September 3, 2011
Illustration: Rocco Fazzari
At least one of Labor's next generation of leaders isn't shy about his ambitions, but no one wants the top job - yet.
Bill Shorten left the businessmen around the table in no doubt about his views on Kevin Rudd, or his own ambitions. It was a gathering over lunch in Sydney some weeks ago. The assistant Treasurer of Australia may have been there representing the Gillard government, including its Foreign Minister, but he seemed to be speaking very much for himself.
One of the business people later summarised Shorten's exposition over lunch this way: "There's no way we're bringing that prick Rudd back again." And: "I'm ready to serve as leader." The businessman said: "When we walked out of the room, we all looked at each other and said, 'Wow'."
Shorten was careful not to say that he was running for the prime ministership. But he made it clear that was his inevitable destination. For a 44-year-old junior minister who has spent all of four years in the federal Parliament, his audience of elite businessmen thought it was a spectacularly brash performance.
But it was not an exclusive one. A US diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks this week showed that the former union leader had been preening himself, even in front of foreign governments, as long as two years ago.
The US consul-general in Melbourne, Michael Thurston, wrote a report to Washington after meeting Shorten, then the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities, in 2009:
"Shorten makes no bones about his ambitions in federal politics. During a June 11 meeting, Shorten told consul-general that 'he did not take this job to stand still'. He explained that he had been overlooked for promotion in Prime Minister Rudd's June 6 cabinet reshuffle . . . in order to keep the geographical balance in the cabinet between Victoria and NSW. (Comment: Despite words to the contrary, Shorten appeared disappointed while he was discussing this topic. End comment.) …
"Shorten, who is somewhat rumpled in appearance, prefers to get down to business quickly in meetings … Despite his lukewarm relationship with Prime Minister Rudd (he sided with Kim Beazley in the 2006 ALP leadership ballot), Shorten struck us as highly ambitious but willing to wait - at least for a while - for his moment in the sun."
Shorten does not conceal his ambition. "Bill is pathological about being leader," said one of his colleagues in Labor's Victorian Right faction this week. And he seemed completely nonchalant about the cable's publication. His response to reporters was perfect: "The nice comments are all true but the less flattering comments I don't agree with."
As the Gillard government's fortunes took another blow this week with the High Court rebuff to its Malaysian plan for asylum seekers, leadership speculation intensified. Shorten's name was in high-velocity circulation. So was that of the Defence Minister, Stephen Smith, also from Labor's Right. The Climate Change Minister, Greg Combet, from the Left, is also much-mentioned. These men constitute the next generation of Labor leadership candidates.
The reality is that none of these men is campaigning. And no one is trying in any serious way to enlist them. The accelerating velocity of the game of who-will-be-leader whispers indicates three things. First, the Labor caucus increasingly believes Gillard cannot win an election. Second, there is a creeping desperation about what to do. And third, Labor has conditioned the media to be on standby for a leadership challenge whenever a Labor government gets into trouble.
And there are good reasons why Shorten, Smith and Combet are not campaigning. It was the gleeful excitement with which Labor decapitated itself last year that has it in so much trouble today. Labor thought that the coup against Kevin Rudd was an emphatic pronouncement on Kevin Rudd. It was not. It was a verdict on Labor itself.
It conveyed graphically to the public that federal Labor, like its NSW chapter, was not a party committed to governing well and soberly. Its supreme loyalty was to the perpetuation of its own power, at any cost. The strike against Rudd was a strike against Labor's own credibility and seriousness.
The underlying reason for the Gillard government's woes is its perceived legitimacy. By every rule and by every law Gillard is an entirely legitimate Labor leader and Prime Minister. But in the public mind she has never recovered from the way she seized power. It's harsh enough for a deputy to destroy a leader.
But it's worse that Gillard's strike was without warning. And Gillard has never given a real explanation for why it was necessary. Merely saying the reason was that it was "a good government that lost its way" is not only dismissive of Rudd, but of the office of prime minister and of the electorate. With weak legitimacy in the public mind from the outset, two further blows have undercut Gillard's claim to rightfully occupy the highest office in the land. One was her party's failure to win the 2010 election. The other was her breach of an undertaking that she would not introduce a carbon tax. This allowed the opposition to plausibly argue that she had only been able to get through the election under false pretences.
On top of that triple failure to establish legitimacy in the public mind, what would another change of leader achieve? Could Bill Shorten, Stephen Smith or Greg Combet claim to be any more legitimate than Gillard? Of course not. "Knocking off Julia Gillard now would make us look even more ridiculous than NSW Labor," one cabinet minister said, correctly, this week.
When Rudd stood before the Labor caucus for the last time as its leader, he said: "I'm deeply concerned about the importation into the federal parliamentary Labor Party of practices we've seen elsewhere, whether it's with Morris Iemma, whether it's with Nathan Rees, or with others in NSW. I don't believe these sorts of tactics have a place in the federal parliamentary Labor Party."
He was, of course, right. Labor is now paying the high price for catching the NSW disease.
Some in the Labor caucus argue a fresh face in the leadership would at least win the government a chance to be heard afresh. But here is the second reason Shorten, Smith and Combet are not running. They would be fresh faces, certainly, but all polling suggests they would be less popular choices than Gillard.
Stephen Smith is preferred as Labor leader by just 7 per cent of voters in a seven-way comparison by Essential Media published on August 3. Greg Combet attracted support of 2 per cent. And Bill Shorten? Exactly 1 per cent. Gillard's support was a dire 12 per cent in the same poll, but still higher than any of the next-generation alternatives.
To change to any of these "fresh faces" would be a change without an improvement. And this is the third reason none is organising a challenge. To take the leadership now would be a poisoned chalice. Shorten may be pathological about being leader, but he is not insane. Paul Keating and John Howard each served 22 years in Parliament before becoming prime minister, Kevin Rudd 9 and Julia Gillard 11. Only Bob Hawke managed it in two. Bill Shorten is not Bob Hawke.
But there is one other leadership alternative, the man who attracted 37 per cent in the Essential poll. As a cabinet minister said yesterday: "The obvious thing to do it to put Kevin back. 'Oops, sorry, we got it wrong'."
In a Herald/Nielsen poll that pitted Rudd and Gillard head to head in June, 60 per cent preferred Rudd as Labor leader and 31 per cent the woman who replaced him. Rudd receives a rock-star reception when he campaigns for Labor colleagues.
But what about Rudd's own warning against the revolving-door syndrome? Among the leadership candidates, Rudd is the only one Labor could present as not being just another blundering bid to hold power, but the reversal of an earlier blunder. He is the last Labor leader to win an election.
So why not make Rudd leader? There is a substantive electoral reason. And there is a big obstacle of internal Labor politics. The electoral reason is that, even if Rudd were to return, he would still face the same policy problems Gillard confronts, the ones he bequeathed her. Can Rudd solve the asylum seeker problem, for instance? Rudd would have to persuade his colleagues that he could solve the policy problems of Labor.
The internal obstacle is the pride, fear and self-interest of the Right faction bosses who dispatched him, the so-called faceless men. Remember, the Right dominates the caucus.
As one said this week: "What, we all have to put the shackles on and file obediently back into the North Korean concentration camp?" And this Right faction boss, who was rewarded by Gillard with a promotion, spoke of his fear of Rudd retribution: "I would be dismissed in the first 15 minutes of the new regime, and that doesn't do anything for my enthusiasm."
Rudd, five weeks into his eight-week leave for heart surgery, is not organising a challenge either. One of his caucus supporters said yesterday: "Rudd isn't campaigning and his view of the world is pretty clear - he doesn't have to." The party would need to ask him to return.
Labor has some hard thinking about a tough choice. On the current polling, most of the caucus will lose their seats at an election. Are they prepared to forgo their only realistic leadership hope in order to protect the pride and promotions of the faceless men? Or can the Right eat large lumps of crow and bring "the prick" back?
Peter Hartcher is The Sydney Morning Herald's political editor.
