Australia has a new Prime Minister after an internal coup d'etat by the ruling Labor Party replaced Kevin Rudd with Julia Gillard. They ditch leaders quite a lot in that party, Rudd himself came to office when he knifed Kim Beazley. Several other Labor leaders have found themselves unceremoniously dumped starting with Bill Hayden 30 years ago who was replaced by the much more effective Bob Hawke.
The ruthlessness of the party is in stark contrast to their British equivalent, our Labour Party develops a sentimental attachment to their leaders no matter how useless they turn out to be and no matter how much it hurts their party. Michael Foot, Neil Kinnock and Gordon Brown have all benefited from this. The only leader they have knifed was the one who brought them multiple election victories.
The Australians have it right in my view, keeping a leader who isn't cutting the mustard is a betrayal of the voters, especially in a two party system.
Virtuous can-kicking
7 minutes ago
5 comments:
'strewth, Sheila!
Yet another unelected leader.
And the one time they did not do it, the Queens representative did it for them
"The 1975 Australian constitutional crisis ...culminated on 11 November 1975 with the removal of the Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam of the Australian Labor Party, by Governor-General Sir John Kerr. Kerr then appointed the Leader of the Opposition Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister." Wiki.
Which action was supported in the subsequent election.
The ALP puts our Labouristas to shame.
Kevin Rudd also touched on one of the third rails of Aussie politics, namely who gets the goodies from Australia's abundant natural resources. His proposed mining tax went down like a bomb with the likes of BHP Billiton & Rio Tinto.
The distribution of mineral exraction largesse in Australia is highly contentious, and has the capacity to put Aboriginals against 'White' Australia, and Western Australia against the other states. Julia Gillard was right to have got Rudd to walk over this one.
Mark- interesting point.
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