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.

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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.