Friday, February 24, 2012

Presidential Rudd

The responses by the twenty ministers who have so far lined up behind Ms Gillard have been quite remarkable. Here are two examples:  

The Defence Minister, Stephen Smith, said ''You can't run … Australia and protect its national security interests and … economic security interests by every day running off what's on the front page of a newspaper or what you might want to do on TV.''

The Environment Minister, Tony Burke, said government under Kevin Rudd ''became chaotic … the micro-management where no one other than the prime minister could make a decision … Kevin as leader became someone who … became increasingly impossible to work with and as a government we simply weren't delivering the way we should have been able to.''

Mr Rudd's strategy appears to be to take his campaign to the public, his opponents to crush him once and for all. It's all very messy if quite interesting political theatre. While leadership challenges to incumbent PMs or premiers are not uncommon in Australian political history, I am struggling to think of one played out so openly and so, dare I say it?, presidentially. 

4 comments:

Augustus Winston said...

Hi Jim

Now that Oakshott and Windsor have stated that they will not recognise the legitimacy of Rudd as leader, this leaves those on the fence with two options.

Rudd wins and the independents withdraw their support leading to an election in which case the fence sitters may lose their seats.

Gillard wins and they at least get to draw a wage until the next election. Rudd or Gillard I don't think it will make much difference at the next election unless Gillard can lift her game and perform like she did at the Adelaide interview. As for Rudd he comes across as a petulant twirp. To resign in the middle of an overseas diplomatic trip to my mind is an embarrasment to the country he represents.

And for those who like to bet Gillard's odds are shortening now down from $1.25 to $1.15. My money is on Gillard if Rudd declares (I managed to get odds of $1.22 or 22%on my 1 K investment).

Cheers
AW

Evan said...

The most devastating critique I've read of Rudd was to the effect that he micro-managed and wanted to be across everything and the results were just dull. I think this is absolutely correct - nothing he did broke new ground or was innovative or took a new approach.

Jim Belshaw said...

Hi Augustus. I agree with your points. And that profit on Gillard looks pretty safe!

Jim Belshaw said...

I think that's true Evan. There were some fresh ideas, but in the end it all got lost in pretty pedestrian results.