September 12, 2011
Kevin Rudd doubles the popularity of Shane Warne on twitter, becoming the most popular tweeter in Australia with one million followers.
OOPS. We have long known that seven out of 10 Australian voters were unhappy with the way Labor discarded the prime minister they thought had been elected by the people.
And we have long known that the former leader is by far the most popular of all possible Labor leaders, at least twice as popular as Julia Gillard.
Now we also know that, if Labor restored Kevin Rudd to the prime ministership and went to an election today, Labor would win, completely reversing its fortunes, according to today's Herald/Nielsen poll. A Rudd leadership would lift Labor's dire primary vote by a transforming 15 percentage points.
Yesterday's hero ... Foreign Affairs Minister Kevin Rudd. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
Instead of facing an electoral wipeout of half its caucus, it would be able to win power in its own right, with a two-party preferred vote of 52 per cent to 48.
The poll does not tell us why but we can reasonably suppose the main reason is legitimacy. In the eyes of the people, Gillard never had it. Rudd never lost it. This presents Labor with a terrible dilemma. The poll is fresh evidence that Labor made a mistake of historic proportions in unseating Rudd for Gillard, suggesting its best hope is to undo the blunder and admit the error.
Oops. Sorry. Please welcome the 28th prime minister of Australia, who happens to be the same one you welcomed as the 26th. We took him away. Now we bring him back.
But would Rudd's popularity survive his return? Rudd is martyr popular. If his martyrdom were reversed, would his popularity reverse too?
Restoring Rudd is the obvious solution for Labor. But it is not the easy solution. And maybe it is no solution at all. It's not easy because the Labor caucus is not ready to admit its mistake. It is unhappy and uneasy with its lot but it is also confused and confounded about its future.
In particular, the Right factional operatives who staged the coup, the faceless men, are determined to keep Rudd out. Their misjudgment has cost them their political credibility but they retain their organisational prowess. And the Right still has the numbers. And it's not easy because a returning Rudd - or any leader other than Gillard - would need to negotiate a new agreement with the independents and the Greens who keep the minority government in power. And maybe it's no solution at all. Once justice is seen to be done and the rightful ruler restored, is he then subject to judgment by the ordinary criteria?
"This whole situation is unique in history," says the Herald's pollster, John Stirton, of Nielsen. "If you give it back to Rudd, he's then the legitimate leader. But he still owns the problems created in his first term."
The big policy problems facing Gillard are the same ones bequeathed her by Rudd - carbon pricing, asylum seekers and the mining tax. This is Labor's dilemma - the strong likelihood of defeat under Gillard, or a wild gamble on Rudd. And it's all self-imposed. Oops.
