Gillard caused her own woes, not me: Rudd

Kevin Rudd has labelled Julia Gillard’s 2010 election campaign as the “worst-run in Labor history” arguing she was the architect of her own failure.

Then prime minister Julia Gillard meets with Kevin Rudd to discuss the 2010 in Brisbane.

Kevin Rudd has labelled Julia Gillard’s 2010 election campaign as the “worst-run in Labor history” as he rejected claims he was a reason for the collapse in Labor’s support in 2011.

The former prime minister attacked Ms Gillard just a day after he lashed Bill Shorten for being part of the coup that removed him as leader.

In a letter to The Australian Financial Review, Mr Rudd rejected claims his undermining of the Gillard government was a key reason for its woes. He said Ms Gillard was the architect of her own failure, leaving caucus “looking for an escape hatch”.

“The Gillard government collapsed in public support because neither Ms Gillard nor treasurer Wayne Swan were able to provide any convincing explanation for the coup, other than personal ambition,” Mr Rudd said.

“Ms Gillard’s 2010 election campaign was the worst-run in Labor history, degenerating into a single thematic (‘The Real Julia’), which left the nation wondering who the previous Julia had been.”

He also said the carbon tax broken promise had breached faith with the public.

“She fundamentally breached faith of her government with the Australian public from the get-go when she promised the public ‘there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead’, and then promptly repudiated it by forming a coalition with the Greens and legislating a carbon tax,” Mr Rudd said.

Yesterday, the former prime minister said the Opposition Leader would have been forced to resign if he was held to his own ruthless standards when he was a key player in the 2010 coup.

“In 87 Newspolls I fell behind once. Based on that, coup leaders acted, saying we’d lose election. Both (Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten) would be long gone if we applied that standard now,” Mr Rudd tweeted.

Another former prime minister, Tony Abbott, yesterday questioned the motives for the 2015 coup that removed him as leader and installed Malcolm Turnbull.

Mr Abbott said Mr Turnbull was wrong in claiming the Abbott government lacked cabinet consultations and economic leadership.

“He sometimes says it was necessary to get rid of a democratically elected prime minister to restore cabinet government, well I ran a perfectly orthodox cabinet government,” Mr Abbott said yesterday.

“I served in the Howard cabinet for much longer than anyone else that is currently in government, the Howard cabinet was a good cabinet, it never leaked until 2007 or thereabouts, so I know all about good cabinet government and I think when it comes to learning from the master no one has learnt more than I have.

“The other point that is sometimes made is that there was no clear economic narrative, well I completely reject that, there was a very, very clear economic narrative under my government.”