ALP factions overrode weak Kevin Rudd cabinet on leadership change

Chorus of concern.

THE priority sentiment of the Rudd cabinet in 2010 was for Kevin Rudd to stay as prime minister and for the Labor Party to avoid any challenge from Julia Gillard — with the leadership transition made possible only because a weak cabinet was hijacked by faction bosses and caucus panic.

In an exclusive interview describing cabinet sentiment, former foreign minister Stephen Smith, a strong backer of Julia Gillard as prime minister, said: “Wayne (Swan) and I agreed a leadership change would be a mistake. This was the view of everybody in cabinet that I spoke with.”

Greg Combet, another Gillard loyalist, said: “I hadn’t before the event thought Rudd should be removed.”

Mr Combet called the event a “tragedy” for the Labor Party. But he made clear that once the showdown — which he felt should be avoided — came, then he would back Gillard against Rudd.

Labor Senate leader Chris Evans, a Gillard loyalist, reveals he saw Ms Gillard on the morning of the caucus meeting and told her: “I didn’t think this was a good idea. Despite my concerns with Rudd, I felt this was an enormous step. I was deeply worried.”

In an exclusive interview, Mr Evans said: “There is no doubt as far as I’m concerned these events destroyed both Kevin and Julia. Our inability to recover meant the government was doomed.”

In an exclusive interview, the defence minister at the time, John Faulkner, said: “It is the seminal moment of the six years of government. My view was that neither of them (Rudd or Gillard) would survive it — and neither of them did survive it.”

On the night of June 23, 2010, an incredulous and angry resources minister Martin Ferguson sought out Senator Faulkner, who had been the impartial witness at the Rudd-Gillard meeting. “I was outraged,” Mr Ferguson said in an exclusive interview. “I went to Faulkner’s room. We were both in disbelief about what our great party was doing to itself. John and I knew we had just killed ourselves.”

Senator Faulkner did not dissent. He saw Mr Rudd’s execution as a disaster. He felt the party had lost its head and that Mr Rudd was badly advised on the night. But Senator Faulkner, as the impartial witness to the talks between the leaders, had been “taken out” of the crisis and played no role.

The fact that Ms Gillard had overwhelming caucus support on the night of June 23, once the challeng­e was declared, obscures the critical reality: most cabinet ministers preferred to avoid a contest at that time and stick with the existing Rudd-Gillard team.

The leadership change was an extraordinary cabinet failure. The cabinet was immobilised, weak and devoid of collective will. The faction chiefs and caucus sentiment swamped the cabinet. Once Ms Gillard’s momentum was established, cabinet ministers fell into line.

These conclusions are based upon interviews for my book Triumph and Demise, an account of the six years of Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government, including the internal Liberal Party struggle, published by Melbourne University Press. It will be launched by Tony Abbott next Tuesday.

Staunch Gillard loyalist Craig Emerson said: “In my view there should not have been a leadership change. The change of prime ministers came as a shock and it put Julia on the back foot, particularly in Queensland where we had won many seats in 2007.”

Former ALP leader and senior cabinet minister Simon Crean opposed the change. “My view is that Kevin would have won the 2010 election,” Mr Crean said.

Passionate Gillard backer and then Australian Workers Union chief Paul Howes, who went public on the night, has recognised the scale of the folly. “Of course, it was a stupid way to do it,” he said.

Mr Howes called it a “tragedy” because “we have destroyed someone (Ms Gillard) who could have been the greatest leader we have ever had”.

Former finance minister Lindsay Tanner said Labor panicked, did serious damage to itself as a party and that Mr Rudd would have won the 2010 election. Bob Carr, not in caucus at that time, said there was “no justification” for Mr Rudd’s removal and it turned the government into a “Shakespearean tragedy laden with paradox and vengeance”.

Former senior minister Kim Carr backed Ms Gillard against Mr Rudd but later conceded his blunder, saying: “This event was the key in the destruction of the Labor government.”

Senator Carr said he wished that he had gone to confide in Mr Rudd on the afternoon of the crisis. Damning the operation with faint praise, he called it a “sergeant major’s coup”.

Wayne Swan, who was treasurer and became Gillard’s deputy, had worked against any leadership change. In the weekend before the change Mr Swan said he was “letting people know that in my view it was a bad idea”.

Mr Swan believed “it would be potentially too disruptive”. He had previously promised Rudd his support, a genuine statement of his position.

Frontbencher Chris Bowen, opposed to the change, said: “I believe this fatally undermined Julia’s legitimacy from the beginning.”

Former NSW ALP secretary Sam Dastyari said: “In one night Julia Gillard went from being lady-in-waiting to Lady Macbeth.”

Labor’s national secretary Georg­e Wright said: “There is no doubt in my mind this is the original sin from which everything else flows for the next three years. What happened in 2010 was an awful mistake for the party and government.”

There is much support for the view put by current deputy Anthony Albanese: “I told a gathering that evening, ‘if you do this you will destroy two Labor prime ministers’. Julia Gillard was weighed down by the way she got the job.”

Mr Albanese said it meant Labor “couldn’t sell what we had done in government”.

Mr Smith, who left parliament at last year’s election, captured the essence of Labor’s dilemma by describing the position on the evening of June 23: “The view was that Rudd’s position had been trashed. It wasn’t something we wanted.”

It is a critical point. The Gillard camp was astute in provoking the crisis and making it public. Once ministers were forced to make a choice, a majority went for Gillard — but the bigger point is they didn’t want the showdown.

Mr Smith’s preference was that after Labor’s re-election “we could have addressed an orderly transition to Julia” in the second term.

Mr Howes said of the Gillard push: “We are all in on it. You can’t just blame Julia Gillard. It is our naivety.”

Mr Combet said he didn’t think Ms Gillard “ever really recovered”. He said the public perception was of a challenge defined by “secrecy, midnight manoeuvres, factions (and) unions leaders speaking out”.

Mr Albanese said he believed the caucus had been stampeded. He thinks an idea took hold: that because it was happening, then it had to happen. In short, the start guaranteed the end.

There has never been such a leadership change in ALP history. The extent to which so many senior Labor figures see the event as both terminating Mr Rudd yet crippling Ms Gillard in political terms justifies the description that it was the signing of Labor’s death warrant.