Today’s comprehensive coverage in the Financial Review allows us to understand how the Labor leadership challenge was orchestrated. From reading a number of reports in the Fin Review today, including Laura Tingle’s, I think it’s fair to characterise it as a coup which was organised behind the back of caucus members.
That is to say, it relied on a small group (Bill Shorten, David Feeney, Don Farrell, Mark Arbib) making claims to Gillard about being able to deliver right votes. It’s noted in all the articles that no attempt was made to canvass members’ views. MPs close to the mining industry such as Gary Gray played a supporting role.
It was about creating an atmosphere of crisis, and forcing Julia Gillard’s hand.
Numbers weren’t counted until after Kevin Rudd gave his press conference at about 10.30pm.
Gillard then insisted some of her long time supporters canvassed MPs, rather than the plotters, because with the exception of Shorten, they’re hardly held in high esteem by their colleagues.
A number of Ministers supported Gillard reluctantly because they realised that Rudd would be permanently damaged. After the die was cast, there was effectively no alternative to a change of leadership.
Some members of the NSW and Queensland Right and many first term marginal MPs intended to vote for Rudd, as well as the NSW left sub-faction around Anthony Albanese, who organised canvassing for Rudd. Other left members from other states also intended to support the then PM.
There are two points of contrast with previous leadership challenges:
(a) the organisers aren’t well respected “faction leaders” (like Robert Ray or John Faulkner) but machine men who are disliked by many MPs;
(b) Usually, serious number counting only starts after a coup is brought on, and there are several days in which to canvass party opinion – this one happened at the speed of light.
So I think it’s accurate to see all this as a putsch rather than a typical challenge.
Labor MPs were effectively given two options – to support Gillard, or to vote for Kevin Rudd in the knowledge that his leadership would be crippled and all chance of communicating a political message drowned out by a media firestorm over disunity and the prospect of a second challenge.
The paper also notes that Gillard had been kept in the loop by Shorten for several weeks. She may indeed have only decided to challenge on Wednesday, but it would be quite wrong to minimise her agency in what transpired.
Clearly, the plotters were the ones (along with Karl Bitar and the AWU leadership outside parliament) who’d been the “unnamed sources” for all the News Limited stories over the past few weeks, and the ones who’d been talking up the supposedly dire polls. It should also be obvious that the ‘clean air’ claim is self-reinforcing when the coup was cooked up with elements of the press gallery either in cahoots or rapturous with delight about having a leadership issue to write about.
Kevin Rudd told caucus that Arbib, Gillard and Wayne Swan had been the main movers in convincing him to dump the ETS, and all were opposed to resurrecting it, while Lindsay Tanner and Penny Wong had argued strongly to keep it.
Tingle notes the irony that those who urged the decision which started the rot were also the ones who benefited from it.
Laura Tingle wrote today:
Arbib is one of a new generation of “powerbrokers” behind this coup who seem to have no respect for the traditions of one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world, nor any apparent commitment to its values.
Their only value is staying in power. Their only modus operandi is tearing down leaders.
But is that any different to the party of old, in the days of “Richo” and Robert Ray and all the other colourful “key factional powerbrokers”?
Yes, it is. For a start, in the olden days it was the caucus, whatever its factional groupings, that decided who would be the ALP parliamentary leader.
This time around, Labor MPs watched appalled as the head of the Australian Workers Union, Paul Howes, told viewers of the ABC’s Lateline on Wednesday night that his union had switched allegiance from Rudd to Gillard and cheerfully explained why the prime minister would be losing his job.
The leadership challenge was almost over without anybody making a phone call to any MPs.
The coup occurred without the cabinet and the caucus knowing it was on and, from the public’s perspective, it was a play by the unions.
In the olden days, prime ministers were only dumped after bruising contests about changing policy direction. Powerbrokers were also trusted by their colleagues. The new ones are not…
NSW politics, of course, has been very different for some time.
NB: Previous coverage at LP of the Labor leadership change can be found here.
Update: In the Sydney Morning Herald today – Peter Hartcher:
So why the change? The truth is that some mid-level operatives in the Right faction were angry with Rudd. These powerbrokers hated Rudd for his high-handed leadership style.
And they were frustrated that Rudd was slow to take their advice in changing policy. They wanted Rudd to take a harder line on asylum seekers, to dump the emissions trading scheme, and to back off on the mining tax.
These were the people who decided to launch the challenge against Rudd. And when Gillard took their gift, her remarks to the media appeared to deliver what the Right wanted – a harder line on asylum seekers, a more protracted approach to climate change and backing off the mining tax.
Before he walked away, Rudd told the caucus: “We can’t allow this federal caucus to have embedded in it the same type of culture as NSW where, every time you make tough policy decisions and polls dip, you get a campaign to cripple the leader. It’s not good to bring the NSW culture to Canberra.”
Last night, while some said Arbib simply boarded the train that was the Gillard leadership push, others insisted he was instrumental, planting leaks in the press for weeks to undermine Rudd. ”He’s the biggest harlot in the caucus when it comes to the media,” an opponent said.
”If you’re now hearing that he was a passenger on the train, not the driver, that’s an attempt to guard his arse so it doesn’t look like he plotted to take down an elected prime minister.”
Elsewhere: Sinclair Davidson, Trevor Cook.
Update: In today’s Fin, Pamela Williams confirms that the AWU’s Paul Howes and Bill Ludwig were directly phoning MPs on Wednesday night.
Elsewhere: Peter Hartcher’s take on how events unfolded.
Elsewhere: Guy Beres asks if the big miners toppled Kevin Rudd.
Hoyden In Exile 
Really interesting post.
I think its much more likely the latter. We can see here that its the elements of the ALP using the media to get what they want (and the press get a great story and ratings as well). Can’t really blame the media going for leadership stories – look at all the fun they had over the years with Howard & Costello. This time they got several years worth in just 12 hours (probably made a lot money with the former).
How much of the media bias has actually been internal elements of the ALP feeding stories to the press and setting up Rudd for a big fall? He came to power on the basis of getting rid of the power that factions hold. And now they’re the ones that have brought him down now and reestablished control over the leadership.
“I think it’s fair to characterise it as a coup which was organised behind the back of caucus members.”
Mark,I don’t. Didn’t notice too many tanks blitzkrieging the corridors of power, no citizens “disappeared”, nor were pollies summararily executed.
How about “an exercise in ruthless realpolitik”.
f*cking disgusting.
None of this explains Rudd’s astonishing lack of support within the party, though.
Well, no, Chris – not the factions directly. They’ve been dragged along in the wake of the union men / machine men. This is fundamentally different to the way Richo operated.
There is no way to vote for this party any more, not while these grubs orchestrate media campaigns to kill legislation like the ETS on behalf of resource companies, for the puny prize of “being in power”. Arbib is kidding himself if he (like the rest of the filthy animals in the NSW Labor party) mistake power for merely being the conduit for powerful external interests.
The more of this stuff that comes out (especially Gillards opposition to the ETS) just makes me sick. They make Abbott look honest – at least he and the rest of the coalition are unapologetic about their big business masters.
And the narrative I’m hearing over and over today. “At least Tony Abbott wouldn’t stab his leader in the back. He’s too honest!”
😦
One thing is for sure. Gillard will forever be tainted by the manner in which she came to power.
Maybe Latham is right – if she’d said no they would have found someone else.
And as usual, Laura Tingle is the only press gallary journalist worth reading these days.
Of course the trap is that the media now has a narrative to run against Gillard, one of the plotters own making.
What to do who to vote…
Quote of the day about Comrade Mark Latham:
Hmmmmm. Irony?
And the more that is revealed, the worse it will get.
And they’ve also managed to make the RSPT the central issue once again, just as it was beginning to die down.
How anyone could vote for these bastards is beyond me – it is simply endorsing this kind of behaviour.
This is the dirtiest thing I’ve seen in federal politics since the Dismissal. The dirtiest in the ALP since the split.
Aujourd’hui, Les Peuples Du Punt respondant a la coup sans sang.
1. AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY 1.36
2. COALITION 3.05
Beastly move though it was, the “leadership shuffle” appears to have gained a modicum of traction.
Latham was at his acerbic best in the AFR today. Very funny. Well worth a read.
All this angst over the method of Rudd’s execution is much overblown. Would it have been better if it had happened in the old Labor style, with a campaign of destabimisation conducted over months, the leader bleeding slowly, agonizingly, to death, as happened to Hayden and Hawke?
And why are peopled so shocked that Gillard had the balls to take her chance to become Prime Minister?
Ute man @5:
Sorry, I must have missed that media campaign. Can you elaborate?
you have to admire the chuztpah and strategic skills of these people – in a strictly Machiavellian sense. If only they could use these skills in a way that resembles doing something useful for the country!
Well done Mark. It strips bare for people the process by which a first term PM has been cynically torn down by a group of powerbrokers who’s only motivation is the quest of power itself.
All of those who seem to regard this plot as the height of strategic brilliance might have other ideas when reality comes in the form of electoral defeat.
Any traction that they’ve got now will soon be eroded as we learn what lurching to the right means in practice.
Not that the morons who organised this would really care as long as they’ve got control of the party – seems to be what’s left of their strategy in NSW anyway.
This narrative of Rudd the naive waif being led astray by the evil men from NSW is a nonsense. (The part about
Tim Mackney wrote:
You’re kidding aren’t you? Everything from a bunch of bullshit about “clean coal”, right down to 6 weeks of feeding crap to Andrew Bolt et. al. about bullshit internal polling?
Well it would be ‘a nonsense’ (an odious term first penned by Nick Greiner if I recall correctly)if that were the narrative. Try reading for meaning, Sam.
Oops.
Rudd didn’t have to listen to Arbib’s urgings to drop the ETS. He was the Prime Minister FFS. He could have told him to fuck off. He didn’t have to accept Gillard and Swan’s arguments. He could have taken it to the full cabinet, where at least his own climate change minister would have had a say.
The men from NSW are evil, but it is others who let them get away with it.
@Sam
I’ll bet you all my money against all your money that after Rudd took their advice on the ETS he refused to do what they said on the RSPT, and they got him for it.
Nope, it was an honest question, since I wasn’t aware of any actual media campaign that had been orchestrated against the ETS policy by ALP apparatchiks or union officials. I’d though perhaps you were referring to some kind of state-based campaign in NSW, or some other state where I don’t live.
Now I see you were just venting by engaging in hyperbole. Fair enough, I suppose.
@MH – you’re dead right. Had Rudd been well loved by his colleagues, this would never have happened.
@tsssk, what, except for when he stood for the leadership against Turnbull? wtf?
@Adrian, political power seldom gets handed over nicely. Everyone forgets about it a month or so later, no-one is ‘forever tainted’. And of course Latham was right (for once) about them finding someone else if she’d said no. They wanted Rudd gone. And it seems a fairly radical assumption that electing a member of the left to the leadership will definitely result in a “lurch to the right”.
@John #11 – no dirtier than Keating vs Hawke.
@Sam “The men from NSW are evil, but it is others who let them get away with it.”
Last time I checked, both Shorten and Feeny are Victorians, and Don Farrell is from SA, so claims (both yours and others) that this was somehow a plot of the NSW right are downright … bizarre.
Mark Arbib: tell him what you think of him:
linky
@24
Oh, bullshit. Hawke was well behind in the polls, and the caucus was against him. The caucus was forced to support Gillard here because of the actions of a few ‘powerbrokers’, and the other option was a heavily wounded Rudd who was wide open to accusations of disunity.
Read the damn article you’re commenting on.
I have supported Labor all my life, but if it abandons it’s policies, like the RSPT, and runs to the right on refugees, than I’m voting invalid. I didn’t campaign for Labor for 15 years to see the NSW Right poison the federal party like they did the state party.
I’m rusted on, but I’m not a hack like you. I won’t support a party that has betrayed its base again.
So a bunch of ‘machine men who are disliked by many MPs’ decided to change the leader and MPs ‘were effectively given two options’: go along with them or endure indefinite ‘crippled leader’ stories. Cos ‘after the die was cast, there was effectively no alternative to a change of leadership.’
Sorry, I don’t buy it. What about a third option: tell the ‘machine men’ to go screw themselves. Or a fourth: Gillard comes out in strong support of the leader and means it. Latham says they would have ‘found someone else’ – what tripe. Who else would have taken on Rudd and Gillard – Bill Shorten maybe? Maxine McKew? Anyone who challenged Rudd/Gillard would have become an instant laughing stock.
The narrative here simply reinforces the mentality that the media determines events and everybody else is a puppet. It’s bullshit, inspired of course by the corporate media and pollsters whose egos it strokes. People have free will. Blaming the media and machine men and ‘we had no choice’ fabrications are just rationalisations to excuse their own absence of character.
People including Labor MPs make independent decisions about the morality of their behaviour. I’m stunned that not one of them has had the guts to come out and condemn this exercise. They are spineless morons who deserve to go down in flames at the next election and stay in opposition for another 12 years.
Who cares? He was a nice guy who has a legacy that can’t be tainted…. all else is winning the election and keeping the Libs out!
Given that caucus members were in the dark it’s probably not surprising that these were comments from a previous thread from different commenters who didn’t believe the coup was on, it makes for interesting reading:
“It’s time that we found out the names of the people at Their ABC who are responsible for making up this crap.”
“I don’t believe the story has any substance and thus can only be construed as a confected campaign.”
“Chris Uhlmann is the shitstirrer and will come out of this without a skerrick of credibility {if he had any to start with].”
“OK, so we are supposed to believe that the Victorian and SA Right are going to support Gillard to oust Rudd? The same right that a couple of weeks ago were the biggest obstacle to Julia ever getting the leadership? This looks more and more like fairyland stuff every minute.”
“If this story were true, the ALP would deserve to lose office.
Fortunately, I suspect its bollocks – just some nasty factional destabilising, using a willing media thats absolutely dying to hear their own spill stories migth have some support where it matters.”
“Bet it has about 2 supporters of note in the party.”
“Looks like a whole lotta nothin’.
Get a grip, people.”
@ Ken,
Unless Rudd’s vote was unanimous, or unanimous but 3, who were then expelled from the party, then the ‘disunity’ meme would have been deafening. Gillard should have refused to play along, you’re right. But she is self-serving and short-sighted, and preferred power than what’s right. It’s why Tanner and Albanese hated her. They knew her.
Told Arbib in no uncertain terms just what I thought of him last night Uteman.Gillard is a fool for falling for this, listening to talk in town today she is mud for being complicit in this affair. Eden-Monaro is a marginal and it sounds to me like Kelly is gone, mind you only one small town in the elctorate but folk are ropeable. I reckons this is going to backfire badly for Labor, noone I have spoken to is impressed with this. Handed the next election to Abbott,these bastards have,and destroyed Gillards chance of ever being PM as elected by us rather than gifted the job in a deal with the devil.
John @ 30 my point is that if Gillard had refused to play along there would have been no challenge and no vote. It’s not like Shorten and company have the One True Ring and everyone else has to do what they say.
Marlin @ 29 what is your point? That lots of people could not believe ALP MPs would be so unprincipled and stupid? I’m sure all concerned would agree with you – we’ve been saying so very loudly for 24 hours – but I don’t know what other inferences we are supposed to draw.
Update: In the Sydney Morning Herald today – Peter Hartcher:
Andrew West:
Also, the putsch/coup angle of the leadership spill becomes increasingly more compelling the more one reads about the events of the past two days.
Part of me figures, “Oh well, it’s happened now. Time for the Government to recollect itself and get on with the job of governing.” But another part remains deeply disturbed and concerned for the future of Australian politics on both sides of the political divide. The dumping of Turnbull for Abbott had a similar surreal feel (though not as dramatic, and other differences due to structural differences between the parties) and was claimed to be about similar things: a dictatorial leadership style; no friends in the caucus; a collapse in the personal approval rating as shown in opinion polls; a tendency to not consult broadly with the parliamentary party and just to announce policy without the pre-knowledge of the party.
And yet Abbott has proceeded to do many of the same things, with no damage to his position as leader. Again, it seems the polls are either the devil or angel on your shoulder for contemporary political leaders. What a shame.
Both of the major political parties seem increasingly captive to these kinds of processes, regulated as they are by a fear of the polls and the heartbeat of the 24 hour news cycle and the near total replacement of news and analysis with opinion and punditry.
@27 –
… and that’s precisely what I was hoping would happen on Wednesday night, Ken, as I said at the time.
Like I said in the post, Gillard had the agency here. Had she not elected to go forward, we would have been left with a bunch of never has been “powerbrokers” whining into their beers in Canberra restaurants.
Although, once the ABC got hold of the story, that’s where the momentum effectively became unstoppable. You can again well imagine what we would have woken up to from the media on Thursday morning had Gillard quashed the unchallenge in its tracks.
There’s no doubt at all that the media were a huge element in this, if only because Labor MPs think it’s impossible to communicate a message when the hounds are baying. Yes, they should absolutely have more courage, but that seems to be lacking.
It is a terrible precedent to set that a leader is destroyed largely on the grounds that he couldn’t spin effectively enough, and because a lot of petty egos were hurt. This stuff about visceral anger over Jordan phoning MPs, or Karl Bitar fuming because he couldn’t get an immediate appointment with Rudd and running off to leak polling to Andrew Bolt, of all people, is just pathetic.
Ken @32, I suppose my point might be that perhaps people should trust the ABC more because they and Uhlmann were right and many LP commenters were wrong about a challenge being on and maybe that if people could be so wrong about there actually being a challenge and that the challenege would be successful, maybe we should all be more circumspect.
On that theme, I should mention that the anti-Rudd camp apparently believed that Rudd’s office committed a mortal sin by sending Bob Debus a text message after a caucus meeting. It wasn’t personal enough, apparently.
This dribble is being retailed all over the place to justify ousting a Prime Minister.
Sheesh!
John @ 22
You may well be right, but if Rudd hadn’t listened to them on the ETS then he would have been in a position of strength when he introduced the RSPT, and it wouldn’t have mattered what they thought about that.
Rebekka @ 24, it started in NSW. Do you think that that SDA hack from South Australia could have launched this himself?
John @30, golly gee, Gillard is ambitious and plunged the knife to become PM. So did every PM in living memory and beyond.
a “coup” ?
Keating “damaged” Hawke A SITTING PM by his challenge being made public..in his “coup”
But your whole false narative gets demolished because Hawke won th spill !!
therefore 115 Labor MP’s ar not affected by public knowlege of a challenge at all , but whether polling shows incumbant is a vote loser and public is switched off incumbent and that incumbant shows no signs of improvement….a al Rudd
this is just an exercise of anti Labor bloggers using leadership change as a lame excuse to attack Labor Party itself
if you want a gentlemans sport in your ivory towers of unreality ethics , play book exchanges games Whereas Politcs has always been brutal , here , and all thru World
Latest Morgan….53..47…19/20 June
You have to admit it is ironic that Albo was there at the end – the tireless warrior of the never surrender Left delivering the bullet to the head and having to clean up the bits of blood and brain himself.
The good guys finish last again.
You’re a fucking hack, @Ron. You’re the kind we had a split to get rid of.
Thanks Marlin @ 35 … like I often write on student assignments, don’t just present data and hope readers draw the conclusion you expect them to. Much better to explain the point clearly.
I largely agree with you BTW, although the corporate media does have form for promoting spurious leadership challenge narratives (e.g. the interminable Costello/Howard non-story).
If it’s true that ALP members have been white anting Rudd then the ALP is doomed this election as the moment the election is called you will see the biggest series of tell all exposes printed to completely destroy the ALP.
“Normally us journalists don’t like to reveal our sources but when such a threat to democracy comes along…”
Anybody who thinks there is some simularity between what happened in the last couple of days and what happened between Hawke and Keating in the early ninties needs to hit the history books.
As pathetic as the excuses are about what caused this leadership spill, as we can see there are plenty of people around willing to believe in fairytales just because they are happy with the ends. They would prefer the discussion of the means to be kept to a minimum.
I think you’re confusing cause and effect. This was a coup engineered by an excitable media and non-elected appartachiks feeding off each other’s frenzied twittering and unable to see beyond the latest Newspoll.
The reaction of ordinary disengaged voters (“how on earth did THAT happen?”; I didn’t think he was THAT bad”) tells you that this was engineered in a manufactured reality where insiders spend too much time talking to each other.
@37 and 40 – please conduct debate according to the comments policy. That includes arguing on substance, not against others because their political views differ. It also includes being civil.
Just wanted to mention all four people on the panel of The Nation last night agreed with this (Richo, van Onselen, Kernot & a Gillard biographer). They all said something had to happen (internal polling was more dire than the public polls) and that the ‘Gang of Four’ stuff in the press wasn’t accurate and that the Government was run by Rudd and his office. Supposedly they (his office) even refused to share the details of an internal poll with other caucus members.
Rudd was a control freak and widely disliked within the party and like Rudd’s biographer said last night he was only ever popular with the public and when that changed he would come down like a house of cards because he had no factional support and so disliked. Latham said the same thing on Sky today. He and others have also noted that the only reason Rudd got in in the first place was because he hitched himself to Gillard’s factional support. He knifed Beazley, then got knifed unfortunately thats politics.
I think most people understand that the main reason Rudd/Labor got in was because of WorkChoices. I said at the time Howard getting control of the Senate would be the end of him. The polls changed in Labor’s favour the same month the WorkChoices legislation came in (early 2006) and have no doubt despite his limitations during the campaign Beazley would’ve been PM. The Labor party disagreed and wanted to lock in victory by going to a “safe pair of hands” in Rudd.
IMO that is what this move was about giving Labor the best possible chance of victory. I said yesterday (or the night before) I think this will lock in victory for the government even though I think they might’ve snuck home with Rudd.
FWIW van Onselen said on Sky last night that not only does he think Gillard will win the election but that she will increase Labor’s majority.
From Zorronsky at #38
“Latest Morgan….53..47…19/20 June”
A masterpiece of pointed understatement.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately depending on your viewpoint or something else, I would expect the next Morgan to be at least 54:47, probably more, just like Newspoll and the others in that it would show an increase to the post-coup Gillard ALP government.
Anyone else care to play the prediction game?
Its Laura Tingle, so I believe it.
This could go on to the election, if Labor switches completely to self-destruct mode as tssk says in 42. Somehow I don’t think it will.
The narrative as you present it Mark is pretty disgusting. But why then were two backbenchers on TV this morning suggesting it was based on nervous nellies in the Caucus? Were they liars?
political practice is more often ignoble than noble. Every pollie would like to be PM. Well, most.
Meanwhile, all you Gillard bashers, shocked converted Rudd supporters, there’s this little man out there with funny ears and an exercise fetish named Tony Abbott, and maybe all you might just take a nanosecond to get off your moral high horses and remember he is the REAL enemy.
I predict massive gains for the Greens and other indy’s as well as a big increase in ALP supporters spoiling their votes in the short term.
Yes John. When you have a situation where the slightest error is magnified out of all proportion, it is just unrealistic to assume that the disunity theme wouldn’t have spelt the end for Rudd anyway.
Gillard could have said no, who knows if they would have found someone else – Latham reckons Swan was the next in line. In any event I think she’s going to regret this big time.
‘The Judean People’s Front”?
@John, #26
“@24
“Oh, bull***. Hawke was well behind in the polls, and the caucus was against him. ”
so, completely unlike Rudd then /sarcasm.
I am a strong supporter of climate action and think that the country should be getting more of the super profits that are being generated by the mining industry. However, this doesn’t stop me from thinking that the CPRS had become an incredibly complex, inefficient way of driving climate change and that it would have been a lot smarter to hit the land based miners with the same system as that which had been used for offshore oil and gas for years. I also think it was appalling judgment to start talking about something like the RSPT when its introduction would have been post election.
So perhaps it is worth asking if one of the reasons Julie decided to run was that she really believed that this was a good government that had lost its way and was finding that Rudd was not listening to anyone and was starting to lose it?
It is also worth asking to what extent the machine men were following rather than leading the push?
Let us see what Julie actually does – her words the other day were very carefully chosen.
On a related matter the miners are already gloating about their power to get rid of leaders they don’t like. They are setting Abbot up to be seen as a supporter of a system where the Clive Palmers of the world taking over the country and putting Julia in a position where she would find it hard to make any real concessions.
Many of us have said it is the press gallery, the media that assisted in this but now the challenge is to name names and present evidence.
I heard about the spill around 820pm on wednesday night, unfortunately I was a mile from any technology other than my 20th century fone. By the time I got back it was all over. Of all the things said here, the one I find most agreeable is the idea that if Gillard had stayed loyal to Rudd there would be nothing to talk about. It smells of rank opportunism.
I wont be voting ALP, haven’t for some time despite once being a member and married to family of ALP members. They are better than the other mob in some respects but if they prefer to waste all this energy on palace coups instead of getting on with the job they were elected to do then my vote will go to a party with some spine, rather than the ones with spin.
‘They are setting Abbot up to be seen as a supporter of a system where the Clive Palmers of the world taking over the country and putting Julia in a position where she would find it hard to make any real concessions.’
No, you got that part wrong – she’ll make concessions alright. That’s one of the reasons this whole fiasco happened. Excpect them sooner rather than later.
This from Barrie Cassidy at The Drum:
Thank Goddess someone has finally explained clearly exactly what part Alister (NB spelling: Barrie, Google is your friend) Jordan played all of this; it should be remembered that Rudd had his own contingent of powerful ‘faceless men’. And any experienced professional woman over 40 knows exactly what it’s like to be ignored, belittled and/or humiliated by the boss’s golden boy, because it happens all the time. Maybe Shorten et al got wind of Gillard’s feelings and saw it as their chance, but if there was indeed such a chink in the armour of her loyalty then perhaps Rudd has only himself to blame for putting it there.
When will Gillard’s turkeys realise they’be taken the bait that the Murdochracy laid out for them? News Ltd and the ABC have been calling for Rudd’s head for weeks because they knew he could win the election. Now the bosses have got the PM they wanted.
F**k these backroom cowboys and the horses they rode in on.
In both major parties, the cynics have defeated the progressives. Rudd and Turnbull, get it together and give us a new party. Take back the vote.
At least with Abbott as PM we’ll know who the enemy is, and why.
MH @ 4:
What difference would that have made? This PM is brought to you by Mark Arbib, the AWU, and Twiggy Forrest. The elected caucus were left standing around like spare dicks at a wedding. Read the article again, this time for comprehension.
Zorronsky @ 40: That 53/47 Morgan poll was taken before Rudd’s fall.
So the ALP 2PP vote in the last five major polls of Rudd’s Prime Ministerial career were as follows:
(Newspoll)
49
50
51
52
(Morgan)
53.
And they gutted him. The English language, usually an inexhaustible source of profantities, doesn’t begin to cover this clusterfuck.
@59 – Maybe so, Dr Cat, but Cassidy doesn’t mention what Bitar then did with the said polling, which was to go and leak it to Andrew Bolt (who incidentally today is preparing the ground to retreat from his pro-Gillard stance, now that she’s actually the PM).
The other part of the story, not reported by Cassidy because it doesn’t fit the narrative, is that Bitar is said to have been abusive and aggressive towards Jordan, and to be miffed that he couldn’t get an immediate appointment. The brush-off about the polling is a contested interpretation.
There’s a lot of anger about in parliament house, it seems.
The reports about how angry Gillard became when reading of the article about Jordan made me think of a certain essay by David Marr.
I should add that there’s nothing particularly unusual, as a heap of people have observed, in having a staffer phone around to gauge support.
The improving poll numbers illustrated why they had to move quickly lol.
@62 – That’s actually probably right, Trenton. I think Rudd *had* turned the corner. The RSPT fight was dying down, the miners were beginning to splinter, the government had just signed major agreements with China, we had parental leave legislation passed and the NBN-Telstra deal announced. Rudd was working on alternatives to the CPRS. This week we’ve had renewable energy changes, and some progress on whaling, though that’s been completely drowned out, of course.
It wouldn’t have surprised me in the slightest if the next bloody Newspoll had left egg all over its owners’ faces.
Btw, someone might care to explain to me how the things I just mentioned @63 constituted a dying government on the ropes, or whatever the official excuse for overthrowing Rudd is.
In my little bucolic slice of rural heaven, all my female colleagues, most of whom are a few years north of Julia’s age and have dealt with far more sexism than she has, are giving her short shrift. They didn’t have much time for Rudd, until 24 hours ago.
I see a lot of broken eggs, but no omelette.
Mercurius I did include the dates so I presumed most people would be able to work out that the poll was pre spill.
What the disgusting move against Rudd shows is that the culture of the ALP is cruel, unforgiving and devoid of any ethics. Gillard has shown that she is a ruthless and opportunistic operator who is in love with power and power alone. One must ask if people who are so ruthless and callous have any place in running this country. Gillard has her fingerprints on all of Rudd’s policies and can’t claim to be better.
The move shows
1. The ALP views it leader as a position in a high school popularity contest.
2. Gillard stands for little. She is an intellectual light weight compared to Rudd.
3. Women are no better than men in their power lust and callousness.
Bring on the election. Go ABBOTT!
Cheers Zorronsky. Unless they had a couple under their belt! 😉
That’s my bad, Mark, for the way I quoted. Cassidy does at least mention that, though not in the terms you frame it in and not necessarily as a direct leak from Bitar. It’s one of the bits I omitted (as indicted by the ellipses), naively and without thinking of the implications, because the quotation was really too long to post entire and I was focusing on the Jordan narrative. There’s a link there though if you want to go and have a look.
I’m not taking sides here as the whole thing is obviously incredibly complex, but I do think Gillard is getting a raw deal in most accounts of what happened, especially from people who already hated the NSW Right.
There is a long tradition that after such a coup, all can be forgiven, except for the actual assassins who are punished by the new regime, no matter the benefit of the new ruler from the very assassination.
I quote:
* Cassius Chaerea and Cornelius Sabinus. I’d propose that Arbib and Bitar could fill the role of these two.
Incidentally, on my point @61, I’ve been feeling very angry about this putsch, as well as very sad and disillusioned, over the past few days. I doubt that these emotions define my personality and my professional goals, and I wonder what David Marr and all those others who specialise in the instant interpretation of character based on momentary slices of life would deal with that.
Jeff Sparrow on the personalisation of politics is a piece I’ve linked to before, and I’ll do it again:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2936343.htm
That would seem like the craziest thing to do, because of course Bolt is a genuine fucking insane chauvinist pig, not a strawman chauvinist pig. Seriously, there is no Rightwing Labor hack that comes anywhere close to Bolt’s dedication to the reintroduction of the coathangar (hmmm, am I being too subtle?)
But… clever Labor hack national secretary obviously figured out the same thing many else have—Andrew Bolt is the one commentariat figure who did the most to facilitate the near-coup against John Howard in 2007. Yes, this time Bolt couldn’t appeal to ALP MPs as a party loyalist, but he could create a sound and fury signifying something among the rest of the meeja—“Hmmm, Bolt obviously doesn’t have a dog in this fight, so when he says Rudd is doomed he must be basing his opinion on reliable sources.” (Yes, I think the likes of Barrie Cassidy and Michelle Grattan are capable of such stupidity.)
The Age today is a thing to behold. The triumphalism is astounding. It’s as if Australia just inaugurated a new president. Nary a mention of a broken down loser, of a swift, bloody execution.
Honest to god, until Leunig goes batshit crazy over something or else perpetuated by the terrible reactionary worse-than-Howard new PM don’t expect that paper to get anywhere close to the Fin’s critical take on all of this.
Sorry, those first two lines @ #65 are supposed be be in blockquote tags, dammit.
Gillard or Rudd is not really yhe issue. The question is do we really want shady faction leaders alongside dodgy union figures such as Paul Howes (who is looking like he want to set himself up for parliament) deciding who runs the country. I used to be in the ALP but quit because of the horrific factional deals. Gillard is muddied with these dirty dealings. Any party that allows itslef to be controlled by these shady figures does not deserve power. Any leader who allows themselves to be put in power by them stands for nothing and should be opposed by anyone of principle.
Gillard must go. She represents the worst of the ALP.
Ute Man @25: thanks for the link. Message delivered.
@75 – fixed, Dr Cat.
I hadn’t read the whole Cassidy piece – there’s been a lot to read over the past few days.
Just by the by, I think Jonathan Green has done a really good job in getting so many people to write on so many different angles of these events at The Drum.
I think my main point on all this talk about people being offended by phone calls, having to wait in the antechamber, getting text messages which weren’t personal enough, or whatever, is that whether or not Kevin Rudd’s personal relationships were what they may have been, adults should understand that the PM doesn’t have the time to attend to their sense of what is due them in some sort of party hierarchy. John Howard successfully managed his party room in large part through using staffers to keep backbenchers sweet. Maybe Rudd should have done that, too. But I think Julia Gillard will find that she simply doesn’t have the time to be PM and to sit around chewing the fat with MPs or whatever.
Speaking of which, I found the reports of right wing Senators forming a dining club to bitch about how much they hated Kevin Rudd very distasteful.
Most of these characters will never attain the heights of public service Rudd has contributed to this nation, and never could, whatever the former PM’s failings are.
“The Age today is a thing to behold. The triumphalism is astounding.”
Gillard is from Victoria, the natural home of Prime Ministers.
“John Howard successfully managed his party room in large part through using staffers to keep backbenchers sweet. Maybe Rudd should have done that, too.”
Well, what else are they for?
‘The Age today is a thing to behold. The triumphalism is astounding. It’s as if Australia just inaugurated a new president. Nary a mention of a broken down loser, of a swift, bloody execution.’
I guess they could just barely cop 12 years of rule from NSW under the Libs but the prospect of an indefinite period under a Queenslander was intolerable.
Mark and Trenton @ 62/63 I’m convinced you’re right. The grubs saw the opportunity to shaft Rudd slipping away as he returned to more normal poll results, and pulled on the coup. But why caucus acted like a pack of demoralised bystanders remains a mystery.
The sight of Labor ‘leaders’ wetting their pants, teeth chattering in very fear, because the government has upset some powerful corporations must have old-time party members bringing up their dinners. Malcolm Fraser resigned from the Liberal Party because he could no longer stomach what it stood for; maybe Gough can balance the ledger by resigning from the ALP.
Merc said:
Now there’s an unsavoury image … unpleasant all round, and as someone who cares about the well-being of animals … I must object …
I’d let the cowboys make their own arrangements and the horses ought to be left in peace to graze unmolested some place nice.
Mark, I think the Cassidy piece is pretty new anyway — I just happened on it while doing the rounds.
Agree absolutely about the dining club, BTW, though I hadn’t seen that. not just distasteful but rooly rooly stupid, surely.
Sam, Gillard is actually from South Australia, like Bob Hawke.
Mark your pain and anger is plain and I went to bed on the 23rd feeling exactly the same. As I pointed out the following day tho’ I’m Labor and I wanted to emphasize the importance of putting those feelings aside to acknowledge the state of play and that because, like so many others, I have felt for a long time that Julia Gillard would make a wonderful PM and spokesperson for Labor. I haven’t changed my mind and hope sincerely that we who believe that a LNP Government would be a disaster, can put aside our disappointment and get behind the only alternative for Australia.
Sam @ 77, I think they’ve gone beyond the call of duty. As I subscribe to idea that the elite media have not been at all removed from these events there’s only one conclusion I can make.
Today’s Gillard wraparound-and-more is Mission Accomplished for The Age.
Don’t know if they would have been as enthusastic for Sir Peter in 2007.
2003, when Howard was supposed to stand down and the hapless Crean was Opposition leader? Yeah, I can see them barring up over that if it had transpired.
Mark, you have to recognise the tidal wave of calumny that was swamping the Government- personified by the person of Rudd.
I occasionally listen to talkback radio wingnut Alan Jones to get the popular right-wing meme in it’s purest form. And it is total misinformation, every single dollar spent on the BER, Insulation and stimulus bonuses has been wasted. The National Broadband Network and health funding reform? Ditto.
You can’t tell the same lies twice, however.
@PC #69
Spot on. I’m not thrilled by the furtive speed of the backroom dealings, but by the same coin I do not think that Gillard is all that badly tarnished by them. She’s no innocent wallflower, but she’s not Machiavelli either – just a talented and ambitious politician who took a chance.
@Spana
I am shocked, shocked I tell you, to find a widely suspected agenda finally revealed in this establishment!
Spana,
Gillard is the issue. Our new PM may well have been up to her eyeballs in plotting. The serious attempts today to ensure the recorded history of this is kind to her is just too confected.
The plotters in this know the media too well. Their strategic and effective leaking over the last few months is demonstrable of this. The planning now will be focussed on how many Woman’s Day, Womens Weekly, etc covers they can score before the election (and keep the same media off featuring Abbott’s family). They’ll seek to reach some trouble demographics with targeted (and very kind) free coverage before starting the campaign proper. Working the traditional media cycle takes more advanced planning than social media. There is no way in hell they are just getting this now.
@81 – I think there might have been two Cassidy pieces, Dr Cat.
@79 –
Ken – this from Trevor Cook:
@82 – Zorronsky, the above para from Trevor Cook sums up why it’s hard for me to maintain any faith in the Labor party now, not to mention the way Anna Bligh has trashed Labor beliefs and ideology in Queensland. It’s getting very difficult to keep the faith and summon up the mindset to rally around the standard if the only argument is one about the lesser of two evils.
Having said all that, I’ll wait and see what Gillard actually does.
But it would be wrong to think that this stuff doesn’t leave wounds among Labor supporters. The cheersquad who want to push the message of “it’s all good, this is the new reality, get behind it” really need to understand that.
@84 – CMMC –
Oh, I don’t know that at all. The Libs and the press will ramp it all up again, with the argument that Gillard was central to all the decisions. I expect we’ll be reading even more stuff about the BER as well.
Great article, thanks for providing it. Totally agree with everything you have said.
This is a shameful day for Australian politics – ousting a leader in the way that they did was disgraceful. Julia Gillard, the snake, should never have accepted the leadership given to her in such a manner. She will be forever known as the woman who backstabbed her boss in order to wrest his position from him, with her backstabbing cohorts backing her. She will just be a by-line when history remembers Rudd kindly in this whole fiasco.
The Drum on the ABC has a good commentary about Rudd and his loss of popularity with some:
The long, sad, long, long goodbye by Anabel Crabb
While some television stations are reporting a slightly higher approval rating for Julia and suggesting it is a “huge” upturn, they have only canvassed a small group of people and it means nothing, because other polls on NineMSN, Yahoo! suggest that most people will not vote for Julia Gillard. Her puppet leadership will ensure Labor loses at the next election to the Liberals and therefore the mining tax will never come into effect because the Liberals give big companies various concessions and not higher taxes.
It’s just a lose-lose situation for the Aussie people.
I am totally disgusted how this coup was carried out. Brutal, backstabbing, ruthless and treacherous. Very similar to the way Gauis Julius Caesar was toppled in the Senate around 40BC, except in Rudd’s case, he wasnt actually killed like Caesar was, rather his political career as PM now or in the future was effectively killed off.
Bastards!
Forgot link to Trevor Cook’s post:
http://trevorcook.typepad.com/weblog/2010/06/a-new-day-dawns-in-canberra.html
Sorry that was supposed to be “…just getting to this now.” I didn’t mean to imply a media conspiracy, just Labor taking strategic advantage of media opportunities. Glossy women’s titles in particular.
That same perspective was presented in the initial “breaking news” bulletin during the 7.30 Report on Wednesday evening, the reporter saying “the key thing that is emerging is the real sense of nervousness throughout the caucus, but especially amongst those in marginal seats,” and Swan said the same thing this evening. Make of that what you will.
Tigtog. No agenda here. Just someone who rid themselves of irrational party loyalty a long time ago. I preferred Rudd to Abbott but Gillard is an opportunist. She supports scab labour, attacks unions and yet pretend to be their friend. Abbott on the other hands is clearly not sucking up to unions. I believe Gillard is a far bigger threat to unions in this country than Abbott. She is a Thatcherite. I would not vote for her simply because she sticks ALP after her name. As a teacher a unionist I have seen the ruthlessness of Gillard and have faced threats of fines for taking on her right wing education agenda. No agenda here Tigtog. I will be voting DLP and preferencing to the Libs to teach opportunists like Gillard a lesson.
@93 – no doubt those “nervous nellies”, su, were reading the same reports about polls as everyone else. That’s what Bob McMullan was trying to address in caucus on Tuesday when he made some points about the relative position of the government and the opposition and the likelihood that Labor would win. Obviously a lot of MPs lost their nerve, though again, it’s worth pointing to the marginal seat MPs like Jim Turnour who strongly supported Rudd on the RSPT. The question is why they lost their nerve.
44. Julius Caesar was assassinated in the Theatre of Pompey on the ‘ides’ (i.e. the 15th) of March 44 B.C.
Nickws wrote:
That’s an understatement. From what I can stand of reading or watching Cassidy and Grattan, in appears that they are not only capable of an erudite stupidity, they specialise in it.
“the above para from Trevor Cook sums up why it’s hard for me to maintain any faith in the Labor party now, not to mention the way Anna Bligh has trashed Labor beliefs and ideology in Queensland. It’s getting very difficult to keep the faith and summon up the mindset to rally around the standard if the only argument is one about the lesser of two evils.”
I’ve got no argument with what Trevor Cook says in principle. My problem is that I think Rudd’s ascension demonstrated what Cook is railing against, just as much as Gillard’s does. The ALP lost the plot before this, and this blog has documented that process on many occasions long before the happenings of this week. I find a lot of what is being said here just a lot of revisionist tripe, but regardless, you all will have to hold your nose and preference Labor, along with the rest of us, who have been described as treacherous by so many who are *shock horror* now saying that it’s impossible to vote Labor..it’s just bizarre, Rudd was installed by the same people that Gillard was installed by…and he had a much shallower approach to policy than she, and greater social conservatism, and somehow it’s only now become a impossible for leftists to vote Labor? Personally, I’ll find a Gillard Labor government slightly easier to preference than a Rudd Labor government was, that’s definitely not an endorsement of the hacks behind the scenes, particularly Farrell who I can’t stand, but oh…hang on there Tony on the TV now, I wonder if suddenly he’s became less revolting……*pauses*…….nope.
“I believe Gillard is a far bigger threat to unions in this country than Abbott. She is a Thatcherite. ”
Whatever your disillusionment might be, Spana, I cannot reconcile that opinion with her having Nye Bevan as her political hero. She has chosen a more cautious pathway than Nye but he’s still her benchmark.
Saint furious wrote:
Not even close.
We expect (and perhaps even demand) that opposition leaders are scraped off the boot whenever their polling numbers turn bad.
Not Prime Ministers. Not in their first term and not when their numbers were improving.