Internal polling tipped Gillard over line

JULIA Gillard's ascension heralds a new ruthlessness in Labor politics.

RECENT Labor history now demands revision around Julia Gillard as central play maker, with Gillard the pivotal force in making Kevin Rudd the Labor leader in 2006 and removing him as leader in 2010.

In this sense Gillard has been the instrumental figure in the parliamentary Labor Party over the past four years whose judgments have dictated two leadership changes and underpinned the stability of much of the Rudd era.

It was Gillard who took the deliberate decision in 2006 to submerge her leadership ambition and, by uniting behind Rudd as his deputy, terminate Kim Beazley's leadership. At the time she was firm: Rudd was the best option. While Rudd was desperate to depose Beazley, only Gillard was able to deliver that result. Indeed, she contributed more caucus votes to their ticket than did Rudd. During the domineering and mostly successful Rudd prime ministership Gillard was the key to internal stability because, while universally seen as the successor, she remained loyal to Rudd in public and in private.

While Rudd said last Wednesday night he had been elected by the Australian people, his leadership had been gifted by the Labor caucus by virtue of his alliance with Gillard. Gillard's loyalty broke only last Wednesday when, facing a grassroots caucus rebellion against an unpopular leader, she decided to challenge Rudd, thereby destroying their four-year partnership.

The factions' leaders were critical in these events. Yet their project was feasible only because Gillard was an attractive alternative leader. Her vindicated conviction that Rudd was Labor's best prospect at the 2007 poll succumbed to her decision last week to replace him, another view likely to be vindicated.

Rudd misjudged the nature of Labor power. Deeply hostile to the role of factions in returning Beazley to the leadership in early 2005 after Mark Latham's demise, Rudd sought to recruit them for his own leadership campaign yet to subvert their influence as PM by creating a new Labor brand. This dream smashed off the back of Rudd's personal failings in dealing with caucus members and his flawed political judgment.

Three steps tolled his demise. First, Rudd refused to give effect to the Labor strategy group decisions taken a week before Christmas 2009 to have a February double dissolution on the government's defeated climate change legislation. This was a group decision involving Rudd, Gillard, senior ministers, Mark Arbib and campaign director Karl Bitar. But Rudd was never keen. Head office made provisional arrangements for the television ads. Yet Rudd in early 2010 had no stomach for battle. He worried about going early and was unnerved by the combination of Tony Abbott's "great big new tax" line and the Copenhagen fiasco. By declining to fight on the main policy difference between the parties and with the public having moved on from the GFC Rudd was left stranded without a political or poll narrative.

The next step was his emissions trading scheme retreat, a line also advocated by Gillard. With the right wing rallying behind Abbott, this lost Rudd the left wing, undermined Labor's primary vote and boosted the Greens to 15 per cent plus. Above all, it sent the message of a PM without convictions, an impression Rudd was unable to counter.

Finally, his attachment to the new resources tax revealed a misplaced stubbornness that weakened Rudd and drained all the political oxygen from Labor's agenda. Having realised his mistake in backing down from the ETS, Rudd refused to accept the logic of backing down on the resources tax when he should have done so.

The bottom line in the Labor research was that Rudd was the problem. Too often he played both sides; for and against a tough stand on boat arrivals, for and against climate change action.

The public felt the man they elected in 2007 was not the PM they now saw on television.

People had stopped listening.

A fortnight ago Labor headquarters summarised the results of the party's latest research. This documented a minimum loss of 23 seats (nine in Queensland, eight in NSW, two in Victoria, two in Western Australia, one in Tasmania and one in Northern Territory) and another nine seats in doubt (two in Queensland, two in NSW, one in Victoria, one in WA, two in SA and one in Tasmania).

The campaign professionals believed that Labor would lose, the rot was deep, seats would fall like dominoes in Queensland and NSW and there was no apparent turnaround strategy under Rudd. Any 2010 election defeat would become a historic low mark for Labor, a humiliation that would endure for a decade.

Not only would Abbott become PM but the Liberals would have a decade-long mantra: Labor's failure after just one term would prove its incompetence before the world.

At the Right caucus meeting last Monday week after the Penrith state by-election that saw a 25 per cent swing to the Liberals, the mood was white hot. In the end, Health Minister Nicola Roxon had to step in and appeal for calm.

On Wednesday morning when right-wing faction chiefs Arbib and David Feeney visited Gillard to tell her they had lost confidence in Rudd, believed he would lose the election and urged her to challenge, Gillard was non-committal. Yet she was angry with Rudd over The Sydney Morning Herald story that morning, she had been in contact with party broker John Faulkner and was intending to see Rudd. Their relationship collapsed at this subsequent meeting.

More Labor MPs urged Gillard to run. Gillard spoke to Wayne Swan and a meeting was convened in Victorian Minister Kim Carr's office. The message was manifest: if Gillard ran, she would win. People were feral to strike. But Gillard, ever cautious, refused to commit.

The die was cast, finally and inevitably, when Gillard saw Rudd that evening. From this moment the groundswell for Gillard was irresistible. One NSW cabinet minister, lobbied to back Gillard, replied: "Rudd hasn't rung me in the past two years."

Gillard's ascension heralds a new Labor ruthlessness in the domain of real time politics. The party has had five leaders since 2003: Simon Crean, Latham, Beazley, Rudd and now Gillard. It is an unforgiving world on fast-forward.

Gillard's opening moves as PM display a confident touch: stabilising the party, seeking a quick solution on the mining tax, concern about crowded suburbs, keeping ministry changes to a minimum and shunning the Lodge until elected by the people. She projects authority with personality. After 2 1/2 years as deputy PM she now claims the top post ahead of an election. The timing seems to be right, again, but election victory is the only test that matters. The entire Gillard mission has one purpose: the defeat of Abbott.