Rudd Government - Gillard Replaces Rudd As Labor Leader

Gillard Replaces Rudd As Labor Leader

After an initial period of popularity, by mid-2009, following the failure of the Government's insulation program and amidst controversy regarding the implementation of a tax on mining, the failure of the government to secure passage of its Carbon Trading Scheme and some policy debate about immigration policy, significant disaffection had arisen within the Labor Party as to the leadership style and direction of Kevin Rudd. According to the ABC's 7:30 Report, the seeds for a push for Julia Gillard to challenge Rudd came from "Victorian Right factional heavyweights" Bill Shorten and Senator David Feeney, who secured the support of "New South Wales right power broker" Mark Arbib. Feeney and Arbib went to discuss the matter of leadership challenge with Gillard on the morning of 23 June and a final numbers count began for a leadership challenge.

As late as May 2010, prior to challenging Rudd, Julia Gillard was quipping to the media that "There's more chance of me becoming the full-forward for the Dogs than there is of any change in the Labor Party". Gillard's move against Rudd on 23 June appeared to surprise many Labor backbenchers. Daryl Melham when asked by a reporter on the night of the challenge if indeed a challenge was on, replied: "Complete garbage. ABC have lost all credibility." As he was being deposed, Rudd suggested that his opponents wanted to move Labor to the right, saying on 23 June: " This party and government will not be lurching to the right on the question of asylum seekers, as some have counselled us to do."

The Sydney Morning Herald reported on 24 June that the final catalyst for Gillard's move was "sparked by a report in that Mr Rudd had used his chief of staff, Alister Jordan, to sound out the backbench over the past month on the level of support for him. This followed a Herald/Nielsen poll which showed the government would lose if an election were held then" and that "Rudd's action was regarded as a sign that he did not trust the repeated assurances by Ms Gillard that she would not stand". Following their departures from Parliament, Rudd's finance minister Lindsay Tanner (who resigned following Gillard's successful challenge to Rudd) and 2007-2010 Labor Member for Bennelong Maxine McKew sharply criticised the move against Rudd as an "ambush". In her 2012 book Tales From The Political Trenches, McKew wrote that Gillard was a "disloyal" and "impatient" deputy who was heavily involved in a well-planned operation to remove Rudd from the prime ministership in 2010.

On 23 June 2010, Kevin Rudd called a press conference announcing that a leadership ballot of the Australian Labor Party would occur on the morning of 24 June 2010, with the candidates being himself and Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard. This followed weeks of speculation that senior members of the ALP were beginning to lose confidence in Rudd and would back Gillard in replacing him if necessary. By the eve of the election, it was obvious that Rudd didn't have enough support to remain ALP leader and Prime Minister. Rudd withdrew his candidacy and resigned as party leader, leaving Gillard to take the leadership unopposed. Gillard was then sworn in as Australia's 27th Prime Minister by Governor-General Quentin Bryce and became Australia's first female Prime Minister on 24 June 2010, with Treasurer Wayne Swan being appointed Deputy Prime Minister.

In the aftermath of the 2010 leadership challenge, Bill Shorten, former trade union leader, and key Parliamentary member of the ALP Right Faction, nominated the government's handling of the insulation program; the sudden announcement of change of policy on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme; and the way in which they had "introduced the debate" about the Resource Super Profits Tax as the key considerations which had led to a shift in support from Kevin Rudd to Julia Gillard as leader of the party.

Rudd conducted an tearful last press conference surrounded by family outside the prime minister's office on 23 June. He said that his economic management, removal of Workchoices, commencement of the National Broadband Network, education, health, welfare, environment, foreign and indigenous policies made him proud and broke down when discussing the Stolen Generation Apology. Rudd thanked supporters and the "great God and Creator" and promised to support the new Labor Government.

In her first press conference as Labor Leader on 23 June, Gillard said that after three and a half years of "most loyal service", she had asked her colleagues to make a leadership change "because I believed that a good government was losing its way" and that Labor was at risk at the next election. She assured the public that her government would restore the budget to surplus in 2013 and said that it would build community consensus for a price on carbon and open negotiations with the mining industry for a re-vamped mining profits tax. She praised Kevin Rudd as a man of "remarkable achievement" and Wayne Swan as an outstanding Treasurer who would guide Australia to surplus.

Following his replacement as Prime Minister, Rudd remained within the government, initially as a backbencher. Following the 2010 election, Gillard appointed Rudd as Foreign Minister in her minority government. The leadership question remained a feature of the Gillard Government's terms in office, and amidst ongoing leadership speculation following an ABC TV Four Corners examination of the events leading up to Rudd's replacement which cast doubt on Gillard's insistence that she did not actively campaign for the Prime Ministership, Attorney General Nicola Roxon spoke of Rudd's record in the following terms: "I don't think we should whitewash history - while there are a lot of very good things our government did with Kevin as prime minister there were also a lot of challenges, and it's Julia who has seen through fixing a lot of those problems." Rudd resigned as Foreign Minister and unsuccessfully challenged Gillard for the leadership in a February 2012 spill.

Following Rudd's February 2012 resignation as foreign minister and leadership challenge, Gillard and a number of Labor MPs loyal to Gillard expanded upon the reasons for their move against Rudd, focusing particularly on his management style, with Gillard saying that the Rudd Government had entered a period of "paralysis" and that Rudd was operating along "difficult and chaotic work patterns". Cabinet colleague Tony Burke also spoke against Rudd saying of his time in office that "the stories that were around of the chaos, of the temperament, of the inability to have decisions made, they are not stories"