Posted on 06/23/2010 4:44:59 PM PDT by naturalman1975
Kevin Rudd has decided not to stand in this morning's ALP leadership ballot, relinquishing the Prime Ministership and handing power to his deputy Julia Gillard in a bloodless Parliament House coup.
Mr Rudd had called for a leadership ballot to be held at 9:00am AEST today but has decided not to contest the ballot after it became clear he would be soundly defeated.
Ms Gillard now has the task of leading a party traumatised and divided by the recent dramatic events to the federal election which could be held in a matter of weeks.
Treasurer Wayne Swan now steps up as Deputy Prime Minister. He was also elected unopposed.
Mr Rudd's sudden and spectacular downfall makes him the first Labor prime minister to be dumped from office before completing a first term.
The situation came to a head last night after senior factional powerbrokers from the right told Ms Gillard she had enough support to take the leadership.
The powerful Australian Workers Union and Health Services Union also quickly swung their support behind Ms Gillard as Mr Rudd's support base collapsed.
After hours of crisis meetings last night Mr Rudd emerged just after 10:00pm AEST to announce that Ms Gillard had challenged him to a ballot and that he would also stand.
For months Ms Gillard had said that she was not interested in challenging Mr Rudd but as events charged ahead last night it appeared she was left with no choice but to throw her hat in the ring.
As the numbers were crunched it became clearer that Ms Gillard was going to prevail, with supporters on both sides agreeing that she would win.
Mr Rudd's fall from the top has been swift, as his popularity among voters fell from stratospheric highs to disastrous lows in just a few months.
Voters lost faith in Mr Rudd after a series of bungles and backflips, including the shelving of the emissions trading scheme.
Last night he vowed to fight to remain in office saying the Australian people had elected him, not the Party's factional leaders.
She is not officially Prime Minister until sworn in by the Governor General.
sounds like a bunch of lefties
Not anymore - but it was an issue he ran on, and abandoning it made it look like he couldn’t be trusted by voters to do what he said.
It's good to be able to get rid of leaders who don't measure up without having to wait 4 years.
But the downside is that powerbrokers can influence the decision:
The situation came to a head last night after senior factional powerbrokers from the right told Ms Gillard she had enough support to take the leadership.
The powerful Australian Workers Union and Health Services Union also quickly swung their support behind Ms Gillard as Mr Rudd's support base collapsed.
How Rudd(e) ... people here don’t like Rudd ... almost equate him to Insane Obama The First .....
I hope so.
I think Australian voters will realise she’s a very hard left person and will reject her at the election in a few months.
If I’m wrong, we have a very left wing Prime Minister for longer and that’s not good.
That's low. I've heard of low, but that is low.
A sheeler as Prime Minister? Who do they think they are, the United Kingdom?
There are times when our own ponderous, slow election process and the deliberate difficulty in removing anyone from Federal elected office seems insane. But, there are also times when the rapidity of the parliamentary system seems insane as well.
Is this process in response to broad loss of confidence among the people of Australia, or is it more of a backroom infighting situation? The alignments of various groups and interests don’t always fit well with our expectations of what constitutes conservative or liberal governance, and the usage of the terms themselves is often inverted from our perspective, too, so we’re needing translation from a native, lol.
In this case, it’s in direct response to a loss of confidence by the voters of Australia. Labor has decided Rudd was unelectable.
It’s not always the case, but this one is based squarely on the fact that Rudd is no longer trusted by those who elected the Labor government.
So, has public sentiment veered as hard to the left as this would indicate, or is this a short term peculiarity of the leadership as currently aligned?
How likely is this to be “corrected” via elections, in other words?
It's actually the Labor right that has put her into office. They'd rather stay in office with a hard left leader, than lose government with one from their own side of the party. She was the only viable short term replacement for Rudd, and they needed to replace him.
She is personally very popular, but that's partly because most Australians don't realise how far to the left she is. As Deputy Prime Minister, she toed Rudd's line, and her main ministerial responsibilities were in education where Australian's tend to tolerate left wing views more (Australian voters typically want the right in charge of defence, foreign affairs, and the economy, the left in charge of education, health, and social services.) As Prime Minister, her own views are going to be more prominent, and I think voters will be turned off by them - the question is will it happen before the election. She could call an election today, for about a month from now - if she did that, she'd win. The longer she stays in office, the less likely I think it is. There has to be an election by early next year.
Well Rudd has been very rude to a lot of people esp. his flight staff ...
So the Queen of Australia, the Governor General of Australia, and the Prime Minister of Australia are now all sheilas!
Does this mean she'll continue the insane banning of weapons? I heard they're trying club and knife control... even butter knives! Are the proud and war proven Aussies going to realize that the key to national safety is in controlling criminals and not the implements of their trade?
That is a good question. I would say that backroom infighting is the main factor. The ALP - Aust's social democratic party has always been particularly corrupt and dominated in a secret way by union groups. It was these unionists who decided they had enough of Rudd, so he was out.
Broad loss of confidence is also evident, as Rudd had plunged in opinion polls, and an election is drawing near. But if he still had the backing of those powerbrokers, he would not have had a problem retaining leadership. How he fell out with them is all about personal style and his own dictatorial ways.
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