It has been a frantic few days in Canberra politically with the Labor leadership issue erupting following the release of the YouTube video showing Kevin Rudd losing it and using a flurry of four letter words whilst PM in 2009. It has now become clear that the video was posted by a member of Julia Gillard's staff in order to discredit Rudd - the same people who incited the Australia Day riot at the Aboriginal Embassy. The video was left on a computer hard drive by one of Rudd's staff and - with the haste in which Gillard took over in June 2010 - wasn't wiped before Rudd got the heave-ho.
There has been much speculation about Gillard calling a spill and a vote being taken about the leadership. One thing is clear. Gillard has the numbers and will win any leadership ballot easily. Comparisons have been made with the ascention of Paul Keating as PM - challenge the first time, lose then go to the backbench, white-ant the leader, persuade enough to switch sides then challenge again after six months and win. This method also worked in 1974 and 1975 when Malcolm Fraser challenged Billy Snedden for the Liberal leadership. In this case it will be more like Andrew Peacock's challenges to Malcolm Fraser or Peter Costello's desire to be prime minister - it just won't get over the line.
The major fault is that - unlike Keating and Fraser (and Peacock and Costello) - Rudd has already had a term as leader and prime minister and been found wanting. Badly. He was just no good in the job whichever way you look at it. He created such resentment and made so many enemies within the party and general community that the last thing anybody in Labor wants is a return to the nightmare days of Rudd as leader. He will never win.
Never forget that Rudd did such a poor job that the opinion polls - in an election year - were pointing to an embarrassing and devastating defeat for Rudd and Labor, the first time a government would have been defeated after just one term. It was especially telling when you consider that Rudd was elected on such a strong mandate and such goodwill having defeated a sitting prime minister in his own seat, only the second time that had ever happened. The apology to Aborigines at the start of the Rudd government was symbolic in that it marked the beginning of a new era and people really did believe that things had changed - that they would get the strong economic management of the Hawke/Keating era combined with a social concience. As we all know it didn't quite turn out that way. Rudd and Labor squandered their mandate and sent the country spiralling downward at a rate of knots.
Rudd was a control freak calling meetings at 2AM, forcing public servants in disparate departments and bodies to deal directly with his office, allowing ministers to push crazy policies and frequently being reported as having tantrums with hairdressers and airline staff. It wasn't a happy ship at all.
The opinion polls were holding up for more than two years largely due to the Liberals who put up weak and ineffectual leaders Brendan Nelson and Malcolm Turnbull, but at the end of 2008 Communications minister Stephen Conroy put up the crazy Internet censorship proposal which immediately turned the young and savvy younger generation - the people who voted for Rudd in droves - against him and his government. This flowed through to the general community.
One of the more fanciful media reports claimed that Rudd lost only one opinion poll as PM. That simply isn't true. From mid 2009 each opinion poll showed Labor falling further behind the coalition as Conroy dug in with his Net censorship proposal and poured ever more money into it despite savage opposition in the community. The rot had set in to such an extent that Gillard became PM and saved Labor from a savage defeat in the 2010 election with the infamous lie claiming that there would be no carbon tax.
The scenario painted by the Rudd backers is that Rudd will get back in and everything will be sweetness and light. Of course that will not happen and cannot happen. The problem here is not Gillard or Rudd, the problem is Labor itself. The party - by its very nature and makeup - is dysfunctional and not suited to government. The large left wing of the party makes it unmanageable and any leader has to spent too much time pandering to left wing and trade union sectional interests to be able to run an effective government.
It is true that the Hawke and Keating governments were good governments, but Bob Hawke's success was due to him completely neutering the left and running a presidential style government along with Keating and Treasury. The party conference became nothing but a sideshow and irrelevant debating forum which had nothing to do with influencing the government. Keating was able to get his beneficial economic reforms through which ultimately resulted in the golden era under the Howard government. Keating as PM was initially able to keep things on track but was brought down by the incredibly stupid and moronic Aboriginal secret women's business scandal pushed by one of his ministers Robert Tickner, the Net censorship-style disaster of the 1990s.
Many people made the mistake - when voting for Rudd - of thinking that it would be a return to the Hawke era. How very wrong they were. It was actually a return to the chaos of the Whitlam era. The same goes for the Gillard government. And you cannot blame the influence of The Greens for the crisis we are now in. The blame lies with Labor. The party is just not fit for government at any level. It wouldn't matter if they put in Abraham Lincoln as leader, it is still a Labor government with all its baggage and that is the problem.
At the time of writing, the leadership issue remains unresolved. No matter what happens it will not matter one iota what they do, they will remain on the slippery slope downwards. Meanwhile the country suffers as the public sees political incompetence and economic ruin on display for all to see. It just keeps getting worse. This is the reality of Labor in government and it isn't pretty.
