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Julia Gillard - Source: ONE News
She didn't quietly stab him in the back. There was no silent hit, no muffled assassination. Her attack was public and sharp. In the space of a day it turned a powerful man, pitiful.
But she didn't finish the job.
Exactly 12 months ago, Labor MP Julia Gillard stared the Australian Prime Minister in the eye and seized him by his metaphorical nether regions. And she twisted. He was surprised, sure. And he fought.
For twenty four hours Kevin Rudd fronted television cameras and thirsty journalists pledging stoicism and resistance to Gillard's challenge. And all the while she twisted.
In the day that followed Kevin Rudd did everything he could to repel his deputy. He went back to his senior ministers. He sought their support.
He fought. She twisted. He lost. The cameras came back. This time, Kevin Rudd didn't stand strong and stoic and serious. He didn't resist. This time he cried.
If that was a messy business, it was only a pre-cursor to the general election that followed. Labor's numbers slipped and the first hung parliament in seventy years forced Julia Gillard into a minority government.
Australia's first Prime Minister succeeded in keeping power, but only just.
That was the beginning of her popularity slide, and the hill has only since turned steeper. A year since Gillard ousted Rudd, polls have the Australian Government's approval rating sitting at just 27%.
It's the lowest of any Federal Government in forty years. Adding to that, the opposition is almost twenty points ahead of Labor on a two-party preferred basis. And perhaps of most concern to Gillard, Kevin Rudd is still Australia's preferred Prime Minister, with 60% of the popular vote.
That's the problem with a bloodless coup. If you're too afraid to pull the trigger, too respectful or scared or guilty to take that final step and end it all, the other guy will always come back to bite.
Julia Gillard let Kevin Rudd live. She beat him down, humiliated him good and proper. But she let him live. She let him stay in politics, in parliament. She even made him the Minister of Foreign Affairs. And, surprise-surprise, he's back.
Just like James Bond, they didn't kill him off when they had the chance and now he's causing all sorts of problems.
The relationship between Rudd and Gillard is played out in the Australian media as a picture of tension. Any time they're together, conversations, movement, body language is finely analysed. Kevin Rudd is portrayed as seething with bitterness, fuelled by a desperate motivation to exact revenge on the woman who took his job, by seizing it back.
Julia Gillard blames the poll slumps on difficult and controversial legislation. The details of Labor's proposed carbon tax haven't even been publicly announced, and already the party faces a tide of resistance and criticism.
But constantly, debate and discussion on policy loses air time and column inches to analysis of Labor's petty inner-party politics.
Some of it just seems dumb. For example, Kevin Rudd had been planning a party this week for his former Prime-Ministerial staff, to celebrate the anniversary of his dumping. He's been quoted as calling June 24th his "Assassination Day". Add to that his alleged description of Julia Gillard as a "Bogan". He reportedly even dubbed the Prime Minister's residence "Bogan-ville".
Perhaps Rudd doesn't mean to cause distractions. Or perhaps, just maybe, he has every intent to further destabilise Julia Gillard's government.
Things are bad, but they can still get a whole lot worse. And there are still two years before the next general election - plenty of time for a new leader to settle in.
A year since her bloodless coup, Julia Gillard runs a tired party line, pledging in-party harmony and professional bliss. She says she wants to focus on making positive change.
But she should've killed him while she had the chance.
Read more Jack Tame opinion here.
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