Just one year ago Kevin Rudd equalled former Labor PM, Bob Hawke, as the most popular Australian leaders since the introduction of formal polling. If an election had been held six months ago Labor would have won handsomely, and probably doubled its majority according most polls and party insiders.
Following a sweeping victory with a 5.5% swing to Labor in 2007, Kevin Rudd set the new Government on a heady path in its first twelve months. Implementing key election promises which included introducing fairer employment laws, creating a framework for an emissions trading scheme (ETS) and addressing climate change challenges, making major changes to the health and education sectors, withdrew Australian troops from Iraq and most significantly, he made a formal apology to Australia’s indigenous peoples for past injustices.
Measures introduced by his Government were widely applauded as ensuring that the Australian economy avoided serious impacts of the global recession. In fact Australia’s GPD continued to grow modestly (except for a one quarter contraction of 0.1 of 1.0% a couple of years back) whilst most of the rest of the world’s economies were in freefall.
Things could not have gone better for the PM and the party, which had been in the political wilderness for twelve and a half years of Liberal Party rule under the tenacious leadership of former PM, John Howard.
How is it that things turned so bad, so quickly for this first term PM, who had seen off three Opposition Leaders in as many years? Maybe new PM, Julia Gillard summed it up best when she stated that she “believed a good Government was losing its way”. In April Rudd dumped his ETS scheme as there were potential difficulties for the Government in having it passed in the Senate, where the Government does not have a majority. It should be noted that Gillard was one of the senior inner group who urged this decision. Following this announcement, there was a massive slide in the polls for Rudd and the Party as people interpreted his decision as weak leadership and thought he had cut and run on the issue, instead of fighting it out. Labor campaigned very hard on climate change in 2007 and a lot of voters switched support to them on the basis of their promise to tackle the issue in Government. Further, the Government’s planned introduction of a mining sector “super tax” has embroiled it in a major public battle with a well financed industry, who have landed some big blows via a comprehensive advertising campaign. The Government has increasingly been seen as weak on dealing with asylum seekers, as opposed to Rudd’s predecessor, Howard, who was perceived as very tough on the issue.
Rudd’s detractors saw his decision making style as increasingly centralised and non consultative – with both Minister’s and MPs. His staff were also allegedly vey heavy handed with those who spoke up, or stepped out of line. All of which led to alienated sentiment towards Rudd, who importantly, never enjoyed his own power base within the Labor Party. So when the move on him eventually came, he had no core group to call on for support.
The rules of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party allow for a very quick process in dealing with leadership issues, with house and senate members being the only participants in a ballot. Yesterday was viewed as the last possible day that a ballot could have been conducted, as the Parliament will now rise for the long winter recess and Rudd was expected to call an election very soon after the break.
The decision to oust Rudd was harsh and fast, which is how politics is sometimes played out in the Australian Labor Party. There were obviously those who thought that he had shattered his confidence with the Australian voter, and that the situation was un-retrievable. One term Governments are a rare thing indeed in Australian politics, so there is every chance that Rudd would have steered Labor to a second term victory, but he had obviously lost the goodwill and support with a sizable majority of his caucus.
So having pulled that trigger, the Party must now see if Gillard gets a substantial honeymoon from the Australian people before heading to the polls in the southern spring.
Gary Sargent is managing director, CPR London & former special advisor Australian Labor Party