McKew's news: remember, you read it here first

Peter Van Onselen and Contributing Editor

8 min read

12:00AMOctober 26, 2012.

Updated 12:53AMOctober 27, 2012

TheAustralian

Maxine McKew

TODAY Fairfax readers will be treated to advance extracts from Maxine McKew's new political memoir, Tales from the Political Trenches, about the goings-on within the parliamentary Labor Party in the lead-up to Julia Gillard's challenge to Kevin Rudd in June 2010: the shopping around of damaging opinion polling on Rudd by Gillard's supporters; the chaos that underpinned the debate about the mining tax; moves that were afoot to recalibrate that tax while Rudd was still PM.

These events are more than two years old now, but the details of what happened remain fascinating. With sections of the Labor caucus still pushing for a Rudd comeback, the manner in which he was removed also has contemporary implications.

But McKew's insights can't be classified as revelations because the events were reported at the time by this newspaper.

BELOW: How Dennis Shanahan scooped the media pack

While readers of the Fairfax press might have been shocked at the sudden removal of a prime minister in his first term in the middle of an uncompromising standoff over a new mining tax, readers of The Australian were treated to blow-by-blow accounts of the backroom manoeuvring against Rudd, and the attempts at compromise regarding the mining tax. For months our political bureau reported on those developments.

Simply put, it is a false narrative, created to justify missing the yarn as it was unfolding, to now hold the McKew account up as some sort of new chapter on old events.

McKew's interviews with some of her one-time Labor colleagues, such as Rudd backer and former attorney-general Robert McClelland, are interesting for what they reveal on the record.

For example, McClelland says that Gillard backer Brendan O'Connor showed him research designed to undermine Rudd. But this is just adding colour to a story that had already been reported.

On April 24, 2010, before Wayne Swan handing down his budget, which included the revenue estimates for the original mining tax, the resource super-profits tax, Dennis Shanahan wrote a page one article titled: "Miners face billions in new taxes - Rudd to tap resources states".

After Swan delivered his budget, which indeed included an RSPT, The Australian continued to report on the damaging stand-off with the miners. The sector felt betrayed and cut out of negotiations altogether on the design of the new tax, despite assurances that the Henry review would not see revenue measures cherry-picked for fiscal convenience. While some of our rivals bought the government's line that Labor would not budge on the mining tax, Shanahan began reporting on the growing willingness to compromise within Labor during Rudd's time as leader.

McKew points out that the Rudd camp was engaged in compromise when Gillard supporters used the mining tax standoff to justify the need for Rudd's removal. However, on May 27, 2010, in another page one exclusive, Shanahan started his article with the following sentence: "The Rudd government is moving towards a major backdown on its $12 billion tax on resources, redefining its proposed super-profits levy." This and future articles detailed the process of Rudd personally entering the fray to take over negotiations. The series of stories Shanahan and others in The Australian's Canberra bureau wrote included details of Rudd seeking to strike a deal with mining magnate Andrew Forrest.

While Rudd's removal may have come as a shock to readers of other newspapers, our political editor wrote an analysis piece two weeks before Gillard challenged Rudd, headlined: "Change in the air as Labor thinks the unthinkable". The first paragraph stated: "As Labor MPs prepare to return to Canberra for what is likely to be the last parliamentary sitting of the Rudd government, they are facing two formerly unthinkable propositions. Will they be the first one-term government in 88 years and will they have to replace Kevin Rudd as prime minister before the election?"

They did replace Rudd, as we know, and Labor almost became the first one-term government in 88 years, instead scraping home as a minority government at the 2010 election. McKew treats us to post-event insights that this paper reported on at the time they were unfolding.

On June 19, just days before Rudd was challenged, Patricia Karvelas and Shanahan wrote: "Key Labor MPs are prepared to move against Kevin Rudd's leadership to make way for Julia Gillard as early as next week." Three days earlier The Sydney Morning Herald had reported: "Julia Gillard has ruled out any suggestion she would stand against the prime minister before the election, calling it 'absurd speculation'."

This newspaper was accused of disingenuous reporting as it ably detailed shifting opinions towards Rudd as the change was happening. On June 15 the then finance minister, Lindsay Tanner, told ABC radio: "But one thing I can tell you is we're not going to be spooked by idle gossip on page seven of The Australian." In fact, The Australian had devoted no fewer than four front pages to the growing despair with Rudd that was overtaking caucus and the powerbrokers. And as history tells us, it certainly wasn't "idle gossip".

Tanner was not alone in his dismissals. Other senior ministers denied moves to replace Rudd were afoot: Swan, Anthony Albanese, even Gillard. The now PM used that notorious sporting analogy to declare that it was more likely she would become full-forward for the Western Bulldogs than take over the prime ministership before the next election. She told Melbourne radio on May 10, 2010, soon after this newspaper started to raise the issue of leadership tensions that the notion of her leading Labor to the 2010 election was "completely ridiculous".

It's not hard for journalists to miss a yarn such as a leadership revolt, even when it involves a totemic policy issue such as the mining tax changes. When senior ministers are bluntly denying that anything is going on it can be easier to simply take them at their word and wait for the next "drop" (when those same ministers deliver fully packaged-up stories as part of political spin).

But in the competitive media age we live in, most readers want to know what's really going on, and they want to know at the time. They don't want to wait for a book regurgitating the same moments two full years after the events happened. They certainly don't want to read about those events two years later in a newspaper. If they want a longer-form cut of history, they should buy the book.

Missing the growing angst about Rudd's leadership and underplaying the chances of a change of leader wasn't the first showdown missed by some quarters of the press gallery.

When Malcolm Turnbull was Liberal leader, most political observers believed the line being spun by Turnbull supporters (which ironically now includes members of Tony Abbott's inner circle) that the backbench was overwhelmingly in support of passing the emissions trading scheme before the international meeting in Copenhagen.

Because of the requirement of executive solidarity, that was what most shadow ministers were telling journalists, claiming that the occasional critic of the ETS - such as Cory Bernardi - were isolated in their criticisms. Bernardi's opinion on many things may be (happily) isolated from many of his Liberal Party colleagues, but his opposition to passing the ETS was supported by an overwhelming majority of the Liberal Party backbench, as it turned out.

Instead of simply taking Turnbull supporters at their word, this newspaper gave me the support I needed to conduct a backbench survey of the Liberal Party. Once those being surveyed were confident that their anonymity would be protected, all but one of the Liberal MPs and senators agreed to participate in the survey.

Two-thirds of the backbench opposed passing the ETS before the Copenhagen conference, which was exactly what their leader was asking them to do. The extent of the opposition to Turnbull's approach had long been underestimated until that point.

Journalists should be careful not to let their personal preferences cloud their judgment over what is and isn't a news story. They need to ensure that they follow up stories even if they don't fit within their assumed view of the world, or threaten the careers of their best political contacts.

I suspect that most political journalists personally support an ETS and would like to see a bipartisan consensus on climate change. But if moves are afoot that threaten such a consensus, they need investigating. While some journalists might think that miners paying more, along the lines proposed by the RSPT, would have been a good thing, if the process that underpinned the new tax was a poor one that sparked leadership tensions, that needed to be reported.

Equally, as Shanahan demonstrated with his coverage of the mining tax and the threats to Rudd's leadership, journalists owe it to their readers to chase up stories even when the politicians are accusing them of running an agenda or "reporting crap". The evidence is in the outcomes.

Peter van Onselen is a professor at the University of Western Australia and is foundation chair of journalism.

How Dennis Shanahan scooped the media pack: