OPINION: Last men standing will be handed Labor's poisoned challice

OPINION: LABOR'S battered Caucus is meeting in Canberra this Friday to elect a new leader and take the first steps in the rest of its life.

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LABOR'S diminished and battered Caucus is meeting in Canberra this Friday, to elect a new leader and take the first steps in the rest of its life.

To say there is a lack of enthusiasm in Labor ranks for this is like saying people aren't keen on watching re-runs of the Ashes series.

There are two candidates, former deputy prime minister Anthony Albanese and ex-minister and AWU boss Bill Shorten, but people aren't waiting by the phone.

Albo, the popular and well liked lefty roustabout from inner suburban Sydney, lost favour because of his slowly revealed deep involvement in the Kevin Rudd comeback campaign.

Shorten, two-time PM assassin, is favoured because he's backed by the might of the Right but he's regarded as a stopgap leader.

Shorten is seen as short term.

The view of most MPs is studied indifference.

People are weary after three years of Rudd-inspired warfare that's taken the party to the brink of self harm.

There's a fatalism about Tony Abbott's ascension and a two-term rule at the very least.

In fact, most Labor MPs believe it could be a three- or four-term stint.

The one thing Labor MPs are engaged with is the future of Rudd, the guy who waged the campaign he wanted and destroyed the hopes he raised for a possible victory.

He probably did better than Julia Gillard would have done but that was only after waging the most sustained guerrilla campaign against an incumbent leader in political history - leaking, upstaging, backgrounding, white-anting and directly attacking in private.

His history in Parliament - from the moment he entered in 1998 and immediately undermined foreign affairs spokesman Laurie Brereton until he destroyed him - is one of only ever targeting an internal opponent and never resting until he has poisoned them.

His remaining loyal backers in Labor ranks, like Victorian Left commissar Kim Carr, want him to stay around, block the AWU Right and reform the party so that the Left faction holds sway.

A cross section of Labor powerbrokers want Rudd to leave Parliament, using Gillard's selfless decision to step down and leave Parliament as a benchmark.

They say he should leave as quickly as possible because if he stays he will not be able to help himself and will work to undermine whoever the new leader might be.

It's clear there's a bigger internal problem for Labor to resolve before the party can think about the next leader.