It is unfortunate that the Labor Party
did not have the faith of their appointed
leader who in two years has achieved more
than many previous governments in a longer
period of time.

I fully agree with Tatiana. I also feel
cheated! And many of us are totally
disillusioned with the Labor Party.
The current non-elected Prime Minister could have
used her negotiation skills to convince
the Labor Party factions that the programs that have
been scuttled by the opposition, were to be
pursued in the next term of office. And the
issue of the mining tax was being gradually
negotiated with the mining companies as was
demonstrated in the media by comments from
various mining magnates.

Border protection was another issue that
does take time to resolve when dealing with
Asian countries who themselves have a larger
problem, however Kevin Rudd made it quite clear
that this issue will take time to resolve - and
it was an issue that he wasn't going to ignore.

It would seem to most logically thinking people,
that the action taken by the factions of the Labor
Party were undertaken without much thought and in
panic. Relying on a few minor opinion polls (that
change weekly), and thereby robbing most of us of
a duly elected Prime Minister.

Past demonstrations of previous Australian Prime
Ministers who were controlled by the factions
showed the inability to achieve many of their
proposed programmes in the duration of their terms
in office.

The voters should feel cheated at the moment, and many
will turn to either voting for Independents or the Greens
or simply throw away their vote, because it's been
demonstrated that voters choices don't count for very
much, as far as Labor is concerned.

Julia Gillard's explanation for why she undertook her
action is not adequate. That they will continue with
the programmes that were initiated by Kevin Rudd,
and they he was pursuing anyway.
She should explain in greater detail,
why she took the course that she did. The voters deserve
nothing less.

Foxy,

Contractors who have done some consultancy work with the public bureaucracies would recognise in Mr Rudd the sort of personality that is often confronted in the Senior Executive Service (SES) of departments and even more so in semi-autonomous governmental authorities.

Without going into the subject at any depth because it really isn't needed, Mr Rudd was demanding, egocentric and aloof, believing in the rightness of his own opinions and dismissive of all he believed were lacking of his intellect, education and status.

Like the archetypal SES gnome, Mr Rudd delved in the minutiae of the normal daily decisions of those he delegated responsibility to, under-cutting their credibility and confidence. In fact, for thirty plus years the PM's department has developed sections that duplicate the policy areas of ministerial departments and second-guess advice given by those departments. That encourages the Howards and Rudds to go it alone, winging through interviews that should have been directed to the subject ministers. However Rudd didn't have the years of political cunning of Howard and Howard was never a public servant.

Sure Mr Rudd had Australia's interests at heart and he was practised enough to appear humble, but leadership is not about being a one-man band. Senior bureaucrats only get away with it because they work in the iron lung that is the public bureaucracy in Canberra and anyhow, their mistakes are easily buried, along with any unfortunate auditor who might discover them.

The last time Australia suffered an egocentric renegade labor prime minister, it was Malcolm Fraser who stabbed him but that time Whitlam got it head on, in the chest.

This time the ego maniac copped it in the back

Not that I have anything to thank him for

He took a healthy economy and raped it

He squandered peoples taxes in the name of ego

He held pointless talk fests, inviting celebrities by the score and ignored nearly all the recommendations.

He held tax reviews and ignored nearly all the recommendations

He has cherry picked whimsical, jingoistic goals, certain that by the time delivery was anticipated, public attention would have moved on so the failure of the plan was not apparent.... exactly mirroring the Victorian government and all their urban, green wedge and transport plans which end up achieving nothing.

The difference with the Victorian plans and Rudd is, where the Victorian plans achieve nothing, Rudds plans keep sending us backward.

Thank God he has gone before his national health plan was implemented, otherwise a prepaid funeral plan would have been the electorates preferred option

Mind you, he has only been replaced by someone of equal culpability for profligate squandering of resources and opportunity, so I expect no change in governmental competency before the next election.

Joanne Jacobs:>> I want to take a moment to reflect on the thoroughly decent man who was our most recent Prime Minister.
I was very sad to see Kevin Rudd’s speech at his removal from office.<<


JJ, Kevin’s self appreciating departing rhetoric turned my stomach and assaulted my senses. When the egotist started to blubber over his failed career my thoughts recounted his demeanor when addressing the deaths of those young Aussies who were unsupervised and unprotected by his government during the Pink Bats cash grab. Not a waver in his voice as he addressed that issue, nothing but bureaucratic platitudes to the mother of one teen. He is a pathetic human, and you are a pathetically poor judge of character. You are not related to Therese by chance, as you would have to have that sort of vested intest in the issue to discount and disregard the fact that he and his government are failures.

I was truly shocked about what happened to Kevin Rudd. I was a Liberal candidate in the last election and saw first hand how people within in my area and indeed Australia wanted Kevin - not the Labor party to help deliver their dreams and aspirations. It was all taken away last night - without thought or consultation with those who put Labor back into power. Taken away by the same woman who only days ago wanted all of us to believe she was going to stand by the man she told us she believed in.

I think it very naive to believe that Labor would have won the last election on its policies - Labor won because of Kevin07 not anyone else, he was the soul of that election - I saw it first hand. I remind everyone of this because I can't believe that the Australians I met would be proud of a party that treated Kevin in the way they have after only a few bad polls, and after getting his advice from the very people who have now been promoted to Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. It makes no sense that 70 faceless men and women are able to overturn the votes of millions of Australians who voted in the Kevin07 election, they voted for his policies, his dreams for the country, Labor could never have sold their story without him. I personally do not feel any pride as a woman that another woman has allowed herself to be used by a party in this way to become the first unelected Female prime Minister. Gillard could have said NO she may have only had a few months to wait. It should have been the choice of the Australians who voted him in to vote him out.
I think we have lost far more than we will ever gain by accepting this to be a legitimate act of democracy.
We should be sobered by the fact that this has never happened before to a first term Prime Minister - a man voted for by the people.

The majority of people who voted for the Labor Party and the Leader Kevin Rudd gave him their support so that he could tackle the issue of climate change. The people believed him when he said it was our greatest challenge and gave him unprecedented support to do this. Mr Rudd should have taken the ETS to a double dissolution. Abbot would have been seen as the spoiler washed away and we would have the ETS and Rudd would still be Prime Minister. At the time he was assassinated he was still the most popular of the alternatives and the government was still the preferred option. The factions have won and Gillard is another good Labor female sacrificed.