That is to say, it relied on a small group (Bill Shorten, David Feeney, Don Farrell, Mark Arbib) making claims to Gillard about being able to deliver right votes. It’s noted in all the articles that no attempt was made to canvass members’ views. MPs close to the mining industry such as Gary Gray played a supporting role.

It was about creating an atmosphere of crisis, and forcing Julia Gillard’s hand.

Numbers weren’t counted until after Kevin Rudd gave his press conference at about 10.30pm.

Gillard then insisted some of her long time supporters canvassed MPs, rather than the plotters, because with the exception of Shorten, they’re hardly held in high esteem by their colleagues.

A number of Ministers supported Gillard reluctantly because they realised that Rudd would be permanently damaged. After the die was cast, there was effectively no alternative to a change of leadership.

Some members of the NSW and Queensland Right and many first term marginal MPs intended to vote for Rudd, as well as the NSW left sub-faction around Anthony Albanese, who organised canvassing for Rudd. Other left members from other states also intended to support the then PM.

There are two points of contrast with previous leadership challenges:

(a) the organisers aren’t well respected “faction leaders” (like Robert Ray or John Faulkner) but machine men who are disliked by many MPs;

(b) Usually, serious number counting only starts after a coup is brought on, and there are several days in which to canvass party opinion – this one happened at the speed of light.

So I think it’s accurate to see all this as a putsch rather than a typical challenge.

Labor MPs were effectively given two options – to support Gillard, or to vote for Kevin Rudd in the knowledge that his leadership would be crippled and all chance of communicating a political message drowned out by a media firestorm over disunity and the prospect of a second challenge.

The paper also notes that Gillard had been kept in the loop by Shorten for several weeks. She may indeed have only decided to challenge on Wednesday, but it would be quite wrong to minimise her agency in what transpired.

Clearly, the plotters were the ones (along with Karl Bitar and the AWU leadership outside parliament) who’d been the “unnamed sources” for all the News Limited stories over the past few weeks, and the ones who’d been talking up the supposedly dire polls. It should also be obvious that the ‘clean air’ claim is self-reinforcing when the coup was cooked up with elements of the press gallery either in cahoots or rapturous with delight about having a leadership issue to write about.

Kevin Rudd told caucus that Arbib, Gillard and Wayne Swan had been the main movers in convincing him to dump the ETS, and all were opposed to resurrecting it, while Lindsay Tanner and Penny Wong had argued strongly to keep it.

Tingle notes the irony that those who urged the decision which started the rot were also the ones who benefited from it.

Laura Tingle wrote today:

Arbib is one of a new generation of “powerbrokers” behind this coup who seem to have no respect for the traditions of one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world, nor any apparent commitment to its values.

Their only value is staying in power. Their only modus operandi is tearing down leaders.

But is that any different to the party of old, in the days of “Richo” and Robert Ray and all the other colourful “key factional powerbrokers”?

Yes, it is. For a start, in the olden days it was the caucus, whatever its factional groupings, that decided who would be the ALP parliamentary leader.

This time around, Labor MPs watched appalled as the head of the Australian Workers Union, Paul Howes, told viewers of the ABC’s Lateline on Wednesday night that his union had switched allegiance from Rudd to Gillard and cheerfully explained why the prime minister would be losing his job.

The leadership challenge was almost over without anybody making a phone call to any MPs.

The coup occurred without the cabinet and the caucus knowing it was on and, from the public’s perspective, it was a play by the unions.

In the olden days, prime ministers were only dumped after bruising contests about changing policy direction. Powerbrokers were also trusted by their colleagues. The new ones are not…

NSW politics, of course, has been very different for some time.

NB: Previous coverage at LP of the Labor leadership change can be found here.

Update: In the Sydney Morning Herald today – Peter Hartcher:

So why the change? The truth is that some mid-level operatives in the Right faction were angry with Rudd. These powerbrokers hated Rudd for his high-handed leadership style.

And they were frustrated that Rudd was slow to take their advice in changing policy. They wanted Rudd to take a harder line on asylum seekers, to dump the emissions trading scheme, and to back off on the mining tax.

These were the people who decided to launch the challenge against Rudd. And when Gillard took their gift, her remarks to the media appeared to deliver what the Right wanted – a harder line on asylum seekers, a more protracted approach to climate change and backing off the mining tax.

Before he walked away, Rudd told the caucus: “We can’t allow this federal caucus to have embedded in it the same type of culture as NSW where, every time you make tough policy decisions and polls dip, you get a campaign to cripple the leader. It’s not good to bring the NSW culture to Canberra.”

Andrew West:

Last night, while some said Arbib simply boarded the train that was the Gillard leadership push, others insisted he was instrumental, planting leaks in the press for weeks to undermine Rudd. ”He’s the biggest harlot in the caucus when it comes to the media,” an opponent said.

”If you’re now hearing that he was a passenger on the train, not the driver, that’s an attempt to guard his arse so it doesn’t look like he plotted to take down an elected prime minister.”

Elsewhere: Sinclair Davidson, Trevor Cook.

Update: In today’s Fin, Pamela Williams confirms that the AWU’s Paul Howes and Bill Ludwig were directly phoning MPs on Wednesday night.

Elsewhere: Peter Hartcher’s take on how events unfolded.

Elsewhere: Guy Beres asks if the big miners toppled Kevin Rudd.

TONY Abbott the unlikely leader has done a terrific job in the 5½ months in which he has been at the helm of the Liberal Party.

I doubt that, somehow. It’s clear from the polls that Labor’s decline over recent weeks has been a function of Kevin Rudd’s own tactics, not any sudden desire from the public to consider the Coalition’s claims. And we’re now seeing, I think, Wayne Swan and Lindsay Tanner come into their own, boosting the government’s political message as the terrain shifts to the economy.

Carney has one thing right, though:

…his mission at this stage is not so much to create as re-create. By and large, Abbott wants a return to the Howard-Costello era, with himself and Joe Hockey in the key roles.

It’s as I said on the night of Abbott’s Budget Reply – his main case for government is Howard driven. It’s a narrative of Restoration, not renewal. Malcolm Turnbull tried to position the Liberal party for a post-John Howard era. Tony Abbott can’t, or won’t.

It’s through this prism that we should focus on Abbott’s “wimp” comment on radio last Friday – in the context of the leak that he’d sought to float a $10 000 bonus for stay at home mothers in Shadow Cabinet. Guy Beres puts it well:

That Abbott allegedly even thought fit to raise such a policy as a suggestion in the current climate speaks volumes about his political nous and indeed his leadership abilities.

No wonder there was a big hole in his speech where a constructive policy centrepiece should have been.

Clearly, playing the “attack dog” and engaging in constant carping is one thing; policy formulation and setting out a positive vision for the nation is something else entirely.

It’s his political nous that is precisely in question. Anyone with a skerrick of political sense could see that a Howard style giveaway completely contradicts the economic message that the Coalition is attempting to convey. The nature of the initiative is significant too. To some degree, at least, Abbott must have been trying to protect his right flank in the aftermath of his parental leave thought bubble. It’s interesting to observe that his reiteration of that promise saw the least cheering from his backbench of all his Address In Reply lines.

Tony Abbott, simply put, is not a clever politician. Whether or not that becomes clear is going to be one of the most intriguing political questions of this year’s election.

Rudd’s climate change reversal was the embodiment of a cynicism of truly monumental proportions; the culmination of a sustained failure to hold a policy conversation with the public, and born of fear of an Abbott fear campaign.

So as May Day dawns, it’s worth posing the question: what has happened to Australian Labor?

I can’t remember who first described Kevin Rudd as ‘Australia’s inaugural Federal premier’, but there’s real truth in that phrase. The risk averse nature of state politics, the obsession with controlling the media cycle, the concentration on bite sized focus grouped ‘announceables’, and the failure to lead public opinion; it’s all there with Rudd.

It’s the triumph of the political pragmatists – a vacuous politics driven by the minutiae of electoral calculus which Paul Keating warned against in the midst of the 2007 Rudd ascendancy. Sure, it might make sense to ‘clear the decks’ and pitch solely to the outer suburban and regional voters Abbott is also appealling to with his unprincipled populism. ‘Keep the conversation on health’, one can imagine Ruddistas intoning with the frequency of a constantly repeated soundbite.

But something more profound is at work here; a failure of political imagination and courage.

Much has been made over the past few days of Kevin Rudd’s lack of a reform agenda. I’m often suspicious of that word. Too often, it means a narrow economism, focused solely on enabling business to compete in a globalised world. Few point to the passage of the Sex Discrimination Act in 1984 by the Hawke Government as a great reform, preferring to laud the deregulation of markets and the floating of the dollar. Yet the former represented a real shift in the possibilities of equality in this nation, and a reconfiguration of social relations for the better. The Rudd government’s record is equally barren on both scores, and a chance has been missed to lead on an issue the PM himself quite correctly identified as the great challenge of our times.

It may be that Paul Norton is right and that the Labor party, reflecting the class and workplace cleavages of another century, finds it difficult to factor sustainability into its political equation. Indeed, that failure, whose consequences are now writ large, opens the political space for The Greens, as opposed to the soft environmentalism and middle class civil liberties agenda of the now departed Democrats. But the intransigence of some Ministers, unions and a recrudescent party culture is no excuse for a Prime Minister whose power within the government has constantly been celebrated.

What’s left for Labor? There are still reasons to re-elect the Rudd Government, and reasons which transcend the horror of the Abbott alternative. There’s something in having Ministers with the right instincts, and with a desire to put right the wreckage John Howard inflicted on all of us. The irony is that some of those Ministers who are most attuned to the demands of the second decade of the new century are now at risk from Rudd’s obsession with a risk-free politics. Labor should have another term, but some time in that term, and the sooner the better, Kevin Rudd should go.

Update: My thoughts on Brisbane Labour Day 2010, and John Quiggin‘s reflections on May Day.

Tasmanian Governor Peter Underwood has asked Labor Premier David Bartlett to form a government, and Bartlett has had something of a rapprochement with Tasmanian Greens leader Nick McKim. Discussions are underway on how the two parties will co-operate in a hung parliament, and what effect any agreement will have on their respective election promises. It’s also possible, particularly given the small size of the Tasmanian Lower House, that one or more Greens may join Cabinet.

If that were to happen, it would be an Australian first.

For me, this is welcome news. It’s how PR systems are meant to operate, and is far preferable to a minority government. It’s a mature and sensible approach, and a step away from the pathologies of winner-takes all so common to Westminster systems with single member electorates. The result will be the representation of the will of a larger proportion of the electorate, and it’s hard to see how that’s anything other than a positive.

I’m also pleased to see a centre-left majority rather than a Liberal minority government. No doubt much will be imperfect, but it does signal some hope for genuine political change in a state whose Labor party has often been far from progressive.

It will also be interesting to see how any Labor-Greens agreement in Tasmanian politics affects the federal campaign, particularly since some Labor MPs prone to electoral challenge from The Greens have, in the past, been inclined to electioneer with “Greens=Liberals” slurs. And then there’s preference negotiations.

I don’t minimise the tensions between the ALP, The Greens and their respective supporters, but I’d very much welcome a broader progressive alliance, and a more co-operative approach on the left generally in electoral politics.

This development really will have some interesting implications for the national scene in both the short term and the long term, as it’s genuinely a historical moment.

Update: New post on the final outcome.

Wallace, in her review, describes the Kent book, The Making of Julia Gillard, as a “political quickie”. I’ve read it, and that’s fair comment, though Kent does cast a fair bit of light on aspects of Gillard’s rise through Labor ranks which are not well known, such as the effects of her long term rivalry with Lindsay Tanner and Kim Carr.

In his defence, Naparstek points to a similar review by Michelle Grattan.

However, Michelle Grattan has not written a book which is in direct commercial competition with one she is reviewing.

Naparstek also claims Wallace is best qualified to review Kent’s book – by virtue of being the author of a rival biography of Gillard. Bizarre.

There’s a fair bit of obfuscation in Naparstek’s defence of his editorial decision. Whether or not Dr Sally Warhaft, a former editor of The Monthly, is a friend of Kent’s (and in the public realm, the fact that she was somehow involved in launching Kent’s book can’t be taken as evidence of that) seems to me to be entirely irrelevant, and to only serve to revive the pointless and inward looking arguments about the ramifications of her relationship with Robert Manne as chair of the magazine’s editorial board. It’s unwise, I’d have thought, to even give this sort of thing the remotest airing in public. And particularly unwise for Manne himself to appear to be the one conjuring this spectre. It’s only going to reinforce the (reasonable) perception that the affairs of The Monthly are still driven by impenetrable circle jerk arguments of no interest or relevance to its readers.

The last thing anyone wants to read is another 3000 word treatise on who said what to whom in some Melbourne restaurant. It’s about as interesting as an email exchange between Gerard Henderson and Robert Manne.

Leaving that looming potential pr disaster aside, how difficult is it actually to understand that Wallace doesn’t get a free pass for trashing a book in direct competition with her own by disclosing that she’s writing one?

To frame this as a “biography war” surely only draws attention to the ethical vacuity behind the decision to commission Wallace’s review in the first place. It’s pretty much an admission that what is really going on is trolling for a controversy, and that – as with all the other “wars” – the putative subject of the interchange will be lost in the fog at the moment of its declaration. This silliness should not be allowed to obscure the basic fact of the elicitation of a blatant conflict of interest by The Monthly. It’s as simple as that.

Elsewhere: Andrew Crook in Crikey.

Update: Andrew Norton writes:

While editors do need to exercise judgment about what impact apparent conflicts of interest will have on a review, avoiding them entirely is very difficult.

Perhaps, but that’s not an argument in my view, for not leaning over backwards to avoid conflicts. Norton appears to give some solace to Naparstek in his claim that Wallace was somehow uniquely qualified to review Kent’s work by virtue of being in the process of writing her own (rival) book. That seems to me to be an entirely spurious claim, because any purported expertise Wallace might bring to the scrutiny of Kent’s work could not – in the eyes of any reasonable reader – avoid the trap of being vitiated by their opposing commercial interests.

As the internet continues to make transparency and collaboration cheaper and easier, governments around the world face increasing pressure to become more open and more participatory. This edition of InSight looks at the idea of Upgrading Democracy: combining open access to government information with collaborative policy development to increase citizens’ influence over the decisions that affect their lives. The ‘Government 2.0 Taskforce’ is currently putting together its advice on how to open up access to public sector information and use online tools to improve the conversation between government and citizens. This InSight, which has also doubled as a submission to the Taskforce, unpacks the ‘Government 2.0′ concept for the non-geeks out there, as well as featuring some hot new ideas for those who are already in the thick of it.

You can read the issue here.

Glenn Milne’s latest intervention, talking up a line from Liberal MP Scott Morrison, has to be one of the lamest ever political attack lines. [For those who don't want to wade through a farrago of fallacies expounded at excessive length, his core point is echoed by Sinclair Davidson at Catallaxy, though without attribution to Milne. Rendered in short form, the basic logical fallacy is starkly evident.]

So, there’s going to be an “emissions financial crisis” and the Reserve Bank wasn’t consulted by the Government before climate change legislation was prepared? A non sequitur built on speculative and incoherent fantasy does not make for an effective political attack. ‘OMG! Governor didn’t read legislation! Rudd FAIL!’…

The political syntax of this claim, of course, is that Rudd and co successfully berated the Liberals for ‘ignoring 20 (or whatever it was) successive Reserve Bank warnings’ in the lead up to the 2007 election. Now, we have the Liberals, and their echo chamber, arguing that the Reserve Bank should have been given a chance to warn. Somehow a hypothetical and unlikely warning was pre-empted by the Government deliberately choosing not to do what it doesn’t have to do. Try to make any sense of that.

What would be far more interesting to examine would be the politics of invoking the Reserve Bank (and for that matter, Treasury and its ubiquitous Secretary, Dr Ken Henry). There are significant questions about the independence of Treasury – or perhaps around the degree to which it is closely intermeshed with Rudd, Swan and Tanner’s agenda. And it’s clear that both Ken Henry and Glenn Stevens’ presumed authority is used by the Government regularly to legitimate its economic management credentials.

The Libs have occasionally made attacks in similar form as the essential structure of the Milne claim (leaving aside for the moment, that it rests on non-events) – that the Government has ignored advice. Of course, such attacks are irreconcilable with claims that the Government’s policies – when effectively ticked off by Henry and Stevens – are wildly irresponsible.

None of this makes a lot of sense. The Opposition, and its buddies in the right wing media and academic commentariat, might be better served by exploring the real issues around how economic policy is made, and defended through the aura of institutions which are perceived as independent. Don’t hold your breath, though.

Update: Sinclair Davidson responds.

It’s interesting to set these remarks aside a leak from the Coalition party room yesterday – apparently Malcolm Turnbull mentioned that there may be a need to raise tax in the future. Predictably, this was howled down as being “contrary to Liberal philosophy”.

Therein lies the rub.

Aided and abetted by a quite unique set of economic circumstances, the Coalition’s “economic management” over the last few terms of the Howard government basically translated to reducing personal income tax while maintaining the rate of corporate tax. Add to the mix a crazed melange of transfer payments and electoral bribes, and for a while they had a winning electoral strategy.

It did, of course, trash “core Liberal philosophy” if that meant what John Howard supposedly stood for in the 1980s – ‘dry’ economics. Reduced to a few slogans, the Liberals have proved themselves completely incapable of arguing any economic direction which even vaguely makes sense ever since their defeat in November 2007. Turnbull’s comments, and Tanner’s remarks, suggest that the political playing field of the economic game will be a much transformed one over the next few political cycles. Labor seems to understand this. It’s highly questionable if most Liberals even grasp what’s going on. That absent centre at the heart of their ideology and their political strategy will prove a bigger problem for them than their leadership and their day to day political tactics and messaging. The dysfunctions of the latter are only a symptom of the underlying disease.

Quiggin picked up on recent remarks by Lindsay Tanner about discipline in the budget process. “Efficiency dividends” are much in the air at the moment, and Tanner appeared to be arguing that the cause of fiscal probity required a razor to be applied to public sector spending, with the goal of eventually returning the budget to surplus.

While Quiggin agreed that the latter goal was desirable, he suggested that “waste” wasn’t a high proportion of commonwealth spending, and argued that it made more sense to scale back the next round of tax cuts. The scheduled tax cuts are highly regressive, and give little or nothing to low and middle income earners. Nor is bracket creep a huge concern at the moment, and the rivers of revenue to be distributed have receded rapidly.

The government seems to be scaling back, or delaying a number of its commitments. While pension increases are apparently electorally sacrosanct, measures like maternity leave are on hold. Julia Gillard’s response to the Bradley review is a good example of this process at work. The government has accepted most of the review’s recommendations, but pushed out the implementation dates for those requiring large additional expenditure. The higher education sector is being told to hold its horses.

There’s something like a replay of the perennial tax cuts vs. services conundrum going on here. But it’s got an interesting new inflection when the quantum of money available is much reduced – focusing in on the economic benefits of spending against permanent tax increases for the upper middle and high end of the income spectrum. I’m inclined to think that there’s some residual defensiveness about the “economic conservative” label at work here. What, one might ask Kevin Rudd, would a social democrat do?