Julia Gillard vs. Kevin Rudd, An Ongoing Battle Still
Back in June of 2010, Julia Gillard challenged the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for leadership. Knowing that he would be defeated if he fought the challenge, Mr Rudd resigned as prime Minister.
In June of 2013, Ms Gillard was then ousted as Australia's prime minister with no other than Mr Rudd reclaiming the seat of power.
It might seem like, it was a revenge won by Mr Rudd.
However, the battle between these two political personalities is still ongoing 3 months after. This was proven by different intrigues coming to light: Australian Labor Party members said that Ms Gillard is better off at campaign and might lead the party to a sure win for the Sept. 7 election; Ms Gillard withheld herself from campaigning for the party so as not to steal the spotlight from Mr Rudd.
Just recently, Fairfax chairman Roger Corbett made a bold analysis that Mr Rudd was openly discredited by his own unimpressive campaign behaviour and that Labor should have stuck with Ms Gillard instead.
In an interview with "Lateline" program of ABC, Mr Corbett said that Mr Rudd had allegedly destabilised and ruined the Australian Labor Party.
"His colleagues sacked him because they judged him to be incapable as prime minister. In my view, Kevin Rudd is a leader that has been really discredited by his own conduct. Here's a man that has really done the Labor Party enormous damage, destabilised it and is now wishing to present himself to the Australian people as a prime minister .. and as the incoming prime minister. I don't think the Australian people will cop that, to be quite honest, and I think that's very sad for the Labor Party," Mr Corbett said.
Mr Corbett also stated that Mr Rudd's prior behaviour during the 2010 election scarred the image of the Labor party.
He said that Mr Rudd forming alliance with the Greens to hold power "had a terrible effect on Labor and probably put them in a position that they needed to enter into a coalition with the Greens which was a very limiting factor... and they were destabilised."
Meanwhile, Mr Rudd, in an interview with Channel Nine, spoke as if he was not affected by Mr Corbett's strong comments.
Mr Rudd said that Mr Corbett's analysis is "a matter for Mr Corbett."
"[It's] a free country, anyone can say what they like," he told Channel Nine. "I notice Mr Corbett had probably done OK in business in recent years. Good on him, because I'm about his business succeeding in order to generate jobs for all Australians."
On the other hand, Ms Gillard was firm to distance herself from anything that has got to do with Mr Rudd, the Labor Party or the election itself.
Ms Gillard attended an event of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a guest speaker just hours following Mr Rudd's election campaign launch.
In her speech, she spoke of her past experience as prime minister without any association to her present political status.
"There is always a million things happening at once [when you're prime minister] and you could lose the hours of every day chasing down the million things that are happening, or you could concentrate and do the two or three big things that are going to make the longest-term impact or difference. When people are running at you with the million things, it can be hard to discipline for that, but it's incredibly important discipline and I think the younger you learn it, the easier it becomes."