Duds who can't go two rounds with a revolving door
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It took three months to confirm Corbyn’s leadership after the parliamentary party dumped him. Three months during which Labour opposition in parliament was in almost complete paralysis. The party rules would have been much the same had Corbyn been prime minister instead of opposition leader. The British Labour Party may have found a way to elect a leader who stands above factions and obligations to sectional interests. But it is yet to find a workable way of sacking one.
When deposed, Kevin Rudd manoeuvered to give members greater say in deciding Labor’s leader.
Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
In Australia in 2010, Kevin Rudd had lost the caucus’s support when he was deposed as prime minister. He felt, however, that he had somehow been cheated, because he had, in effect, been elected by the Australian people at the 2007 election. That is never strictly true of course. A party leader stands for a seat, like any other would-be member. It is not a presidential campaign. The party of government is the one that wins majority support in relation to supply. Rudd was often accused of disloyalty and treachery before he became leader, but was not much undermined by his own, either in opposition or government, until his failings were apparent to all, at least in Canberra. He had won leadership of the party by vote in caucus, not public acclamation, and lost it to Julia Gillard, because he lost the confidence of caucus. Perhaps she was ambitious for his office, but she had not undermined him.
In due course, Rudd’s campaign of leaking, undermining and sniping, along with Tony Abbott’s very effective demolition campaign, and some woefully inept political management by some of the Labor geniuses, led many caucus members to panic about their chances under Gillard’s leadership. Some polling suggested only 30 or 40 (of a house of 150) Labor MPs would still be in parliament after the next election. None of these polls suggested Labor could win if they returned to Rudd. But it appeared that Rudd could do a better job of “saving the furniture” – which is to say, lose by less. He delivered.
One of Rudd’s legacies was to insist on a new method of electing leaders, somewhat on the British model, if still (in Rudd’s model) allowing the caucus 50 per cent of the say. This should, he argued, produce greater stability. Voters despised both sides for the non-stop leadership musical chairs. Leaders, it was said, were making short-term decisions focused on next week’s opinion polls. Rudd was arguing this again this week, when the man elected to be prime minister by the Australian people, Malcolm Turnbull, was sacked by the Liberal survivors of the last election.
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