By chief political correspondent Simon Cullen
Updated Wed Sep 26, 2012 3:30pm AEST
Video: Removal of Rudd over opinion polls 'bad for the country': Tanner (ABC News)
Related Story: Rudd interview sparks renewed speculation
Related Story: Big boosts for Gillard, Labor in latest Newspoll
Former finance minister Lindsay Tanner has launched a blistering attack on those who moved against Kevin Rudd's leadership and he has questioned what the Labor Party now stands for.
Mr Tanner has described the decision to dump Mr Rudd in favour of Julia Gillard as "poll-driven panic" by factional warlords who would now privately concede it was wrong.
He also contends the Labor Party has become an electoral machine largely devoid of wider purpose.
Mr Tanner, who was a member of the so-called gang of four within cabinet, announced his retirement from federal politics soon after Julia Gillard became Prime Minister.
He says Mr Rudd's overthrow was unjustified and an "extreme overreaction" to the government's problems.
"We certainly had very difficult circumstances, there had been some misjudgements and some obvious serious political problems, but we didn't have an election due for five or six months, so there was time to sort those problems out."
When Mr Rudd tried to retake the top job in February, several Labor frontbenchers described his leadership style as chaotic and his government as a dysfunctional shambles.
Mr Tanner says the criticism was unfair and the Labor Party will have to live with the consequences of that for some time to come.
"Early this year we had a range of statements made about how that (Rudd) government had functioned, which I thought were just completely over the top, gross exaggerations, that I think will sully the legacy of a very good government.
"We've now entered a world where prime ministers and in effect governments can be terminated according to short-term opinion poll trends and I think that's inimical to the whole concept of governing well and governing in the national interest."
"I think it's a very bad precedent, and once the genie's out of the bottle it's hard to put back in."
But Mr Tanner says Labor's problems go beyond the issue of leadership and cut to the heart of the party's existence.
He believes Labor could be entering a period of "unprecedented bleakness" because it has become largely devoid of wider purpose.
"The Labor Party is ceasing to be an incubator and a driver of reform," he said.
"It is becoming a reactor, a passive political player that sits there responding to circumstances and pressures rather than being the driver of where our nation heads.
"That's a problem for the Labor Party."
He has pointed to the development of the National Disability Insurance Scheme as an example, saying the process was essentially driven by people outside of the Labor movement.
'Push over'
But speaking on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, Ms Gillard has rejected Mr Tanner's criticisms.
"I can be very clear about the Government's purpose and the Government's purpose is to keep the economy strong, to make sure that not only today but tomorrow Australians have got the best of opportunities and we maximise our prosperity as our region changes," she said.
Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr, who is also in New York, says he is sick of people publicly bagging the Labor Party.
"If I were in retirement, if I hadn't taken on this job, it would've been a push over to have polished off another book - number 20 - on what's wrong with the Labor Party. It's too easy," Senator Carr said.
"I'm sure there's terrific analysis in Lindsay Tanner's book because Lindsay is very brainy.
"But it's got a bit too easy to write another book spelling out what's wrong with the battered old Australian Labor Party."
Senator Carr says there have been many books written about the party but he has questioned who is reading them.
Mr Swan, who was particularly outspoken in his criticism of Mr Rudd during February's leadership challenge, is standing by his comments.
And he says Labor's purpose is clear.
"We have always put to the fore traditional Labor priorities of supporting jobs."
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says every day Labor Party members are fighting among themselves is another day when they are not focused on the welfare of ordinary Australians.
And Opposition frontbencher Christopher Pyne says the comments show Labor is divided.
"There's been a lynch squad sent out to sink the boot into Lindsay Tanner today, led by Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan and Bob Carr and Mark Butler, and quite frankly it's time that the Australian public didn't have to put up with a Government that is a pantomime in Canberra," he said.
Tanner attacks Labor Party 'devoid of purpose' - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
