Whether it’s Kim Beazley or Kevin Rudd who emerges victorious from the Labor caucus this morning, Mr Rudd has made a big mistake by challenging for the leadership at this point in time, so close to the next federal election. Labor looks just as divided as ever, and Kevin Rudd and his “running mate”, Julia Gillard, look immature and impatient. Kevin would have done well to stand firmly behind Kim Beazley, bide his time, wait for Labor to lose the next election, and then step into the leadership role looking far less blood-thirsty. Mr Rudd would appear more mature, and the Labor party less fractured. This more patient approach would also have allowed him to give the federal Labor party the big shake-up that it so badly needs. There is not enough time between now and the election to begin that kind of operation. Sure Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard can choose a new-look front bench, but everyone knows that Labor’s problems run far deeper than that.
I’m not sure I dig this “new style of leadership” that Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard seem to be proposing. Since they announced that they’ll be challenging Mr Beazley and Ms Macklin, the pair have not appeared on TV as individuals (at least, not that I’ve seen); it’s like they’re joined at the hip. It’s quite unnatural and it’s beginning to freak me out!
4 replies on “Kim or Kev?”
I don’t think Kevin or Julia look impatient or blood thirsty at all, they’ve stood solidly behind Kim for a long time and it’s the party as a whole that wants a change, there’s a general feeling that Kim has failed to nail Howard recently even though he’s had plenty of opportunity. The two party polls have been good for Labor for a while now, but the leadership polls have always gone towards Howard, and you really need both.
Waiting for Kim to lose another election is not an option. They’ve got more than enough time to put together a good frontbench and get a good team going, Bob Hawke only had a couple of months as opposition leader before becoming PM. I only hope they make use of Kim as defence spokesperson, not having him there would be a complete waste.
The real hassle with the Labor party is a lack of clear policy, and this doesn’t come from the leader, the front bench or any of the MPs, it comes from the party machine and they need a swift kick to do some actual work.
My real beef now is that we’ve got two christian loonies to pick between.
I think Labor would have had a bigger boost if Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard had said we\’re going to back our leader through to the next election, and hopefully onwards. This behaviour will just signal to other Labor leader wannabes that it\’s okay to keep challenging the leader. Mr Rudd and the Labor party in general will suffer because of this. But you\’ve hit the nail on the head with respect to the party machine. In a functional party, the leader has a lot to do with driving and shaping policy, and it takes a lot of time to do that. Mr Rudd won\’t have time to sort out the problems with the party machine before the next election, which means they won\’t have any real platform, which means that unless the current government badly screws up, we\’ll have the conservatives in for another term.
In general terms, I like Mr Rudd more than Mr Beazley (my blog is testimony to my dislike of Mr Beazley). But I would not be comfortable having him as our nation\’s Prime Minister. He\’s not ready for that yet.
I think Kim\’s career in politics is more or less over. There\’s no way he\’ll be on the front bench, and therefore he will not be the spokesperson for defence.
[…] Well, it’s been almost a week since the Labor caucus ousted Kim Beazley and elected Kevin Rudd as their new leader and Julia Gillard as his deputy. In my last post, I made the comment that it might have been in Labor’s best interests for Kevin to wait until after the next election before contesting the leadership. I also made that comment in the wake of Mark Latham’s resignation. However, Mr Rudd has made a really good start. It began with a confident interview on the 7.30 Report, continued with his staring down of the internal Labor factions so he could install the front bench that he wanted, and now he’s talking about overhauling the education system. More to the point, I already get the feeling that Labor will, for once, be constructing a strong party platform from which to launch their election campaign. This is something that Kim Beazley, nor his recent predecessors, were willing or able to achieve as Labor leaders. My frustration with Mr Beazley’s incoherrent policies are already well documented in this blog. […]
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