Mr Patel's assessment of what Gillard should and shouldn't do are based on a personal political viewpoint rather than constitutional sense. The depiction of Rudd's demise as a midnight execution or whatever suggests that Gillard was the sole participant in the demise. The Party made the decision, Rudd had the opportunity to take it to the vote. He declined. Democratically elected political parties can and do change leaders at any given time. The call for Gillard to resign from Cabinet because she disagreed on a policy is a nonsense in terms Cabinet government procedures. The convention is that while a member may disagree, once the decision is made, Cabinet solidarity is a principle that all members are presumed to abide. This is the primary reason that the cabinet leaks after the event are such a talking point as it is deemed by all parties that cabinet solidarity remains just that for the term of that government's life in Cabinet

Why would Rudd want a role in cabinet?

Impossible to know the answer unless he tells us.

However, being chucked out of the PM's position doesn't necessarily mean he wants to leave parliament, and why should it? He's still an MP, it's still his job,he still has the right to campaign, and if re-elected as the people's choice in that electorate, he's still entitled to lobby for a ministerial position.

Rudd didn't do some ghastly shameful or criminal thing to cause the loss of leadership. He doesn't have to slink off into oblivion and hide, however much it might suit the ALP for him to do that.

As for cabinet solidarity - Gillard was the first one to blow that when she took office and informed us that the government had lost it's way. If that's not breaching cabinet solidarity, I don't know what is.

All the leaks are doing is filling us in in just how that way was lost.

To answer the authors' last sentence..

Rudd wants to be PM again.

Beggars belief , I know , but what other reason can there be ?

The situation is different if members of government are considered to be part of the public service, who are paid wages by the public.

Julia Gillard appeared in a 32 page inset in Woman’s Weekly magazine, but then she does not want to tell the public how she became Prime Minister. Meanwhile, the public pay the wages of politicians such as Julia Gillard.

The public is being used as puppets.

The situation is not, in any way, a good example for others in the public service.

Acton, you were not paying attention. Mr Patel's article accurately describes both the constitutional position and the traditions derived from the Westminister system. There is no element of personal opinion in the article, just fact.

"The Party" did not make the decision to dump Rudd. There was no vote. Rudd resigned rather than respond to the Gillard challenge. It was her decision to take it to caucus, not his. As usual, Labor machine men had quietly undermined Rudd's position to the point where he resigned rather than lose face.

As the deputy prime minister, Julia Gillard should have resigned if she felt unable to agree with cabinet decisions. She did not resign. Therefore she accepted joint responsibility for them. The convention is that no minister may publicly disagree with a cabinet decision once it is made. That particularly applies where a minister's own submission has been rejected or amended in cabinet. The other option is resignation if the minister feels strongly that cabinet has made the wrong decision and he/she cannot accept or abide by it. She did not resign, therefore...

Gillard was deputy prime minister in the disastrous Rudd Government - including her own disastrous policies and administration relating to the BER and IR. She is now prime minister of the disastrous Gillard government. Same lot minus Rudd.

Yesterday's revelation by Robert Gottliebsen that Gillard's own IR policies were undermined by Combet and Rudd indicates that she went to water on that policy, too, and accepted decisions contrary to the policy she had developed. She thus wears responsibility. See here: http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/How-Rudd-turned-on-Gillard-pd20100729-7STND?OpenDocument&src=kgb

So we now have a prime minister who could have resigned on a matter of principle, but did not and who thus cannot disown the policies for which she, as deputy prime minister and second most senior minister in the cabinet, accepted joint responsibility.

So she either lacks principles or was a dud minister. Or both.

If the Rudd government "lost its way", as she claims, so too did she. That's why she keeps parroting "moving forward", because if anyone looks back, they'll see only the train wreck.

"What remains puzzling is why a prime minister, deposed from the pinnacle of public offices, would seek re-election and would accept or even seek to secure a lesser role in a cabinet in the meantime, led by a person who carried out a “midnight execution”.

Such is the sickness of the power-hungry.