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November 27th, 2011 
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Kevin Rudd said the Labor Party is at risk of becoming a marginalised third party if it doesn’t change.
REFORM TALK: Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd is repositioning his leadership ambitions, party insiders claim. Picture: John Grainger
Source: The Daily Telegraph
KEVIN Rudd has called for a “national conversation” about allowing Labor’s 35,000 members to choose the party’s parliamentary leader – a controversial reform that could see him in with a chance of reclaiming the prime ministership.
Mr Rudd made the suggestion yesterday as senior Labor figures lashed out at him, saying the Minister for Foreign Affairs was causing trouble for Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
The former PM said the party had nothing to fear from its rank and file membership and that they were “much closer” to the Australian people than the party’s factions.
It came as Mr Rudd made a telling slip of the tongue, describing what he would do in regards to party reform “if elected”.
He later denied he meant elected back into the PM’s role, but his colleagues yesterday said Mr Rudd was still trying to position himself as a contender.
Senior party figures said Mr Rudd’s calls to hand power back to the rank and file would not be supported because he was not conciliatory when leader.
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“He’s saying do as I say, not as I did,” one Labor insider said.
Mr Rudd addressed a book launch in Brisbane on Saturday, warning that the Labor Party would be marginalised if it didn’t reform itself.
Mr Rudd called for the direct election by rank and file members of the ALP’s national executive, national secretary and conference delegates.
But yesterday the Minister went a step further, saying Labor should consider the idea of rank and file members choosing the party’s leader.
“I think there can be a national conversation about that,” Mr Rudd said. “It’s highly controversial . . . this should be part of the national conversation of the Labor Party.”
While Mr Rudd is more popular than Ms Gillard nationally, within the Labor Caucus he lacks sufficient support for a leadership comeback.
Premier Anna Bligh yesterday backed Mr Rudd’s criticisms of Labor factions.
“What is not acceptable is when those organisations within organisations, call them factions or anything else, become so entrenched and so removed from other members of the group that it becomes unhealthy,” she said.
Queensland Labor backbenchers said Mr Rudd was entitled to a view but his most recent proposals had not been expressed by him in the past.
“This view is one of novelty I’ve never heard him express before,” Member for Blair Shayne Neumann said.
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