A thread for discussion of part two of the ABC’s documentary on the life and times of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government.
Last week’s opening instalment of the ABC’s The Killing Season treated us to the thrills and spills of the Rudd government’s first two-and-a-half years in government. In tonight’s episode, we move into the sharper end of proceedings. Here again as a thread for discussion of what transpires. Play nice, everybody …
Author: William Bowe
William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.
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I reckon if Julia Gillard has watched this programme, which she surely has, she would be very disappointed at how her conduct comes across with the benefit of this short passage of time since the events involved, and under the scalpel-like analysis of a top-flight journalist.
Unless it was orchestrated then it is telling that the 7pm ABC news bulletin on the night of the long knives that Mark Simkin said that Julia Gillard was yet to make up her mind.
I thought Gillard looked very shifty. Maybe it was editing….
Rudd was appalling in his comments about how he delegated responsibility to his treasurer, or that Swan lied to him about the mining tax negotiations with the mining companies. Rudd simply passed the buck.
Loved Macklin’s comment about how in 2010 that Rudd’s superior campaigning skills would have saw the ALP re-elected. Where were those skills in 2013, Jenny?
Diogenes@49
The irony of it!
Strange how it is completely lost on so many.
We don’t follow the polls.
Bahaha
Diogenes.. yes it is hilarious, but on a serious level it underscores the complete illogicality of Gillard’s thinking once this article surfaced. If she’d stepped back, cooled down, taken stock, she surely would never have acted as she did – especially with a 52-48 poll still fresh in everyone’s mind.
Other MB@45: Henry has typically been full of praise for Rudd in the past. In this context, his describing the last days of the first Rudd government can be seen as relatively critical.
According to Labor precedence Shorten should be knifed next week as he is four points in front.
rummel
[We don’t follow the polls.
Bahaha]
There was that great story from Rudd’s COS saying how he was in his office and got a phonecall which they all knew was Newspoll and he came out triumphant saying “52-48”.
There are several things for me that have stood out.
1. The comment that the key players were all newcomers to Parliament, which perhaps is why they got the vibe so wrong
2. Confirming the dominant role of Arbib and Bitar. I has been inclined to the view (partly due to Zoomster) that Kim Carr was a key player and some of the left. This has not been shown at all, and no one seemed to be dumping on them
3. Martin Ferguson was NOT a player and I had assumed he was close to Gillard
4. Rudd blames Swan and it is toward him that he feels most bitter
5. NONE of the bloody cabinet knew. Macklin, Evans, Albo, Roxon not involved
6. The fact that of the entire Cabinet sub-committee, only Penny Wong stayed firm on climage change
7. The role of Tony Burke
AND 8. The real WOW!!!!! Who the hell leaked the ETS backflip. Rudd made it clear he was trapped into a premature announcement but did not say who did it!!!!!!!!!!
Should clarify that ‘he’ refers to Rudd.
Dio,
My thoughts are that Gillard had to move that night with that poll. Could not have the ball rolling to topple rudd with more polls coming out that he has stabilised team Labor in an election winning lead.
dtt
I didn’t think Swan came out of it all that badly despite Rudd’s bile towards him.
What stands out to me was that no-one told Rudd there was a huge problem and that most of Cabinet had no idea what was going on.
Diogenes@61
Rudd’s anger toward Swan is driven by their having been so close previously. The sense of betrayal is sharper.
Dio
Having seen bad managers up close, I am not sure if I believe claims that Rudd wasn’t told or if he is telling the truth, I suspect the truth is somewhere in between.
The really bad managers never know or accept that there is a problem and if they do know that there is a problem, they never do anything about it and then act or surprised when called out on it.
Meher
I thought Ken Henry was very, very measured. he praised Rudd to the hilt in Episode 1, and only indicated that it was a train wreck in hindsight. He said it was not obvious at the time. he commented that the workload was enormous, more than any other government.
I do not think you can seriously take his comments as criticism. He looked sad if anything and I think was referring to later events not the time of 2010.
Not surprisingly, this is the part that News Ltd has picked up on.
[JULIA Gillard was warned not to promote Bill Shorten into the ministry because he was untrustworthy and would “knock her off”, according to key Labor powerbroker Mark Arbib. ]
General reaction on twitter is running against Gillard.
Lol
Laurie Ferguson @FergusonLMP 58m58 minutes ago
We are grateful to @samdastyari for his role in dramatic reconstructions #auspol
Mexican
Gillard was asked outright if she had spoken to Rudd directly of problems and she indicated that she had not. So far both stories agree.
Albo did go to Rudd and their stories tally. Albo underplayed the problem because he did not realise how serious it was.
Rudd said that he had expected Swan to tell him of problems, perhaps because of their former friendship, and Swan makes no claim that he did tell him.
Macklin obviously did not mention anything to him because she had no issues. Tanner hated Gillard so he would have been the last to know there was a plot on.
Arbib who HAS been close to Rudd clearly was not trying to help him.
So it seems highly probable that NO ONE approached Rudd to tell him to fix his game. I do not think you can allocate blame to anyone on this, but there seems no evidence to suggest anyone actually approached Rudd to iron out problems. A real failure of process. It really was the job of either the deputy, the treasurer, leaser of the house, the two senate leaders and the whips. On the evidence presented so far only Albo, leader of the House did his job loyally.
51* Sachin Lara
“Loved Macklin’s comment about how in 2010 that Rudd’s superior campaigning skills would have saw the ALP re-elected. Where were those skills in 2013, Jenny?”
Sachin Lara, Kevin Rudd took over as Prime Minister on his second stint on 26 June 2013, the election had to be called for sometime in September. Rudd simply didn’t have enough time and Labor left it too late to go back to Rudd. It was always going to be a long shot for Rudd to win it particularly when Gillard as PM left Labor’s polling in such a diabolical state with the primary vote in the late 20’s, comparing the 2010 election to the 2013 election circumstances is just plain stupid. In fact the Labor review commended Rudd for saving seats that were would have been long gone under Gillard.
The deepest irony of all is surely that as a result of all this stupidity Bill Shorten is now effectively unassailable even as opposition leader (an entirely different proposition to being PM in this respect) courtesy of Kevin Rudd’s leadership rule changes. I’m sure he gets a chuckle out of that.
Quite right David, but with one further important point: You can’t change leaders twice in one term and expect the voters to simply roll along with you. It was impossible task for Rudd, and I think now that the dust has settled it is generally accepted that Rudd saved a significant number of seats – to the point where Shorten has a very realistic prospect of winning the next election.
David@69
Well said David!
I recall the debates when Rudd was restored as to whether he should go for a snap election or run as long as he could and wear the Libs down.
I was in the latter camp and on reflection I was wrong. He simply did not have long enough so the snap election would have been preferred. Hindsight is wonderful!
The irony of Arbib, of all people, telling Gillard not to promote Shorten because he was untrustworthy is pretty amazing.
Gillard’s phone call after speaking to Rudd and agreeing not to challenge was to Arbib. He was the one who made her go back in to Rudd’s office and challenge.
Alias
I fully agree but sadly I also think that Rudd was a little damaged on his return, and made a few silly calls. Now I am and will always remain a huge Rudd supporter, but i could see the problems.
In part it was inevitable because of the ever growing deficit and I knew Rudd had lost the day Bowen gave his mint budget update. He still campaigned well and saved 5-10 seats.
I agree Alias. She hasn’t come out well at all.
Dio
Much as it is an accepted belief that Gillard is a strong woman, I have never quite seen her as such. She had a tendency to bend with the wind according to the last person she spoke to. Arbib seemed to have been able to overcome her better judgement, and push her along a bit. I thought in office one of the reasons she did not cut through was something a bit similar. A bit of a sense she was a puppet and easily misdirected. The final act of idiocy ie the knitting picture is a stark example of a situation where she was persuaded by persons unknown to do utterly counter productive media pictures.
dtt
I think Gillard is a strong person. When she was able to be her own person right up until the final weeks before the challenge, she was stellar but once she became PM she was never convincing. I thought she was a fantastic deputy PM and Minister.
[AND 8. The real WOW!!!!! Who the hell leaked the ETS backflip. Rudd made it clear he was trapped into a premature announcement but did not say who did it!!!!!!!!!!]
Yes, turned out to be a key moment in recent Australian history.
Imagine if Rudd had announced the deal with Twiggy. Game over, Rudd term 2.
It was nice to reminded of how Rudd knocked Abbott to the floor in that health debate.
I have never witnesses such an outright caning of a leader in a debate. Abbott was demolished. He looked an idiot, miles out of his depth. Imagine the Rudd v Abbott election.
The folly of it all!
Dio
Yes I agree BUT I suspect Gillard is the sort of person that allows people that she trusts to lead her down foolish paths. We KNOW she has a history of mixing socially with some odd ones.
[I didn’t think Swan came out of it all that badly despite Rudd’s bile towards him.]
I agree completely, I hadn’t intended to watch but got sucked in, and my summary is:
1. Rudd came off much much better than I expected, but still what was done to him was no different in substance to what he did to Beazley, although of course killing an opposition leader is not the same order of magnitude as killing a PM.
2. Gillard didn’t come off nearly as well as I expected. Her reasoning and logic was weak and unconvincing. It was clear she was played on the night and most of what she said in the episode was trying to justify that. Very very weak.
3. As I had always expected the factions had a heavy role, although the first term clowns the show (and others in this thread) have referred to clearly had more to do with it than the ultimate idiot Paul Howes who by being the face of it poisoned himself unnecessary if you are to believe the show.
4. I have no doubt that Rudd should come of badly in the next episode, I’m not 100% convinced as I would have been previously that he will be the complete and total traitor under Gillard that I believed he would be, but there is still a real risk.
5. Finally Albo came off much much better than I expected and Shorten much much worse, wouldn’t entirely surprise me if Shorten does more to undermine Gillard than Rudd does. I didn’t really believe the clowns here who were so consistently anti-Shorten, and I think only idiot political tragics like us watch this, but if all of Australia were idiot political tragics like us, Shorten would be finished tonight.
WWP
At least Shorten was smart enough not to be interviewed for the show.
[WWP
At least Shorten was smart enough not to be interviewed for the show.]
I sort of agree (would have agreed 100% before tonights show), but he came off so badly that I don’t see how he could have done worse by giving his side, although Gillard did do worse by trying to present her side, so she’d have been much better off (there might not even have been a show which would have been in her interest) not talking.
[ I thought at the end of the episode that there is nothing in it that will not simply reinforce existing positions about the saga. We see what we want to see. ]
Pretty much. Wow, who would a thunk that senior politicians may be ambitious and not the public into their confidence about all the gory details of their dealings
It is interesting though to get a bit more detail. Was surprised at the role Burke played. And Albo’s comment about 2 PM’s was spot on.
From Rudd’s demeanor i can well understand how people would have been concerned if that’s how he presents under pressure. Gillard didn’t present very well either but she’s not the poor petal that Rudd showed as.
The promo’s for the third seem to be about the Rudd Leaking Labor Rat thing??
[ What stands out to me was that no-one told Rudd there was a huge problem and that most of Cabinet had no idea what was going on. ]
I think Burke pretty much covered that. Tell Rudd and you get shitcanned.
[I thought at the end of the episode that there is nothing in it that will not simply reinforce existing positions about the saga. We see what we want to see.]
I disagree watching it changed my views quite a bit.
I think some of you need to be more careful about taking everything said in the show at face value.
1. Everyone interviewed other then Rudd mostly tried to be measured and reasonable: they obviously didn’t want to repeat the public bagging of Rudd that went on in 2012 and 2013. Even Roxon, who clearly despises Rudd, threw in a few positive comments.
2. Rudd doesn’t play by those rules. As I said in a earlier post: the way Rudd seems to come across in the show is that he sees himself as allways innocent and blameless and everything that goes wrong is always everyone else’s fault. That came through so strongly in all his comments last night. With that sort of a leader, it’s a complete waste of time anyone trying to tell them that they need to change. They won’t listen.
3. There were quite a few people interviewed last night who were involved in undermining Rudd or Gillard or both whose main goal seemed to be to justify themselves. Mark Bishop, Sam Dastyari: we tore down Rudd, but oh golly gosh didn’t we get a bit carried away! Oops! Never mind, we fixed it later on by helping to tear down Gillard.
4. Re Arbib: the idea that he was some sort of naive, first-term neophyte parliamentarian is a joke. As boss of Sussex St, he was the kingmaker for Rudd in 2006. By early 2010, Rudd clearly lost him (and Bitar and Dastyari and even differently-aligned NSW Right figures like Burke). He’d also lost the Victorian Right and the Carr-led Left. An effective Labor leader doesn’t lose the support of so many key people without realizing it. Rudd, who always seemed to believe he had a sort of divine right to rule, was in his own self-made cocoon.
5. The leaked climate change decision: this is the first we’ve heard of this. If the implication was meant to be that Gillard or someone close to her leaked it, it’s surprising we’ve never heard about it before. I’m not really sure what to make of that story.
6. The deal with Twiggy Forrest. Neither Forrest nor Rudd seemed prepared to tell us what it’s content was, other than Forrest hinting it was more or less to scrap the proposal and start all over again. Perhaps that’s all it was. Not much of a deal then. Rudd was prepared to give us the details of everything else but not this one. Swan was scathing about the process. I’d be interested to hear more about this.
Re Macklin’s comment that Rudd’s superior campaigning skills would have got him through in 2010. Maybe, but all the footage in the show last night tended to reinforce the views expressed by Gillard and Henry that Rudd was worn out and despondent.
Sometimes people in that sort of a psychological state can rouse themselves and get energise by the need to engage in a big public performance. Maybe Rudd could have done this. But it was clear that he had become very cut off from much of his team. It reminded me a bit of how Keating was traveling in the run-up to the 2006 election, except that nobody was undermining Keating. But, despite the overwhelming support of his party, he was listless and had lost his mojo.
Of course, as became clear (and I assume we’ll see next week), they should have left him in place, even if they had lost the election. But that’s with the benefit of hindsight: Gillard was going great guns before that fateful day when Oakes rose to his feet in the National Press Club.
I’m afraid I was left with the thought that it was this bunch of spins, crooks and idiots that have gott us to the state that we are in today with the worst govt in Australian history.
Rudd at 52-48 in Newspoll and about to sign a deal with Twiggy Forrest re the mining tax. Yet still these fools went ahead and destroyed, as Albo so aptly said, two Labor prime ministers.
There is no doubt that Rudd had Abbott’s measure, unlike the inept and unready Gillard. Had Rudd gone on to fight the election he would have had a very good chance of winning.
Spin it all you like, but this stands as one of the greatest and stupidest and most unnecessary own goals in Australia’s political history. I find it hard to believe that those responsible have the hide to show their faces in public.
Finally, the words of those with little skin in the game (Henry, Moran, Maklin, Albo) was pretty damning of Gillard’s version of events, as was tha lady herself.
Spies….but spins probably works as well…
Ahhh! Spivs! Damn auto correct.
Ha ha! The suggestion that Macklin (deposed by Gillard as Deputy) and Albo (obvious choice as Deputy is Gillard failed and had to go to the backbench) had “no skin in the game”! I’ve explained Moran’s situation earlier.
And I missed the bit where Henry was critical of the removal of Rudd, but did hear the bit where he described Rudd post-Copenhagen and was reluctantly drawn into using the analogy of a slow-moving train wreck.
If anyone’s equivocating, just listen to Gillard’s voice during the tense moments.
Anyway, it’s all played out like an underhanded ISDS action which is now being pushed into law through the TPP. As for the anger over leaking to undermine Gillard, painted into a corner you have. Maybe I’ll get a laugh reading some altruistic justification for leaking the dumping of Rudd’s climate change policy. But most likely, I’ll move my thoughts to something less depressing than human nature at it’s most pathetic.
meher baba, I consider you little more than a spinmeister for the spivs, conmen and idiots who managed to destroy two Labor PMs and ultimately delivered us Abbott.
As such your explanations are nothing of the sort, just more hopeless spin.
“I was in the latter camp and on reflection I was wrong. He [Rudd] simply did not have long enough so the snap election would have been preferred. Hindsight is wonderful!”
Rudd had just spent 3 years white anting Gillard (rightly or wrongly) and therefore causing massive damage to the ALP. That handed us Tony Abbott as PM. Despite the events of June 24 2010 this was an amazingly vengeful thing to do and the collateral damage to the country was of no apparent consequence. Gillard to her credit just melted away after being rolled. I guess episode 3 will cover this so just saying.
Adrian. I didn’t think I’d tried to provide any sort of explanation, but I can if you like. Here it is: it might surprise you.
1. After the decline of the Irish-Catholic mafia, the NSW Right came under the control of an intriguing multicultural cabal: Obeid (Lebanese Christian), Tripodi (Italian Christian), Arbib (Copt), Roozendaal (Jewish), Bitar (Lebanese Christian) and Dastyari (Iranian Christian). The cultural rainbow nature of the group would have been a
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-killing-season-is-one-of-finest-tv-documentaries-made-in-australia-20150616-ghout5
[. . . Or those constant returns to Canberra, the capital in the Australian bush, in all weathers and seasons and times of day, each return heralded by the carolling of magpies; from the rooftops of Parliament House, the coal-black ravens beadily observe, as the plots thicken in the long, gleaming corridors beneath.
Of course, Ferguson’s interviews constitute the core of the series. But around them is a flowing visual and aural tapestry that takes months of work by up to a dozen people – and the creative talent and experience, accumulated over two or three decades, of people like Deb Masters and executive producer Sue Spencer.
Without that tapestry, there’s no way that a million Australians would have stuck for nearly three hours (so far) with a story whose denouement they already know all too well.]
Oops! To continue.
The cultural rainbow was appealing, but the one thing they all had in common was an obsession with opinion polls and focus groups: as we saw last night. Behind the scenes, Bruce Hawker was a strong influence in producing and sustaining this mindset.
2. In this world view, a party leader became not so much a source of guidance and inspiration to their followers and, hopefully, the electorate. Instead, they were perceived as a marketable commodity, to be discontinued and replaced with another merchandising strategy if sales dropped off.
3. Under this world view, Beazley – a highly capable leader in the old paradigm – was despatches and replaced with the highly marketable Rudd. But, when they installed Rudd, the Sussex St mob knew that he was a show pony who, behind the scenes, was inclined to dither and prevaricate and, driven as he was by self-image, would struggle to take people with him. But they didn’t care, it was all about marketing and winning: especially in their spiritual heartland of Western Sydney.
4. Rudd was really uninspiring and difficult to work for. So, when the polls turned against him, not only the NSW Right but almost everyone else turned against him. Burke’s remarks were pretty telling: the more people they talked to, the more they expected someone to go to Rudd and work with him to kill off the coup. Nobody did. Of course the likes of Albo and Bowen knew what was afoot. But they couldn’t do anything because there was no groundswell for Rudd. Compare that to Hawke in 1991, who still had such a groundswell of support before the second challenge that Keating had to make unpalatable commitments to (by then) fringe players like Frank Walker to get over the line. Gillard, on the other hand, went into the whole thing almost diffidently and found she had overwhelming support. I believe Swan when he said he tried to talk them out of it: but it seems like he was just about the only one.
5. But it was a bad call: the people who were sick of Rudd should have been put back in their box and would have been if the NSW Right boys hadn’t become so driven by polls and focus groups.
6. And then they went through the whole process again with Gillard, as we’ll see next week.
None of this was about Rudd refusing to do the “bidding” of the factional heavies. The factional heavies had gotten themselves to a point where they didn’t really care what leaders did or didn’t do, particularly in terms of policy. “Should we stick with the emissions reduction scheme? I don’t know, let’s ask a focus group. And while we’re there, let’s ask them to tell us who should lead our party?”
That was the biggest problem with 21st century Labor that the show last night illustrated so well. And I’m far from convinced that the problem has been fixed: Labor’s current approach to the pension assets test has the smell of focus groups about it.
Meher
You see what you want to see.
Now I for one did NOT think that Rudd was implying that Gillard leaked the ETS stuff. he said it was someone who wanted the ETS to fail. Gillard while not strongly supportive would not have been keen to see it fail.
So who was it. We can exclude Wong, Macklin, Tanner, Evans, Albo and Faulkner, known to favour the ETS. We can exclude Garrett (unless he did it by accident). This leaves:
Swan and Ludwig (AWU) – possible, given the AWU cosy with the Miners
Carr (Kim) – possible
Crean – very possible
Ferguson
McClelland
Burke
Roxon (not likely)
Smith
Conroy
Bowen
Take your pick