Old Labor wounds have been re-opened in a new documentary.
She describes it as “a menacing, angry performance.”
He says it she is a liar.
It’s just one of the many points former Prime Ministers Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd disagree upon in the new ABC series, The Killing Season by journalist Sarah Ferguson.
The encounter Ms Gillard is referring to is from a meeting in 2007.
She said one day after Mr Rudd did not get his way “he very physically stepped into my space and it was quite a bullying encounter”.
She says:
“Kevin was always very anxious to strut his stuff in question time. And tactics hadn’t gone his way. I’d taken a view about something else forming the issue of the day. After the tactic meeting broke up he very physically stepped into my space, it was quite a bullying encounter. It was a, you know, menacing, angry performance.”
Mr Rudd denies the encounter ever took place saying Ms Gillard is a liar.
“That is utterly false,” he said. “Utterly, utterly false.”
Asked by ABC reporter Sarah Ferguson whether he recalled ever having any angry exchanges with Ms Gillard, Mr Rudd replied “never”.
He says that even on the night “she marched into his office and demanded a spill.”
“I said to her repeatedly ‘but Julia, you’re a good person, why are you doing this’?”
It’s the political documentary that will no doubt be dominating the narrative over the next few weeks revealing bitter disputes behind the scenes.
The first episode of a three-part ABC series begins next Tuesday June 9th.
The first episode in the explosive series, which covers the years 2006 to 2009 is titled “The Prime Minister and his Loyal Deputy”.
It focuses upon the years surrounding the 2007 Federal Election, when Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard market themselves as an “inseparable team, laughing off any suggestion of tension.”
Producers say, “only now is Gillard prepared to talk about the bitter disagreements behind the scenes.”
Ms Gillard reveals in the episode that in 2006 she agreed to support Mr Rudd “for more than one shot” at becoming prime minister after they challenged Kim Beazley and Jenny Macklin for the leadership of the Labor Party.
But after the 2007 election, Ms Gillard says she and treasurer Wayne Swan began to have discussions about Mr Rudd’s “decision-making chaos” and “about managing Kevin”.
According to The Australian whose journalists have viewed the episode Ms Gillard says Mr Rudd was “fragile” and “not coping”, which is why in part she went through with the leadership coup.
In yet another example of the toxic leadership tension which led to the disintegration of the government, Ms Gillard claims that Mr Rudd refused to disband the “gang of four” decision making process involving himself, Ms Gillard, Wayne Swan and Lindsay Tanner after the global financial crisis ended because “he preferred to do business that way”.
Mr Rudd, however, says “That is the most creative reconstruction of a political memory I have ever heard, I remember Julia in particular enjoyed and liked the relative secrecy of that small gathering.”
And so it goes.
The ABC’s political editor, Chris Uhlmann writes:
This is a masterful, important and compelling piece of television but, as yet, it has not explained why Labor’s Caucus would, just six months later, enthusiastically embrace the midnight assassination of a first-term prime minister who was leading the Coalition 52-48 in the polls.
Politicians are a competitive lot and will be watching this show looking for winners.
In that world, round one of The Killing Season goes to Kevin. They will avidly await round two.”
The Killing Fields airs Tuesday June 9 at 8:30pm on ABC and on ABC iView.
For more:
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Top Comments
So at least one (possibly both) of our last two ALP ex PMs is a lying sociopath? My money is on Julia telling the truth as for all her many shortcomings as PM people whose judgement I respect tell me she is and was a pretty decent person. Even so, she doesn't come out of it all that well. Admittedly it doesn't rise to the level of wearing a blue tie or looking at one's watch while a woman is speaking but some people consider physically intimidating a woman to be evidence of, what was that word, misogyny. If I recall correctly she had promised to call this out whenever and wherever she saw it, not just when it was politically convenient to do so.
Either way, an early Christmas present for Abbott and Shorten has to explain why he supported, at different times, both of these two as PMs and the rest of us are reminded why we were so keen to see the back of the last ALP Government. After an admittedly rough early patch, I think Tone is back in the game and I think he will win the next election with an increased majority. Bill is toast - Tanya has already started to sharpen the knives - and he'll be gone by the end of the year.
I am yet to see anyone perform as aggressively and provocatively in parliament as Julia Gillard. A shrinking violet she is not. Yet she plays that victim card over and over again.