Lenore Taylor guardian.co.uk, Sunday 30 June 2013 09.17 AEST

Australia's new prime minister must skimp and patch without a lost generation of Labor ministers

Kevin Rudd, right, with his new deputy, Anthony Albanese. Photo: The Global Mail/Mike Bowers

Modern Labor has become the party that ate itself.

Much of an entire generation of political talent and experience has been consumed by the Rudd/Gillard leadership feud. They have resigned from the frontbench or will leave politics altogether rather than serve under a leader they cannot follow, or because they are exhausted or disillusioned by the saga.

Some turnover in a ministry is normal, people move on and new talent is rewarded.

But six years after John Howard's first ministry was sworn in, 10 of the original members were still sitting around the cabinet table.

When Kevin Rudd began preparing a ministry last week, almost six years after his first one, only four of his original team remained. After the upheavals of deposing two prime ministers and two other leadership spills in just three years, Jenny Macklin, Anthony Albanese, Penny Wong and Tony Burke were the only cabinet members still standing.

Eight ministers left as Rudd took over, some taking personal decisions at the end of a parliamentary term, but many because they could not or would not work with him. Julia Gillard and the former treasurer Wayne Swan left the ministry, of course, but also Greg Combet, Peter Garrett, Stephen Smith, Stephen Conroy, Craig Emerson and Joe Ludwig.

Now Combet – highly respected and seen as a possible future leader of the party – has announced that like Gillard, Garrett, Smith and Emerson he is putting his political life behind him.

He said his "reasons are personal and are not attributable to the change in the leadership of the Labor party this week, although this has provided a catalyst for my decision". For Labor, it is an enormous loss.

And these departures follow a long list of talented politicians who have already gone, or who are in the process of leaving, such as Lindsay Tanner, Nicola Roxon and Chris Evans.

Other Gillard supporters, such as Tony Burke and Gary Gray, have said they are staying on at the new prime minister's insistence, but the truce could be uneasy.

Some Rudd supporters forced out after backing him in the March ballot in which he did not stand are likely to return. Chris Bowen is treasurer and Kim Carr and Simon Crean seem set to resume their cabinet status. Former whip Joel Fitzgibbon would also be promoted.

But other Rudd backers, such as Martin Ferguson and Robert McClelland, had already locked in their plans to leave.

Making a virtue of the necessity of filling such enormous gaps, Rudd has announced that three women will join his cabinet, taking female representation to its highest level ever.

They are the Victorian senator Jacinta Collins – previously a parliamentary secretary, who will take the portfolio of mental health – Victorian Catherine King and Tasmanian Julie Collins, who were formerly in the outer ministry. King takes the portfolio of regional Australia and Collins homelessness and the status of women. West Australian Melissa Parke joins the outer ministry with the portfolio if international development (aid).

The strain of governing while a civil war was waged inside the party was most evident when it lifted – the sudden reappearance in Peter Garrett's valedictory speech of the passion that made him famous, an unburdened Wayne Swan in a hoodie drinking coffee the day after the coup, the frontbencher confiding with wonderment that for the first time in many years he had had time the previous evening to get a little bit drunk.

The new ministry will be announced and sworn in on Monday. There are enough experienced people left for Rudd to craft a credible frontbench team – but only just. The self-inflicted and lasting cost of this period for Labor is enormous.

 

Kevin Rudd faces threadbare options as he puts together his cabinet | World news | guardian.co.uk