by chief political correspondent Simon Cullen

 

Video: Maxine McKew talks to Fran Kelly (ABC News)

Kevin Rudd says those involved in dumping him as prime minister need to be honest about what happened, amid new claims that Julia Gillard was actively trying to destabilise him in the days before the leadership coup.

In a new book written by former Labor MP Maxine McKew, the former ABC television journalist accuses Ms Gillard of being a "disloyal deputy" to Mr Rudd.

She says Ms Gillard showed a senior caucus colleague internal party polling critical of Mr Rudd, in what the un-named MP believed was part of a "conspiracy" against the then-PM.

Ms Gillard has previously said she only decided to launch a challenge against Mr Rudd on the day she asked for a leadership ballot in June 2010.

Mr Rudd this morning described the events as "traumatic" for the party and the country, and said it was time for those involved to fully explain what happened.

"It's important that everybody associated with those events is just honest about what happened so that the party and the Government can move on to the big policy challenges of the future," Mr Rudd told Channel Nine.

Mr Rudd told McKew that he felt let down and "betrayed" by Ms Gillard and Treasurer Wayne Swan, because neither of them had warned him there would be a challenge unless he made specific policy changes.

Asked whether he stood by what he told McKew, Mr Rudd replied: "I don't make statements lightly".

In February this year, Ms Gillard told the ABC's Four Corners program that she did not have "specific recall" of the party polling at the time.

Ms Gillard today declined to respond to the latest claims, saying: "I've dealt with these issues extensively in the past, and you can put the question 900 different ways and you're going to get the same response, it's just simply not my focus."

McKew says there is "no doubt" internal party polling was being shown around in an attempt to move votes away from Mr Rudd, and she remains adamant Ms Gillard was involved.

"There are no innocents in politics - there had to be someone who was willing to be the successor," she said.

"I am saying that I think Julia Gillard was impatient for the leadership and she allowed a sense of crisis to be created around Rudd's leadership, and a principal tool in that sense of crisis was this private party polling," McKew told ABC Radio National.

"I wasn't shown it at the time - everyone knew I was a Rudd loyalist so I was left alone.

"But this was shown around a range of ministers and MPs."

Labor MPs have today tried to hose down any sense of internal conflict created by McKew's book, saying it is time to move on from the events of 2010.

"It's just not something that interests me, to be honest," Labor MP Rob Mitchell said.

"That's her version of events, but I certainly won't be buying the book."

But the Coalition has used the latest revelations to attack Ms Gillard's character and describe the modern Labor party as a "soap opera".

"What it proves to the public is that we know we have a Prime Minister without any conviction, without any principle, without any policy," Liberal frontbencher Christopher Pyne said.

"We have a Prime Minister who was panic struck by the polls in 2010, and seized her opportunity to create mayhem in the Labor caucus.

"When Kevin Rudd was the weak wildebeest in the pack, she pounced and tore him to pieces," he said.

Rudd wants truth over McKew book claims - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)