
A jet-lagged Rudd now poses as a policy know-it-all, as if he will solve the hospital crisis, the education crisis and only he has the interestes of Australians at heart.
Michael Gawenda [ Here ]has exposed the inherent duplicity in the Rudd subversion – backgrounding journalists about a future challenge, but then denying this fact in public.
Maybe there is some manipulation within the Right particularly the Austtralian Workers Union as a consequence of the mining tax? The AWU can be easily manipulated by mining interests. If Rudd wants to run a policy-based campaign, then why has he omitted the mining tax?
Rudd is now ranting about how some are supposedly calling him the anti-Christ and son-of-satan, but without providing any evidence. This is all in his head and being spread as part of his maniac campaign.
Toss him.
@allan
You seem to never have read some of the anonymously sourced stories put together by a gaggle of journalists about the dysfunctional Rudd and Rudd office after he was deposed. Of course Ministers felt constrained about being too open about it at the time (they were trying to be nice – and taking a gamble that silence would work better than the blood letting,) but stories still came out:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/rudd-undone-by-the-enemy-within/story-e6frg6z6-1225887059051
@Alan
Alan, I need updating. The Cabinet numbers I have:
Wayne Swan – Gillard
Chris Evans – Unknown
Stephen Conroy- Gillard
Simon Crean- Gillard
Craig Emerson- Gillard
Stephen Smith – Unknown
Chris Bowen – Likely Rudd
Anthony Albanese – Unknown
Nicola Roxon- Gillard
Jenny Macklin – Unknown
Robert McClelland – Rudd
Tony Burke – Gillard
Penny Wong – Gillard
Peter Garrett – Gillard? I think
Bill Shorten – Gillard I think
Joe Ludwig – Unknown
Martin Ferguson – Rudd
Greg Combet – Unknown
Tanya Plibersek – Unknown
Mark Butler – Unknown
Ministry:
Kate Ellis – Unknown
Brendan O’Connor – Unknown
Warren Snowdon – Unknown
Mark Arbib – Gillard
Gary Gray – Unknown
Jason Clare – Unknown
Julie Collins – Unknown
Based on their recent statements, surely Combet, Plibersek, Macklin and Smith all belong in the “Gillard I think” camp?
There is a fundamental misunderstanding what the dispute is about. Julia Gillard and her supporters think that it is about the leadership of the ALP because the broad interpretation of the Westminster system is taken for given. Whoever is the leader of ALP gets the mandate to rule the country. For the people who are not supporters of ALP this is absolutely irrelevant. Do I care who is the chairman of the golf club? No because I don’t play golf. What matters to me is who and how leads the country and what these people stand for. If it is a “budget surplus” and “reforms” I don’t need the ALP for that. In the end it is my vote what counts, not the votes of the members of an obsolete trade union. The contempt shown by the faceless ALP apparatchiks to the elected representatives of the Australian people was also the contempt to the Australian people. We voted for Kevin Rudd not for the apparatchiks in 2007. The current show of disrespect ensures that the ALP party at the federal level will share the well-deserved fate of its NSW branch – no matter what Julia does, what deep “reforms” she undertakes, what she promises or who replaces her 3 weeks before the next elections. There are means to stop the leakage of preferences in our voting system and people know how to exercise their rights.
Down with the ALP! They are not a progressive party, they are even not a democratic party. They are a bunch of cronies, a living fossil from the 1970s when they had their 5 minutes of fame, with a “new Left” neoliberal face-lift applied by Paul Keating in the 1980s. The PM and her supporters wasted a golden opportunity to shut up yesterday. Today it might be too late.
@steve from brisbane
Steve, yes, certainly Combet and Plibersek and I’ll take your word for Macklin and Smith.
Kim Carr appears to be supporting Rudd. With Doug Cameron, and Ferguson, is this
narcissistic individuals in the Left supporting narcissistic drivers in wider politics.