Labor Party strategist Bruce Hawker exits Queensland campaign to help Kevin Rudd

LABOR campaign guru Bruce Hawker has been shown the door by the Queensland ALP.

LABOR campaign guru Bruce Hawker has been shown the door by the Queensland ALP.

He has signed up to help Kevin Rudd do the numbers against Julia Gillard.

While Mr Hawker stepped aside voluntarily from his advisory role in the Queensland election campaign, state Labor sources were adamant he was not given the choice to stay after he swung in behind the Rudd camp.

"He did not have an option," one insider told The Australian.

Mr Hawker's exit underlines the damage the federal turmoil is doing to Anna Bligh's prospects, after she went into the formal campaign this week with Labor badly trailing the Liberal National Party in published opinion polls.

The Queensland ALP has suspended its own tracking polling because it is seen as pointless while the chaos in Canberra continues to drown out its pitch to voters for the March 24 state election.

Mr Hawker, a one-time chief-of-staff to long-serving NSW Labor premier Bob Carr and strategist of choice for the ALP, said all parties had accepted it would be impossible for him to work for both Ms Bligh and Mr Rudd.

The Premier had agreed to his leave of absence from the campaign until the federal leadership was settled next Monday. "My relationship with Anna has never been better," Mr Hawker insisted.

Describing his decision as the "right thing", Ms Bligh said it would be open for Mr Hawker to resume his duties with the campaign.

State Labor insiders were sceptical whether this would happen, and Mr Hawker acknowledged that a Rudd victory, should he take on the Prime Minister, would tie him up "with a whole series of transitional things".

Ms Bligh confirmed yesterday that Mr Rudd had not given her advance notice of his decision to quit as foreign minister and bring on the showdown with Ms Gillard, although he had phoned Mr Hawker from Washington to give him a heads-up.

This was despite Mr Rudd citing the need to create "clear space" for his "good friend" Ms Bligh as a factor in his dramatic resignation.

Ms Bligh said yesterday she had not been snubbed by Mr Rudd. "There's no surprise in this," she said. "They may not have rung me that moment but there was no surprise in it: no surprise for me, or the country or, frankly, for any of you."

Mr Hawker played down the impact of the federal leadership mess on Labor's campaign in Queensland, saying there was still plenty of time for Ms Bligh to get her message across to voters.

"I think it has been overstated, given we are only in the early days of the campaign," he told The Australian. "If it was to drag on and still be going on two weeks out from the election, that would be a big problem."

This may have come as news to Ms Bligh, who is refusing to endorse either Mr Rudd or Ms Gillard. "There's no doubt that a leadership ballot in Canberra is not going to do the state campaign any good," she said.

"I'm very pleased, as I've said, to see this matter come to a head. This is a tough time, no doubt about it, and I'm not going to pretend or sugarcoat that.

"But in tough times you don't walk away - you keep going, and that's what I'm doing."

ADDITIONAL REPORTING: ROSANNE BARRETT