Rudd Faces Hard Labor

21Nov07

KEVIN Rudd as prime minister will be a control freak, and not just because that's the way he obsessively ticks.

He'll be a control freak because he has little choice: he's a friendless leader promising what some in his Labor team don't want to deliver.

That's what put the sting in that dumb quip of Labor's environment zealot, Peter Garrett:

"Once we get in we'll just change it all."

You see, a series of largely under-reported gaffes by other Labor spokesmen suggests Garrett wasn't just speaking for himself.

In fact, the day Rudd wins the election is the day I expect Labor's Left, in particular, to drop its who-me? smiles and start eating its leader alive.

Or put it this way: the story of the Rudd government is likely to be of a jittery Labor leader with more formal power than any before him, trying to control people with a clearer sense of direction than he has himself.

And how will he react if they arc up? Not by trying a little Bob Hawke-style consensus.

In fact, asked last week on CNBC television about claims by (unnamed) insiders that he was a "nightmare" and an obsessive who would "micro-manage everything", Rudd didn't deny, but boasted:

"So many people want to know that whoever is head of the country's government intends to make sure the plan is delivered not just once over lightly, to get into the engine room to make sure that it happens.

"So would I be a hard taskmaster? I'm sure I would be."

Little of this looming confrontation is yet obvious to voters, with Rudd busily pretending to stand for values you'd like, with his desperate-to-win team busily pretending to applaud. But stand back after the election.

Of course, if - or, almost certainly, when - Rudd wins he will instantly become a minor Labor hero. But he won't have just the usual clout that comes with being a winning leader and the prime minister, with its levers.

In September, when he was being ridiculed for not guaranteeing the jobs of any of his frontbenchers in government, he abruptly announced - to the surprise of colleagues - he'd given himself a power no past Labor leader had enjoyed:

"Let me be clear about this. I'll be determining the composition of the Labor ministry should we be elected to form the next government of the country."

No more would it be up to the Labor MPs, through their factions, to say who got into the ministry and as what.

Many in Labor don't trust Rudd with this power at all, but cannot be seen to challenge him so close to the election. So it's smile and wave, boys. For now.

In fact, smiling and waving is about all many are allowed to do now, since Labor's candidates were ordered not to comment to the media without the approval of Labor headquarters.

Nor is this all to Rudd's power grab.

He will also create a new office of national security that will report directly to him through a new national security adviser, letting him bypass his ministers for defence and foreign affairs.

But, while Rudd's formal power will be great, his personal authority may be weak.

He has few friends in the parliamentary team, and was even at war with his deputy, the Left's Julia Gillard, until he accepted her on a joint ticket in a deal for the leadership.

Nor does he have the tribal support of his own Right faction, which tried three others from its ranks - Kim Beazley, Simon Crean and Mark Latham - before begrudgingly giving him a turn as Opposition Leader.

What Rudd has achieved - and it's a lot - has essentially been done by himself. And it's largely by himself, I suspect, that he'll keep doing it.

But doing what, exactly? For all Rudd's talk, many voters still don't know what he stands for. Or whether he means what he so glibly says.

He's the the man who told one audience:

"I am a Christian socialist." Who told another: "I am not a socialist." And who told yet someone else, who'd asked if he believed "in Jesus Christ, the Son of God": "Well, I'm a - I'm a - a person who attends church regularly."

He's the man who when asked on American television for a Melbourne Cup tip, said "I'm not a betting man". Who, after a quick briefing, then told an Australian reporter he tipped Maybe Better, declaring "I am a mad punter from way back".

He's the man who on becoming Opposition Leader said we faced a "fork in the road" and Labor must be "an alternative, not an echo". Who is now famous for echoing scores of government policies, me-tooing even its entire May Budget.

In short, he's a man who seems far less certain of his agenda than do many of the ministers he'll try to micro-manage.

Want a hint of the clashes to come, and how bruising they'll be? The clues are in this campaign already.

Clue one: Peter Garrett tells a newspaper that a Rudd government would sign a new global deal to cut emissions, even if China, the world's biggest polluter, refused.

It's what you'd expect a global warming evangelist like Garrett to say, and is at first endorsed by Rudd, who agrees he would first "accept targets and . . . then leverage the Chinese".

But, when the media point out how dumb this is, Rudd tells Garrett to perform a public backflip with grovel.

Clue two: foreign affairs spokesman Robert McClelland announces Labor will campaign against the death penalty everywhere, even when it's applied to terrorists.

This is Labor's official policy, endorsed by Rudd, who has said "capital punishment is unacceptable in all circumstances and all jurisdictions".

But when the media point out how dumb it would be to fight to save Bali bombers from execution, Rudd tells McClelland to perform a public backflip and grovel.

Clue three: indigenous affairs spokeswoman Jenny Macklin and backbencher Warren Snowdon tell Aborigines they are against key parts of the Government's intervention in troubled black communities.

They attack in particular the scrapping of the CDEP "work for dole" scheme, to make recipients move to mainstream programs, where their payments can be quarantined to pay for food for their children.

"Getting rid of the CDEP . . . will actually make communities, parents and children more vulnerable," declares Macklin.

Adds Snowdon, also of the Left:

"There are significant points of difference (between Labor and Liberal on the intervention) - the question of CDEP, the question of permits, the issue of how people deal with their land."

But, when Rudd is asked how far he'd roll back the intervention, he gives a very different answer: "Well, we don't intend to roll it back at all."

At all.

Has he told Macklin and Snowdon yet to do backflip and grovel?

But here again is Rudd saying one thing, when many in his party are ideologically inclined to the other.

But, for now, those critics will shut up.

Even the unions who have donated tens of millions of dollars to Rudd's campaign - and are sending ex-ACTU boss Greg Combet into a Rudd government through a safe seat to look after their interests - have left on their tight bright smiles as Rudd is forced to drop some of their demands.

I guess they accept the argument Julia Gillard put when she was one of the leaders of the communist-formed Socialist Forum, that the Left should treat Labor as a kind of Trojan horse:

"Within that (Labor) administration the Left needs to be willing to participate to shape political outcomes, recognising the need to except (sic) often unpalatable compromises in the short term to bolster the prospect of future advance."

That means biding time until the election is won. Then Labor will sort out who really is controlling whom.

My hopes will be on Rudd, but the odds might be against the loner.