Marieke Hardy, Ben Eltham, Stella Young, Celeste Tiddle, Ben Pobjie

guardian.co.uk, Friday 28 June 2013 09.20 AEST

The dust has settled. Kevin Rudd is in. But what does Labor need to tackle, policy wise, to win against Tony Abbott?

Kevin Rudd is sworn in as prime minister again in 2013. Photograph: Mike Bowers/Global Mail

Marieke Hardy: What Labor needs now is unity

All of us have experienced the horrors of a bad boss. The boss who is a bad communicator, the boss who expects us to work late when we're unwell, the boss we secretly dream of ditching by means of a brilliant riposte and a swift, well-timed kick of their umbrella stand on the way out. Kevin Rudd was once that boss. When the smoke of this chaotic week clears, he may still be. But that's Labor's problem now. And the onus is on them to deal with it internally, o fold over their chaotic hotbed of thrusts and parries and neatly stitch the past closed. To get on, in short, with the effing job.

Unity can't be that hard. All they need do is glance over the game plan of the Coalition after that last, distant leadership spill in 2009 and follow suit. Turnbull v Abbott. Even Joe Hockey gamely threw his hat into the ring back then, though presumably afterwards he simply high-fived everybody and insisted he had only been joking. After Abbott faced the media with a few muttered platitudes about remaining gracious, that was it – Hockey and Turnbull fell seamlessly into line, and the Coalition presented as a plausibly functional family unit.

Turnbull's teeth must be ground down to nubs by now. And yet he perseveres. Why? Because the Coalition understand, better than most, the meaning of "the greater good". For all that has come before, Labor must now shut up and unite. With dignity and with honour. It can't be that hard.

Celeste Liddle: Labor needs to re-engage with its left wing

I feel depleted over the Labor party's recent leadership change. Labor has been considered Australia's left-wing party since its inception. At this point in time though, through a number of their policies as well as their lack of solidarity particularly as leadership spill rumours swirled and Gillard continued to be attacked on the basis of her gender, I feel they have isolated a large proportion of their socialist left and have appeared politically weak. A number of my peers have expressed uncertainty and dismay at the choices going into this election and believe that the centre of Australian politics has shifted so far right that a powerful party with clear and humane social policies is currently lacking.

To win the election, I feel the Labor party needs to re-engage with its left wing. It could regain some lost votes if it looked at embracing a more humane policy on asylum seekers. It could regain votes if it committed to working collaboratively with Indigenous communities across the country, rather than just continuing the NT Intervention under a different name and rolling it out to affect more people. Reinstating university funding rather than cutting it again, this time to fund the Gonski reforms, makes sense for a party that believes in quality education for all. The ALP should make a particular effort to embrace the many women and men who fight for gender equality and who are feeling quite shaken right now. More than anything though, the ALP needs to show strength, leadership and solidarity.

Ben Eltham: Their best chance? To build a time machine

It's hard to see what the government could do to win from here. When you look at the cold hard numbers, the government's task is nearly hopeless.

Labor's parlous standing in the electorate means that Rudd starts this campaign at something like 18 points behind in the primary vote, or 12 points down in two-party preferred terms. Even a spectacularly successful campaign might hope to pull back seven or eight points. Bridging the current divide looks unimaginable.

The 2010 results have left a swag of ALP seats on razor-thin majorities; even a slight swing to Tony Abbott will deliver the Coalition six to 10 gains. For instance, Corangamite, Deakin, Greenway, Robertson, Lindsay, and Moreton are all on margins of 1.2% or less. But it gets worse. To retain government, Labor actually needs to poll better than the Opposition, not merely repeat the result last time. The retirement of Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor almost certainly gives two seats to the Coalition. Throw in Craig Thomson's seat of Dobell and Labor's electoral pendulum is already calibrated in the negative by three seats.

The government's eroded economic credibility and poor ratings on border security means that the traditional tactics of showering the electorate with tax cuts and running a fear campaign on asylum seekers are compromised, even if Labor might try them anyway. Perhaps Rudd hopes that by putting enough pressure on Abbott, he can induce a 2007-style campaign meltdown from the opposition leader. But with the Coalition this far ahead, even that might not be enough.

Labor's best chance of winning the election is to build a time-machine. If Rudd could transport the nation back to early 2010, he could avoid some of the critical errors he committed on the way to being dumped the first time. What a shame the government has recently cut back on research funding.

Stella Young: Rudd needs to inspire Australians again

On 1 July 2013, the lives of many Australians will change for the better. Monday is the day the National Disability Insurance Scheme moves from being an idea to a reality. In several launch sites around Australia, people with disabilities will finally be able to start making concrete plans for their futures.

For decades, we have not only been left off the political agenda and grumbled about as a "problem"; we've been locked up (sometimes literally) and left behind. As my girl Florence (of The Machine) Welch would say, the "dog days are over". That's how this feels; like it's finally time for us to be aspirational. A friend of mine who has lived with seriously inadequate support for the last 10 years is brimming with ideas about what kind of career she might embark on now that she'll be able to shower more than twice a week. Such is the magnitude of this change.

Indeed, aspiration is one of the fundamental principles of this reform. It's reminiscent of when Rudd became prime minister in the Rudd-slide of 2007. Australians were so ready for change. It was our Obama moment, and the aspiration for a different kind of Australia to the one we knew was palpable.

A return to the aspiration Australians associated with Rudd could be Labor's best chance. Just as we've changed the conversation about disability, from one that framed us as problems and burdens, to one in which we represent citizens with great untapped potential, we can change the way we talk about what kind of country we want to be. The leaders of our nation are supposed to move us to aim higher and do better. At least that'd be a damn good place to start.

Ben Pobjie: When everything fails ... it's time to explore Plan B

A political party's prime purpose is to develop positive policies for the betterment of the country. But the voters don't really seem to like it when you do that, so it's probably time for Labor to stop it. What the Australian people really want from their politicians is aggression. Voters want to feel that a political party is willing to rip shreds off its opposition on their behalf.

So it's time for the Labor party to become as nasty as possible. It should focus its attentions on Abbott, obviously: attack his ears, the weird way he walks, his ill-fitting suits, his inability to start a sentence without saying "ah", and anything else they can think of. Also, try to use as many hilarious catchphrases as possible: for example "the LIEberal party", "the leader of the STROPposition", "Christopher WHINE", "LNP must stand for Little Nerdy Pussies". That sort of thing.

Rumours are also useful: if Labor can spread a few rumours about what Julie Bishop puts in her hair to make it stay that way, it'll sow doubt in voters' minds as to whether she is the sort of person heading the country. The important thing is to keep it simple. People don't like governments that go on and on about "doing things". It confuses and enrages them. Australia wants one thing and one thing only from its government: to hear about why the other guys are terrible. It's up to Labor to have the courage to give us that.

What Labor needs to do to win the election | The panel | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk