 First edition | |
| Author | Paul Kelly |
|---|---|
| Subject | The Rudd-Gillard Labor Governments in Australia |
| Publisher | Melbourne University Publishing |
Publication date | 2014 |
| Media type | Hard cover |
| ISBN | 9780522862102 |
Triumph and Demise: The broken promise of a Labor generation is a 2014 book which chronicles the rise and fall of the Australian Labor Party governments of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard (2007-2013) by the Australian author and journalist Paul Kelly.
Paul John Kelly is an Australian political journalist and historian and a commentator on radio and television. He is the current Editor-at-Large of The Australian newspaper, where he writes on Australian politics, public policy and international affairs. Paul appears as a commentator on Sky News and is the author of seven books: The Unmaking of Gough (1976), The Hawke Ascendancy (1984), The End of Certainty (1992), November 1975 (1995), Paradise Divided (2000), 100 Years: The Australian Story (2001) and The March of Patriots (2009). [1]
Triumph and Demise was launched by the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott in Canberra in 2014. It chronicles the six years of the Rudd-Gillard Labor governments, including the Liberal opposition of the period. [2] The author conducted interviews with more than 60 of the key players of the Rudd-Gillard era, and explores the tensions at the heart of the strained relationships between the central personalities at the heart of the Labor governments. [3]
ABC TV's Tony Jones described the book as looking at the achievements and the failures of the Rudd and Gillard governments and of "a malaise that's making it near impossible for governments to do their jobs properly and implement effective reform" in Australia. Kelly told Jones that the story of Rudd and Gillard was unprecedented: "We've never seen this before. We have never seen an event like this before. Kevin Rudd was a hero in 2007. He campaigned brilliantly against John Howard. He won a great triumph for the Labor Party. It was assumed, it was assumed generally that Labor would have three terms in office - that seemed to be an expectation, a quite proper expectation - and then two and a half years later, Rudd was destroyed by his own party. [...] I argue in the book that this was the fatal move by Labor, that essentially what happened here was that Kevin Rudd's prime ministership was certainly destroyed, but Julia Gillard, the other candidate, the deputy, the successor to Kevin Rudd, was also crippled by the way she became Prime Minister. So essentially what happened that night was you had two events. There were two figures in this partnership, Rudd and Gillard; the partnership fell apart, but both those figures were fatally undermined on that night." [4]
Paul John Kelly is an Australian political journalist, author and television and radio commentator from Sydney. He has worked in a variety of roles, principally for The Australian newspaper and is currently its editor-at-large. Kelly also appears as a commentator on Sky News Australia and has written seven books on political events in Australia since the 1970s including on the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis. Recent works include The March of Patriots, which chronicles the creation of a modern Australia during the 1991–2007 era of prime ministers, Paul Keating and John Howard, and Triumph & Demise which focuses on the leadership tensions at the heart of the Rudd-Gillard Labor governments of 2007 to 2011. Kelly presented the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) TV documentary series 100 Years – The Australian Story (2001) and wrote a book of the same title.
Kevin Michael Rudd is an Australian diplomat and former politician who served as the 26th prime minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010 and June to September 2013. He held office as the leader of the Labor Party (ALP) and was the member of parliament (MP) the Queensland division of Griffith from 1998 to 2013. Since 2023, Rudd has been the ambassador of Australia to the United States.
Julia Eileen Gillard is an Australian former politician who served as the 27th prime minister of Australia from 2010 to 2013. She held office as leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and was the member of parliament (MP) for the Victorian division of Lalor from 1998 to 2013. She previously served as the 13th deputy prime minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010, under Kevin Rudd. She is the first and only woman to hold either office in Australian history.
Anthony John Abbott is an Australian former politician who served as the 28th prime minister of Australia from 2013 to 2015. He held office as the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia and was the member of parliament (MP) for the New South Wales division of Warringah from 1994 to 2019.
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In Australian politics, a leadership spill is a declaration that the leadership of a parliamentary party is vacant and open for contest. A spill may involve all or some of the leadership positions. Where a rival to the existing leader calls for a spill it may also be called a leadership challenge. When successful, it is often said that the former leader has been "rolled". In Australian English the colloquial use of the word "spill" seems to have begun in the mid-1940s with the contest to replace Prime Minister John Curtin after his death on 5 July 1945.
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A leadership spill occurred in the Australian Labor Party on 24 June 2010. Kevin Rudd, the prime minister of Australia, was challenged by Julia Gillard, the deputy prime minister of Australia, for the leadership of the Australian Labor Party. Gillard won the election unopposed after Rudd declined to contest, choosing instead to resign. Gillard was duly sworn in as prime minister by Quentin Bryce, the Governor-General, on 24 June 2010 at Government House, becoming Australia's first female prime minister.
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The Gillard government was the Government of Australia led by the 27th prime minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, of the Australian Labor Party. The Gillard government succeeded the first Rudd government by way of the Labor Party leadership spill, and began on 24 June 2010, with Gillard sworn in as prime minister by the governor-general of Australia, Quentin Bryce. The Gillard government ended when Kevin Rudd won back the leadership of the Australian Labor Party on 26 June 2013 and commenced the second Rudd government.
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A leadership spill in the Australian Labor Party, the party of government in the Parliament of Australia, was held on 27 February 2012 at 10 am AEDT, followed by a ballot. The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, announced the spill at a press conference on 23 February 2012, following the resignation of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Kevin Rudd, from his cabinet position after months of speculation that he intended to challenge Gillard for the leadership. Rudd announced his intention to seek the leadership at a press conference on 24 February.
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The second Rudd ministry (Labor) was the 67th ministry of the Australian government, led by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. It succeeded the second Gillard ministry after a leadership spill within the Australian Labor Party that took place on 26 June 2013. Three members of the ministry were sworn in by Governor-General Quentin Bryce on 27 June 2013. These were Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister; Anthony Albanese, Deputy Prime Minister; and Chris Bowen, Treasurer. The remainder of the ministry were sworn in on 1 July 2013.
The second Rudd government was the federal executive Government of Australia led by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of the Australian Labor Party. It commenced on 27 June 2013 and ceased on 18 September 2013. Rudd had previously served a term as Prime Minister from 2007 to 2010 and been replaced by his deputy Julia Gillard, following an internal party spill. Rudd regained the Labor Party leadership by successfully re-challenging Gillard in a June 2013 party spill. On 5 August, Rudd called an election for 7 September 2013, which resulted in the defeat of his government by the Liberal/National Coalition led by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.
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