Many have long argued that the $23 million spent on a six week advertising blitz by the mining industry in its political campaign against Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s resource super profit tax cost him his job. Many believe that the miners destabilised the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and their faith in Rudd. How ludicrous?
More insiders within the ALP are speaking to The Stringer about why Prime Minister Rudd was dumped. All of them said it was not because of the mining tax. The tax was just a convenient excuse. Since when does the ALP sack its leader because he or she would seek to pursue a more equitable disbursement of what is effectively sovereign wealth?
Nearly three years ago a coup within the ALP removed Kevin Rudd as their nominal leader. The possibility of a change of leadership was being touted in the media before the super profits tax was dished into the public domain. However Ms Gillard publicly declared her support for Prime Minister Rudd even declaring that there was as much chance of her prematurely becoming Prime Minister as there would be of her playing full-forward for the Western Bulldogs.
I knew of the ‘Faceless Men’, and who they were, six weeks out from the coup. I knew of the distaste that individuals like Michael Danby, David Feeney and Bill Shorten in particular had for Mr Rudd. Mark Arbib did not ‘despise’ Mr Rudd as did the others but in the interplay of power politics he went with the numbers and got caught up in the foreplay of negotiating power.
The day before the plotters of the coup moved on Prime Minister Rudd I enjoyed a morning coffee with the President of the Western Australian Labor Party, Simon Mead. I said to Simon that Kevin would be deposed as Prime Minister. Simon laughed. He said, “The Labor party would never depose a first-term Prime Minister. It will never happen.” The next day, came the call for a ‘spill’.
The ‘Me-Generation’ imploded the Australian Labor Party – in a never-before-seen debacle.
One unaligned parliamentary insider said, “The (super profits) tax did not bring about the fall of Kevin. Yes, some began to hate him because he was seen by some like Bill (Shorten) as a know-it-all and as some described him as a heavy-handed control freak. But others, including his staffers, they did respect him despite what a couple now say.”
“What happened was a year-long hate campaign within the party against Kevin. The destabilisation ramped up from November (2009) and heightened in February (2010). All of a sudden it became apparent they could topple him.”
“From then onwards the divides began, the distaste, the disgust and this has damaged us ever since. Everyone was all about power and Kevin began to panic in the couple of months leading up to June (2010).”
Another insider, aligned to Mr Rudd, said, “(Kevin) couldn’t believe what was happening, the destabilisation around him, he’d get angry or he’d lecture some of the culprits about factional power and its abuse.”
“As the media were leaked more and more about internal dissent and as he could see Julia drawing a growing clique around her he began to cave in to Wayne and Julia. He caved in to them on the ETS, on stitching the age pensioners and then on how to handle the (super profits) tax. They were hanging him out to dry.”
Another insider, once aligned to Prime Minister Gillard said, “The resources tax did not bring about the fall of Kevin. There were those who were dissatisfied with Kevin. Some of the dissatisfaction was justifiable and some was certainly not. But none of it was justifiable to the extent that they should dump him.”
“Bill (Shorten) was a major troublemaker because all he was about was having more personal influence in policy. He really felt rubbed out by Kevin. But Michael Danby hated (Kevin’s) guts only because of Kevin’s November (2009) stance on Palestine (in reference to cultural recognition by UNESCO).” Mr Danby is a Jewish Australian.
“When David (Feeney) threw his weight in then it was all go for Julia. Paul (Howes) chimed in with support and not just the chatter and the others quickly lined up. It all came together very fast but it had been in the making for more than a year. Remember that Julia had staffers on to her speech even before the deal was sealed.”
“The demise of Kevin was not because of the (super profits) tax or the advertising campaign by the (mining) industry. It was merely an excuse. He was set up, that’s for sure.”
“I am not saying that Kevin is not an egomaniac, who isn’t? Of course they all are. You mentioned the ‘Me-Generation’, well I think you’re right.”
“The advertising campaign (by the mining companies) was nothing compared to the hate campaign that was coordinated internally.”
“As much as I despise the Liberals, some of us have to agree with Tony Abbott, that ‘enough is enough.’”
“All we have left is an opportunity to have a good look at ourselves and rebuild. But too much damage has been done to far too many of those involved, they’re tainted. They’ve got to go so maybe a new wave of aspirant Laborites can learn from all this.”
“And it is not just that all those responsible should go but also the staffers and advisors who have supported them, they too need to go. Some of them are so full of themselves – they are only about themselves.”
Another parliamentary insider agreed that the ‘Me-Generation’ has had a pernicious and endemic effect throughout the ALP. “I never thought I’d agree with Mark Latham but he is right that we need to reconsider factional power, the structural power that determines caucus and that we have to remove the election of the Prime Minister and Ministers from the powerbrokers. Look at (David) Feeney. He thinks he is at risk down on the Senate ticket so he wants Batman. He gets Batman because the Prime Minister is beholden to him for helping install her, and keeping her there, as Prime Minister. (Julia) Gillard then makes a pubic hypocrite of herself by bypassing pre-selection and instead secures Feeney’s pre-selection. It’s a disaster.”
“Latham is right, we need to go down badly at this election, and then sort ourselves out while in Opposition and never let this shit happen again.”
“The hate for one another in our party is that deep that someone like Julia has become blinded to what the (Australian) people think and should be entitled to. Pushed she may hand over power to Rudd but she doesn’t want to, and she hates him now because he wasn’t noble enough to get over what she did him to and why, but if she thinks she can get away holding on to the job she’ll choose that over what’s best. She is that blinded by hate and power that she is blind to the fact that Australia has had enough of the madness. She is blind to the toxicity out there, that she indeed is toxic but it’s not all her fault; It is also the fault of some of her pretty crappy advisers.”
“(Julia) Gillard’s most recent attempts at hate campaigns with gender wars, misogyny, abortion, blue ties are beyond embarrassing. She’s having a meltdown.”
“We need an overhaul.”
For two years since the ALP’s election to Government in 2007 Prime Minister Rudd, and the ALP, enjoyed majority public support. Newspolls reflected record public support for Prime Minister Rudd, as high as 65 per cent. Even with the mining advertising blitz and the news media chatter that a coup was looming Prime Minister Rudd still enjoyed 50 per cent support, levels of support that neither Prime Minister Gillard and Coalition leader Tony Abbott have ever reached.
The rivalry between Gillard and Rudd is a disgrace. The reasons that brought about this rivalry are outrageous. The ‘Me-Generation’ of ALP politicians let down the nation when they did not unite behind Prime Minister Rudd in trying to secure the moderate super profits tax.
The $23 million mining industry advertising campaign did not cost the Mr Rudd the job of Prime Minister. But the ‘Me-Generation’ has cost the national interest very much more.
* The writer of this article, Gerry Georgatos, declares impartiality conflicts of interests. He pursued Prime Minister Gillard for sitting idly by as Indonesian children were incarcerated in Australian adult prisons. Gerry Georgatos spent two years campaigning for their release. Gerry Georgatos also alleged that Prime Minister Gillard deceived the Australian public over the Lobby Restaurant incident, in that it was untrue that parliamentary staffer Tony Hodges went rogue in contributing to the January 26, 2012 incident. He has written a suite of articles in describing the role of the Prime Minister’s Office in generating the incident.
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Prime Minister Kevin Rudd? June 9th 2013
The funny thing (or rather a tragedy) about this whole thing is the clowns Julia, Wayne Swan & co., who hate Kevin Rudd have become to be despised by the Australian public. Poor Julia and Wayne, they could have better been under a Rudd leadership, but they wanted to flex their muscles and wield power. And they got what they wanted, but am afraid its all over too soon. Their political careers can never be the same, so much is the public hatred for them two. They also remind of a proverb, “its better to be a tiger for a day, than a sheep for life”, Lol 🙂
If we want to be serious about ending the various divides and to wipe out their inherent unfortunate impacts then we have to move in various affirmative actions in order to ensure democracy. Only in this striving for equality will we reduce the gender divide, racist divides, and class divides.
The supposition of the will of the people is not the equivalent of the constitution of democracy. Governments and referendums that depend on a majority vote, whether first past the post or preferential have failed to induce democracy but division, and furthermore have failed to understand the will of the people as a whole-of-the-people..
To ensure democracy we require the representation of all of the people in Government. Democracy requires an informed citizenry, and the eroding of monopoly politics. This is achieved by affirmative actions which ensure proportional representation.
For instance a truly equal Australia would allocate 75 of its 150 House of Representative seats to women and 75 to men. Similarly with the Senate and once again with all State jurisdictions. This too must be the case at all layers of Government – councils must affirm half their seats to women, half to men.
Similarly, proportional representation should ensure mandatory representation of Aboriginal peoples in the Senate and the House of Representatives, and similarly in State and Territory jurisdictions.
The will of the people is diminished when all the people are not represented. We remain a long way from democracy.
It would be such a vast improvement if our governance truly represented not only our demographic make up but also our first voting intent. The current system means minority views just are not properly heard or represented. This has the effect of constantly narrowing debate to a point now where it has become farcial. We can look forward to a neo liberal government whoever takes power and won’t get an opportunity to redress until the next election.
Agree wholeheartedly with gender equality and most certainly with Aboriginal representation…and not in some token way either. Most people in Australia would surely agree the system is broke so why not fix it!
We all know the answer to that. Privilege and Power feeds itself and has little incentive to alter it’s course. We need a peoples revolt and in this country that could be quite a while coming.
To show how deluded Gillard has become her only reaction to the world’s worst refugee crisis in 20 years, a truly vicious ALP led Human rights report on her ridiculous and not legislated rules to beggar and persecute refugees, almost 4,000 kids in some form of detention, calls for Antonio Guetteres that enhanced screening of Sri Lankans is wrong and illegal what does she do?
Runs off to Indonesia to whinge again about stopping the boats.