By ABC's Barrie Cassidy Updated February 23, 2012 15:50:38
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What an extraordinary moment it is when people so long repressed are suddenly liberated.
When those who have held in their frustrations for almost two years, are finally free to express their emotions.
What a performance from Julia Gillard's senior ministers as they now start to furiously fill in all the gaps from the June, 2010, leadership coup against Kevin Rudd.
After all this time, with Kevin Rudd now on the backbench, they felt free to tell the country why it was that they brought him down in the first place.
The deputy leader and treasurer, Wayne Swan, was the most spectacular contributor, accusing Rudd of dysfunctional decision making, a deeply demeaning attitude towards his colleagues and a deliberate sabotage of Labor's election campaign.
It's the blow out that the party needed to have after the last election, but couldn't. They found themselves clinging to government with Kevin Rudd in a senior portfolio. In those circumstances, how could they explain to a clueless nation why they had taken such a drastic step?
But will the venting of the spleen help them politically, or just act as a cathartic experience?
Probably the latter only, because those with the votes – the caucus – know all the Rudd stories anyway. But in the longer term, if Julia Gillard survives Monday's ballot, it might help at the margins in the wider electorate where some of them will be hearing of these alleged failings for the first time.
But for the Gillard camp, the first real break came courtesy of the challenger's choice to spruik his case on national television. Not for him, senior ministers in the Government, but a paid lobbyist, Bruce Hawker.
Paul Howes was rightly criticised in June 2010, when he, as a trade union boss, went on Lateline the night of the coup and urged a vote for Gillard. That single event helped give rise to the damaging "faceless men" syndrome.
But at least Paul Howes' union was affiliated with the ALP. To use a lobbyist, armed only with a brand new slogan, was an error of judgment.
It contradicted the very "faceless men" charge that Rudd was levelling at his detractors.
And then to use that same person to try and portray Rudd as an innocent victim of an imaginary destabilisation campaign against the Prime Minister was laughable. The interview was in itself confirmation that the campaign was well developed and that Hawker himself had been a part of it.
As David Penberthy wrote in the Adelaide Advertiser, "Kevin Rudd distancing himself from the soap opera over the Labor leadership is like Reg Grundy distancing himself from Neighbours."
Gillard's supporters, on the other hand, learnt from their mistakes and kept those branded as the "faceless men" of 2010, hidden from view. Senior ministers with big futures in politics, like Craig Emerson, Tony Burke and Nicola Roxon stepped up and added a compelling and new dimension to the Rudd history.
But now to the vote. And again, this will be the vote that the party should have had 20 months ago.
Because Rudd judged his numbers were so low that a ballot was futile, the electorate never really understood the extent to which his support within the party had collapsed. A vote – a record of the numbers – would have helped Gillard at the time. It didn't happen, adding to the confusion.
That now will be rectified and the party's sentiment will be clearly expressed.
But what sort of a margin does the Prime Minister need to put her rival away for good?
The two previous challengers against sitting prime ministers are instructive.
Paul Keating received 44 votes to Bob Hawke's 66 in the first ballot, judged enough to enable him to go to the backbench, regroup and challenge successfully the second time.
But when Andrew Peacock challenged prime minister Malcolm Fraser in 1982, Fraser doubled Peacock's vote and won 54 to 27. That was enough to silence Peacock through until the following election, held 11 months later, an election that Fraser lost to Bob Hawke.
So, based on that precedent, Gillard will need to at least double Rudd's vote. A count of 69 to 34 would do that. Her supporters think that is a modest target, and they can do even better.
Even so, some in the media and unquestionably some in the Rudd camp, will argue that 34 votes is a solid base from which to launch a second challenge.
That misses a couple of key points. Monday is not the first tilt, it's the second. The first happened in June 2010, when the numbers were so overwhelmingly against him that he didn't call for a head count. If the numbers go on Monday as Gillard's supporters expect, then that will be the second humiliation for Rudd from his own colleagues inside two years. In those circumstances, could he seriously knuckle down and shoot for a third? How many times will he really need to be told?
It is true that from the backbench, he can openly campaign and continue to damage the Government. But will that behaviour impress any of those who intend to vote for Gillard on Monday?
Ongoing destabilisation is a real fear for many in Government, and that's why the Prime Minister denounced any intention to make a comeback if she is defeated on Monday. She wants to draw the same pledge from Rudd.
But in politics how much currency do such undertakings have anyway? Paul Keating said he had only one shot in the locker, nobody believed him, and then he hit Bob Hawke five months later with the second.
Whether Rudd wins, loses or walks, the hardheads know that the road back is a treacherous and difficult one for the minority Labor Government.
One exasperated minister told me that Monday "will determine whether we have a peaceful death or a slow and painful one".
Barrie Cassidy is the presenter of ABC programs Insiders and Offsiders. View his full profile here.
