Aussie Prime Minister calls leadership vote

Australia's PM Rudd calls leadership vote

By ROD McGUIRK (AP) – 1 hour ago

CANBERRA, Australia — A surprise revolt forced Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Wednesday to call a party leadership vote that he will struggle to win — just months away from national elections. It marks a dramatic reversal in fortunes for the wonkish premier and could give the country its first woman leader.

Rudd had ridden high in opinion polls as one of the most popular Australian prime ministers of modern times until he made major policy backflips including a decision in April to shelve plans to make Australia's worst polluters pay for their carbon gas emissions.

A leadership change is unlikely to alter Australia's key policy positions, such as its troop commitment to Afghanistan.

However it will determine who heads the ruling Labor Party in elections expected late this year. Despite Australia's weathering the global downturn, recent polling puts his center-left government neck-and-neck with the conservative opposition. One poll earlier this month showed Labor trailing the opposition for the first time in more than four years.

Rudd called a late-night news conference to announce Thursday's vote of Labor lawmakers after Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard said she would challenge him for the leadership.

She had been approached by key factional power brokers in the party who told her that they had abandoned Rudd to support her, Australian Associated Press and Nine Network television reported, without citing sources.

Their support is important and would weigh in Gilliard's favor, but it remains unclear how individual lawmakers will vote.

Rudd is due to fly to a summit of Group of 20 major economies in Canada hours after the ballot. It is unclear who will represent Australia if he loses.

Rudd said he was confident of victory and railed against the factional power brokers whom he said had plotted against him for weeks amid the government's setbacks in the opinion polls.

"We've gone into some heavy weather of late, and a few people have become a little squeamish at that," he told reporters.

"I am not for getting squeamish about those things; I am for continuing the business of reform and providing strong, proper government for the people of Australia," he said.

Gillard confirmed she would run against Rudd in the leadership vote but said little else on the subject.

While Australia's military contribution in Afghanistan is a sensitive topic here — underscored by the deaths of five Australian troops in recent weeks — the deployment has cross-party support and is not considered an issue on which Rudd's leadership hangs.

Rudd, 52, a Mandarin-speaking former diplomat to China and son of a dairy farmer, came to power in 2007 after a landslide election victory against a coalition government that had ruled for 11 years. He promised to reinvigorate Australia's role in the United Nations and global politics.

But his political standing took a hit when he backtracked on a promise to introduce an emissions trading scheme in which major polluters would paid for and trade permits to emit a ton of carbon. That has left supporters wondering what he stands for. Opinion polls have shown the government's support bleeding to a minor party, the Australian Greens.

The popularity of Gillard has endured despite the government's declining ratings. The 48-year old former lawyer is most closely associated with key domestic issues such education reform and fair pay for workers. Her profile was boosted by overturning the previous government's employer-friendly industrial laws.

Welsh-born Gilliard, with her broad Australian accent, is viewed as among the most effective communicators of government policy, while Rudd is ridiculed for his embrace of bureaucratic jargon and has been branded a "toxic bore" by the opposition.

Both Rudd and Gilliard were first elected to Parliament in 1998. They formed an alliance in 2006 to oust the then-Labor Party and opposition leader Kim Beazley, who is now Australian ambassador to Washington. Within a year, the party won a general election, and Rudd became prime minister and Gillard his deputy.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Babbler said:

So good luck to the Australian lady, and please don't allow the campaign to degenerate into sexist nonsense.

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Arwon said:

I don't really care who leads the Labor Party as long as friggin Abbott doesn't become PM. What a disgusting notion that is.

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So good luck to the Australian lady, and please don't allow the campaign to degenerate into sexist nonsense.

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Arwon said:

Abbott [...] PM

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Masada said:

Turnbull will hopefully challenge ala' Rudd when it becomes obvious that Abbott has to many skeletons in the closet.

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taillesskangaru said:

Wouldn't it be great if the whole country just say "Know what? [blank] em. [Blank] the lot of em" and vote Greens Australian Democrats?

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Julia Gillard is to become Australia's first female prime minister after Kevin Rudd stood down as Labor leader at a caucus meeting this morning, according to caucus sources.

Ms Gillard, not Mr Rudd, will now decide when to lead her party into the next election.

It is understood Mr Rudd stood aside to avoid a humiliating defeat.

Just a year ago, Mr Rudd rivalled Bob Hawke as Australia's most popular leader. But he now joins Mr Hawke as the only other Labor prime minister dumped by his party.

Mr Rudd had decided to fight to the death after refusing to step aside last night for Ms Gillard.

Ms Gillard, however, was believed to have to the numbers before going into this morning's ballot, which was not held. She also had the backing of the powerful Australian Workers Union.

A series of policy failures, poor polls and the decision to go to war with the mining industry have all contributed to Mr Rudd's plunging fortunes among his colleagues.

The Coalition fears a change to Ms Gillard. Although she bears responsibility for many of the government's poor decisions, including shelving the emissions trading scheme and the school buildings program, she would be harder to beat than Mr Rudd.

The push to oust Mr Rudd was driven by the Right faction in Victoria and South Australia.

The entire national Right, including the NSW Right and its kingmaker Mark Arbib, had last night swung behind Ms Gillard, as had the Victorian Left, led by Kim Carr, who installed Mr Rudd.

The hard Left was left doing the numbers for Mr Rudd.

After a three-hour crisis meeting in his office last night with Ms Gillard and the veteran fixer John Faulkner, Mr Rudd held a media conference and said he would fight.

"I was elected by the people of Australia as the Prime Minister of Australia," he said.

"I was elected to do a job and I intend doing that job."

But he had acknowledged that he was abandoned by most of the factional powerbrokers.

Mr Rudd had attempted to salvage votes by promising to bring a speedy conclusion to the mining tax saga and initiate a timetable to implement an emissions trading scheme.

After being pressured to take a hard line against asylum seekers, he baulked, saying he would not engage in a race to the right.

The push to oust Mr Rudd was led by the Victorian senator David Feeney, the Victorian MP Bill Shorten, and the South Australian senator Don Farrell, all right-wing heavyweights.

Sources said they met Ms Gillard yesterday afternoon in an attempt to persuade her to stand.

She was reluctant.

But the Agriculture Minister, Tony Burke, and Senator Arbib met Ms Gillard separately to urge her to move.

Senator Arbib and Ms Gillard were instrumental in forcing the government to abandon the emissions trading scheme, which was the catalyst for the government's slide in the polls.

The move against Mr Rudd was sparked by a report in yesterday's Herald 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.

But Mr Rudd's action was regarded as a sign that he did not trust the repeated assurances by Ms Gillard that she would not stand.

"It was offensive and disloyal," said a Gillard supporter.

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Camikaze said:

Eh, Greens polling numbers are on the increase, I hear, but Australia is much too conservative for that, anyway. I don't understand why people think the Greens would be a worse option, even if they would not be drastically better. At least they would be different.

But maybe I'm being too cynical. After all, it wasn't too long ago that I thought Rudd was a good PM (and I still don't think he is awful), and that at least the alternative, Turnbull, was not a worst case scenario.

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Camikaze said:

I don't know if I'd prefer that and a likely Coalition victory, or risking Abbott to decrease the Libs chances.

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useless said:

Are their any non-racist or apologist politicians in Australia?

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useless said:

At least Rudd apologised to Aborigines because god forbid Australia acknowledges it's horrible past.

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