The approach begun by Rudd when he worked for Goss has continued in Qld through Beattie and now Bligh: no consultation, decision making by urban bureaucrats with absolutely no regard for the impact of their decisions on ordinary people with this applying especially to people on the land and people outside the main population centres. Let's hope the demise at Federal level can be repeated in Qld - if only Qld could muster a viable and vibrant alternative to Labor.

The Australian political landscape has too many opportunities for too many 'wanna-be's to strut around for too long. Rudd's ascendency was ridiculous.

I totally agree with the article and also with fedupnortherner as far as the situation in Queensland is concerned .

However , we cannot blame Rudd for his elevation.. let's put the blame where it really belongs..with Iresponsible Journalists who didn't do their homework..

His whole campaign was a Media Beat Up, They ignored his past . Anyone was better than Beasley , The best Labor Prime Minister , that Australia NEVER had, regretably.

As a result, , Great Unwashed with their slaving belief in the Media gave Australia what it deserved.

This time though, the ones awaiting with the baseball bats were the Faceless Labor Faction Leaders, not the Queensland Voters , as with Wayne Goss.

He has Stuffed Queensland, now Australia .What's next The United Nations?

Actually,the UN does deserve him ..... GO BOY !

Please, politicians failing to live up to even simple election promises and shuffling chairs is the way we do things these days.

Aspley - hardly journalists fault - more so Party machines that rewards clowns like the rudd-bott (and the Ab-bott)

Another Thabo Mbeki

The Media and the people that love to be told are to blame for all this.....and it just might happen again....who knows ??

What about all the voters who told polling organisations that they hated Mr Rudd? They played by far the largest part in his downfall.

Too many mistakes and backflips. Too much given to the big end of town and too much taken from the poorest. The fact that all the defections from labor went to the greens (and have now come back) shows to me that it was left leaning voters and the working class poor who deserted Rudd. He should have taken into account this particular groups lukewarm support for him. They only liked him because he wasnt Howard. In other (current) circumstances they saw him as a geek and a nerd far more interested in sucking up to the big boys, here and overseas, than helping improve the lot of loyal labor voters. As soon as he wimped out on climate change, refugees etc they turned on him.

Labor is a party of the left and they better remember that. Just like Turnbull took the libs to far to the left for the tory supporters Rudd was taking labor too far to the right. Julia should take a hint from Hawke and Keating and include all of the left (including the greens) in future discussions and policy decisions.

[Deleted for abuse]

Silo culture in government, Federal down to local is a real problem. We will not truly move forward until we decide "bullying", gang and scapegoating cultures are to be stopped.

As we challenge leaders to take on the hard issues, we also ask they do it in a clean and concise way. A coup was not the call. It is a violence. We critise other nations for doing less.

Unlike yourself "Scott Prasser, Professor of Public Policy at the Australian Catholic University and Executive Director of the new Public Policy Institute based in Canberra." I care about the way things are done. Humanity is an action in everyday life and life is about politics.

A person ought never be treated the way former PM Mr Rudd was treated. There were other ways to sort this out. The polls did not reflect Mr Rudd would have lost the election. I feel I knew the issue he was standing for, especially the one on the mining super tax. These are "hard issues". I would have liked to see the outcome under former PM Mr Rudd. This is real politics, not stooping to fear of media and polls.

"Do by example" is something I take seriously. As a rural person I know what the issues are, at local level, in the bush and these issues Mr Rudd was standing for, given the politics out there is so difficult for so many communities.

I hope Australia takes a breath now. I hope to hear from former Prime Minister Rudd soon. I know the difference between right and wrong even when it comes to politics.

http://www.miacat.com/

It makes you wonder about the judgment of the Labor party and the media - who are supposed to be warning us of these things - when the last two new leaders they have put up are Rudd and Latham. Now that they are both gone we are told how bad they were all along and how the media knew this all along. But while they were there, the media let them get away with it. (They haven't done the same with Howard by the way.)

So what aren't they telling us about Gillard? Have they even gotten her to answer Tony Jones's 2007 question yet - "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?"

Many young people have flirted with Communisty ideology and later returned to the mainstream in all its glorious shades. Who knows if Julia Gillard was once a member of the CP and who cares? It is what she does and believes now that counts.

All I can say....ask..beg...plead..is..DON'T vote Labour.

Vote Coalition ? aargh... same bunch.. just a different banana not quite as ripe.

GREENS ? (quick.. take that medication and get urgent therapy)

FAMILY FIRST ? yep... go for it... family values... we all came from a family and most of us live as part of one... all legislation should be subject to a 'family impact' statement.

Hey..if loony watermelons at the Human REICH and EVIL Opportunism Central Committee can call for a 'Human Rights assesment' of all legislation.. why not a family impact assessment as well..or INSTEAD of.

This article is an accurate assessment. An electorate, driven by the leftist media, were too easily convinced the saviour had arrived. So they may be again a second time with Julia Gillard.

Labor is desperate to remain in power and is prepared to quickly ditch anyone who is unpopular while pretending they are not driven by Polls.

Bruce Hawker, Labor Party strategist, on Sky news today asked why the Libs had not dumped Abbott because he was not very popular. A frank admission that popularity is driving Labor Party appointments.

Gillard has an extreme Left agenda based on a political view derived from her father's experience of 1950's Wales and wants to apply this to 2010 Australia. She is basically a Marxist, like her hero Nye Bevan who wanted to nationalise the coal industry and, like all ideologues, rid the world completely of any conservative opposition. She is desperately out of touch, lives in a bygone era and worships a person whose beliefs would now be considered extreme. She wants to be remembered as a heroic leader who fought the good fight for the people against the evil conservative forces. Its all so 1950's.

Meanwhile, Rudd waits in the wings ready to pull the plug on Julia's party. I wonder how he'll do it?

Atman do you really believe that stuff.

Julia's experience of working class Wales is more likely to make her a good politician or would you prefer the experience of Alexander Downer born with the proverbial silver spoon. Neither background will necessarily determine competency or fairness - the future will tell.

Julia Gillard often speaks about the lack of opportunity for her father, by all accounts a smart man, to access education. Access to opportunity is a liberal philosophy as much as a left one. It is the essential ingredient to innovation.

"She wants to be remembered as a heroic leader who fought the good fight for the people against the evil conservative forces. Its all so 1950's."

The only one going on about that is people like you. What is more 1950s is the misplaced Left paranoia for what must be one of the most Right Wing/Centrist periods in ALP history.

Australian voters aren't interested in extremes of any dogma - and those spouting such extremes don't win elections. The LNP is just getting miffed because Abbott won't win against a competent adversary.

Pelican
Believe what "stuff"?

Gillard's story is about her father's struggle in another place in another time. What has that got to do with Australia in 2010?
She came here when she was 5 for gods sake. She's had a similar life to the rest of us.

She is a living example of why Australia is free from the biases she claims were in present in Wales in the 1950's.

You obviously believe in the "class struggle" otherwise you would not have alluded to Downer being born "with silver spoon" as a bad thing though you pretend strangely in the very next sentence that it is all irrelevant.

As I said she adores Nye Bevan. A 1950's Marxist. Her ideology is rooted in 1950's Welsh class struggle. Its irrelevant. Its her "stuff" not mine. She is out of touch.

Well, no body polled me to ask what I thought of Rudd, but I am glad to see him gone, sadly not buried as yet.

Good on those voetrs who were polled, whatever their motives, for lambasting Rudd.

Good riddance!

Unless your name is Phillip Adams of course, who has gone to sulk in his corner, alone, apart from Rudd and his missus.