The Rudd Government

"This edited collection examines Commonwealth administration under the leadership Prime Minister Kevin Rudd from 2007-2010. This was a remarkable period in Australian history: Rudd’s government was elected in 2007 with an ambitious program for change. However, as the chapters in this book demonstrate, these ambitions were thwarted by a range of factors, not the least being Rudd's failure to press ahead when he confronted 'road blocks' such the ETS or managing his massive agenda which constantly elevated issues to 'first order priority'. Although he started his term with stratospheric approval ratings, only two years later his support had collapsed and on 24 July 2010 he became the first sitting Prime Minister to be removed by his own Party before the expiry of his first term. In this book, expert contributors consider the Rudd Government’s policy, institutional and political legacy. The 14 chapters are organised into four sections, outlining the issues and agendas that guided Rudd’s government, changes to the institutions of state such as the public service and parliament, followed by discussions of key issues and policies that marked Rudd's term in office. The final section examines Rudd’s leadership and reflects on the personal foibles and political factors that brought his Prime Ministership undone. The Rudd Government has been produced by the ANZSOG Institute for Governance at the University of Canberra. It is the tenth in a series of books on successive Commonwealth administrations. Each volume has provided a chronicle and commentary of major events, policies and issues that have dominated successive administrations since 1983. As with previous volumes in the series, contributors have been drawn from a range of universities and other organisations."--Publisher's website.

This edited collection examines Commonwealth administration under the leadership Prime Minister Kevin Rudd from 2007-2010. This was a remarkable period in Australian history: Rudd's government was elected in 2007 with an ambitious program for change. However, as the chapters in this book demonstrate, these ambitions were thwarted by a range of factors, not the least being Rudd's failure to press ahead when he confronted 'road blocks' such the ETS or managing his massive agenda which constantly elevated issues to 'first order priority'. Although he started his term with stratospheric approval ratings, only two years later his support had collapsed and on 24 July 2010 he became the first sitting Prime Minister to be removed by his own Party before the expiry of his first term. In this book, expert contributors consider the Rudd Government's policy, institutional and political legacy. The 14 chapters are organised into four sections, outlining the issues and agendas that guided Rudd's government, changes to the institutions of state such as the public service and parliament, followed by discussions of key issues and policies that marked Rudd's term in office.The final section examines Rudd's leadership and reflects on the personal foibles and political factors that brought his Prime Ministership undone. THE RUDD GOVERNMENT has been produced by the ANZSOG Institute for Governance at the University of Canberra. It is the tenth in a series of books on successive Commonwealth administrations. Each volume has provided a chronicle and commentary of major events, policies and issues that have dominated successive administrations since 1983. As with previous volumes in the series, contributors have been drawn from a range of universities and other organisations.

It was the coup that killed Australian politics. Less than three years after taking government in a landslide election victory, Kevin Rudd was betrayed by his deputy and the factional powerbrokers of the Australian Labor Party, the 'Faceless Men', despite enjoying historically high personal and party approval ratings. The betrayal of June 2010 is the most significant Australian political event of the century. No prime minister including Rudd has since seen out a full term before being dethroned by their own caucus. But how did party games in Canberra spiral so catastrophically out of control?Kevin Rudd defeated John Howard on a platform of fresh ideas, progressive innovation and new leadership. He inherited two wars and the legacy of eleven years of conservative economic mismanagement. And within months of taking office, his new government would face the greatest economic cataclysm since the Great Depression - the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. But none of these deterred Rudd from his vision of bringing Australia into the modern age.In witty, forthright and audaciously honest prose, Rudd recounts his early triumphs and challenges in the hard business of government. But beyond the policy goals he kicked - from raising the pension to axing WorkChoices to laying the foundation for a decades-long Labor dream of paid parental leave - he takes us into cabinet, the prime minister's office and the back-corridor conversations that reshaped the country. We learn of the wheeling and dealing of governance as Rudd works with President Obama in the face of the financial crisis, apologises to the Stolen Generations and ratifies the Kyoto Protocol. Yet regardless of Rudd's efforts to combat climate change and his success in keeping Australia out of recession - the great moral and economic challenges of our generation - dark forces within his own party conspired against him. The unceremonious removal of a first-term prime minister from office shocked Rudd as much as it did the nation.Despite great pain, Rudd continued to serve his party, and his country, as backbencher and foreign minister. He documents his time in the wilderness before his brief resurrection as Labor leader and the 2013 election, retaking the party after it had truly 'lost its way'.After years of silence, the 26th Prime Minister of Australia is finally on the record about his time in government, in this second volume of his autobiography. This is the memoir of a prime minister full of energy and ideals, while battling the greatest trials of the modern age. This is Kevin Rudd's response to the ultimate political - and personal - betrayal.'Kevin is somebody who I probably share as much of a world view as any world leader out there. I find him smart but humble. He works wonderfully in multilateral settings; he's always constructive, incisive. And you know I think he is, like me, a pragmatic person. I think he comes to the job wanting to provide better opportunities not just for this generation but for the next. But I think you know he's somebody who isn't an academic, or just thinking about abstract ideas; I think he's constantly thinking in very practical terms about how to get something done.' BARACK OBAMA

It was a very different Kevin Rudd who returned to office in 2013. Kevin 07 was a fresh face and a new image: the convivial, Mandarin-speaking nerd who seemed so different from past leaders and who held so much potential. By 2013 Rudd retained some of his popularity but none of his novelty. The Opposition could say nothing derogatory about him that his colleagues had not already said. A series of policy grenades had to be defused. His second term was to be short, brutal and nasty. Yet, despite his defeat, Kevin Rudd was an unusual Labor leader and prime minister. Political scientist and biographer Patrick Weller spent several years observing and talking to Rudd and the people around him to explain how one person came to the job and sought to meet its demands. Weller takes us back to Rudd's boyhood in Nambour, son of a poor Queensland dairy farmer; to a member without a faction who led a bitterly factionalised party; to the only federal Labor leader to win a majority since Paul Keating in 1993; and to only the second prime minister since 1914 to be sworn in for a second time. This book has the advantage of interviews in 2008 and 2009 with ministers who were then supporters but who became diehard enemies. Weller also had the benefit of unique access to the Prime Minister's Office. His biography is a revealing account of the man who became prime minister - twice.

The years 2010 to 2013 saw a remarkable period in Australian political history: Julia Gillard became Australia's first female prime minister after she successfully staged a leadership challenge to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. A few months later she led her party to the 2010 federal election, and subsequently steered through seventeen days of negotiation with three independent members to successfully form her second, but minority, government. Yet, three years and three days later, she was overthrown by the very man she had originally dethroned. In this book, expert contributors consider the turbulence of that period and reflect on the Gillard governments' policy-setting, institutional and political legacies. In particular, they consider the issue of Gillard's leadership of a minority government and the arrangements needed to work with the Greens and independents to achieve Labor policies in the parliament. A recurring theme raised by many of the authors relates to the many distractions that prevented Gillard and Labor from gaining popular traction during the period. The book gives particular attention to Gillard as a female leader and the relentless campaign of denigration that pursued her, drawing conclusions about the fate of many women who assume positions of significant power in the Australian community. The Gillard Governments has been produced by the ANZSOG Institute for Governance at the University of Canberra. It is the eleventh in a series of books on successive Commonwealth administrations. Each volume has provided a chronicle and commentary of major events, policies and issues that have dominated successive administrations since 1983.

Based on an extensive series of detailed and off-the-record interviews, Nicholas Stuart - Kevin Rudd's biographer and the author of an acclaimed study into the 2007 election - provides a critical examination of Labor in office and of the key events and crucial moments leading to Rudd's downfall. Rudd's Way presents the first in-depth analysis of the way that Kevin Rudd's government worked and why Labor eventually decided its leader had to be removed. Stuart argues that, more than under any previous government, the policies and direction of Australia over the period from November 2007 to June 2010 were set by just one man - Prime Minister Kevin Rudd - until he finally overreached himself and threatened to lead the party to electoral oblivion. The background events and policy blunders that led to Rudd's fall are described here in gripping detail, until we come to the final cataclysmic moment when the prime minister realised he'd been abandoned by the very team he'd led to government. It is the tragic story of a man who swam out of his depth; who wanted to achieve much, but was eventually unable to take action on climate change - the one thing he wanted to do more than anything else. This is a book that no voter who wants to understand the challenges of the future can afford to be without.

Featuring new material. 'I was prime minister for three years and three days.Three years and three days of resilience.Three years and three days of changing the nation.Three years and three days for you to judge.' Featuring new material. 'I was prime minister for three years and three days.Three years and three days of resilience.Three years and three days of changing the nation.Three years and three days for you to judge.' On Wednesday 23 June 2010, with the government in turmoil, Julia Gillard asked Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for a leadership ballot. The next day, Julia Gillard became Australia's 27th prime minister, and our first female leader. Australia was alive to the historic possibilities. Here was a new approach for a new time. It was to last three extraordinary years. This is Julia Gillard's chronicle of that turbulent time, a strikingly candid self-portrait of a political leader seeking to realise her ideals. It is her story of what it was like - in the face of government in-fighting and often hostile media - to manage a hung parliament, build a diverse and robust economy, create an equitable and world-class education system, ensure a dignified future for Australians with disabilities, all while attending to our international obligations and building strategic alliances for our future. This is a politician driven by a sense of purpose - from campus days with the Australian Union of Students, to a career in the law, to her often gritty, occasionally glittering rise up the ranks of the Australian Labor Party. Refreshingly honest, peppered with a wry humour and personal insights, Julia Gillard does not shy away from her mistakes, admitting freely to errors, misjudgements, and policy failures as well as detailing her political successes. In the immediate aftermath of the leadership, here is her account, of what was hidden behind the resilience and dignified courage Gillard showed as prime minister, her view of the vicious hate campaigns directed against her, and a reflection on what it means - and what it takes - to be a woman leader in contemporary politics. With new material and fresh insights, Julia Gillard reveals what life was really like as Australia's first female prime minister.