Rudd a risky life raft if good ship Gillard sinks

POLITICS ... with Mungo MacCallum

So you’ve got a leader who is an almost certain loser on a catastrophic scale and a contender who looks like a probable winner; what do you do? Obviously it’s a no brainer, and if we were talking about any leader but Julia Gillard and any contender but Kevin Rudd – and perhaps any context but the Australian Labor Party – there would be little hesitation.

The factional warlords who used the opinion polls to destroy Rudd last year would strike without mercy or remorse. But the reality now is that to do so would be an admission that they acted out of personal spite and general stupidity in 2010, and their egos would never allow it. Nor would such a move be universally welcomed within caucus, even among those marooned in marginal seats; there are plenty of bruised egos among the rank and file, and Rudd has made very little effort to rebuild the bridges he burnt during his tenure.
And of course, if Rudd was to be reinstalled, the voters might decide that they didn’t really love him that much after all – although they would be unlikely to reject him as whole-heartedly as they appear to have rejected Gillard.
In practice, the solution is not as straightforward as it appears in theory. So let’s have yet another look at the problem: why has Gillard turned into such a clunker? John Howard, who knows a thing or two about unpopularity, says it stems from her lack of authority. Having knocked Rudd off, she needed a clean election win to establish her credentials and she didn’t get it.
And since then, she has failed to show clear leadership; the perception is that she is in thrall to the minorities, and to the Greens in particular. Hence the carbon tax, a broken promise that could perhaps have been justified in other circumstances but now looks like weakness as well as dishonesty. And there is the looming dilemma of Andrew Wilkie’s poker-machine legislation, which, it is believed, would never have happened under a “real” Labor government.
There are plenty of people both inside and outside the Labor Party who are passionately in favour of both proposals and are convinced that Labor should not hesitate to enter into alliances with the Greens and other progressive interests; but the proviso, always, is that Labor must be in control.
In the business of government the ALP must be the senior partner, the majority shareholder, and Julia Gillard, not Bob Brown, must be clearly seen as the CEO. This is the minimum requirement if Gillard is to regain the authority she needs, but with a shaky majority of just one in a hung parliament, it is unlikely to happen. And the lack of clear direction is compounded by the idea that Gillard seems to have no policies of her own; when she is not accommodating those of the Greens and the independents, she is doing little more than watering down and attempting to manage the legacy that Rudd left her. Much of this is inevitable; Rudd’s program was an extensive one and much of it was left as unfinished business. But apart from a few somewhat pie-in-the-sky announcements, the most significant of which was the plan for disabilities, Gillard has added very little to it. Her inactivity has allowed Tony Abbott and others to claim that she stands for nothing, which is untrue. Apart from her often-stated passion for education reform, Gillard is keenly interested in health and welfare issues and is developing a feel for economics which should lead to underlying changes in the tax system. Time and the everyday concerns of holding her government together have meant that she has not devoted as much energy to new policy as she might wish; but there is also a sense that a certain timidity is holding her back. Gillard seems to share with those who put her into the job an obsession with the polls; it is hard to explain her opposition to gay marriage, for instance, in any other way. She is now so far down herself that she feels she cannot afford to alienate any new vocal pressure group, even those that represent a minority of voters. But for many previously rusted on Labor supporters such procrastination will be seen not as caution but as cowardice.
And here is the key problem for Labor’s decision makers: if the polls are to be believed, it is not just the swinging voters of the middle ground who have deserted the Gillard government; the disillusionment is now eating its way into the party’s core supporters. The idea that Labor’s primary vote could be mired below 30 percent is inconceivable to politicians of the last generation (like Graham Richardson), who ran to the panic stations if it dipped below 40 per cent.
The significance of the Nielsen poll on Monday was that it suggested that there was, in fact, a way out of the slough of despond: simply by replacing Gillard with Rudd Labor could put on 15 primary points and be back in the lead after preferences. Perhaps fortunately for Gillard, Rudd is about to leave the country in his capacity as foreign minister, and there is no sign that his supporters have begun canvassing for numbers – yet. But the present position is clearly unsustainable.
If there were no alternative to Gillard, Labor supporters might emulate her own toughness, grit their teeth, resign themselves to a disastrous defeat and contemplate the mammoth and thankless task of rebuilding in opposition.
But Rudd offers the possibility – more than a possibility – of a life raft. The temptation to climb aboard, even under the cruel and autocratic Captain Bligh they so unceremoniously deposed just last year, may yet prove irresistible.