Should there be a leadership change in the Australian Labor Government?

As the federal election in Australia gets closer, so does the speculation of a leadership change in the Labor government. Ever since the 2010 election, the media and the Liberal party has been on a long campaign of speculating that any moment now, Prime Minister Julia Gillard will be removed as leader of the Labor party and government to be replaced by previous Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. On a couple of occasions the reports have been true with Rudd challenging Gillard in  caucus meetings, but in both cases failed to regain the leadership, most recently been in March this year.

“There are no circumstances under which I will return to the leadership of the Australian Labor Party in the future.” - Kevin Rudd on Sunrise

As the federal parliament sits for the last few weeks before the September election, the media and other sources are jumping over hoops to declare that Gillard will be ousted as Prime Minister, although supporters of both Gillard and Rudd have been frantic at playing down any leadership challenge. On a morning show this morning  Kevin Rudd said “there are no circumstances under which I will return to the leadership of the Australian Labor Party in the future.” Hopefully this is an indication that there will be no challenge next week, as been predicted by the media.

I agree with Labor backbencher Gary Gray’s assessment of the situation, that Rudd and his supporters should contest the leadership or “shut up.” This whole talk and rumors are getting a little tiresome to me and I suspect to the rest of Australia. All that I want is a party to govern without waking up one morning with the news of a new Prime Minister, or constant reports that there might be a leadership challenge.

The last think that the embattled Labor government needs is a disruptive leadership change, just a few months before an election. I think that Gillard is performing as good of a job as Kevin Rudd could do if he was able to take over as leader, which is a little late now.

If the polls are correct, opposition leader Tony Abbott and his Liberal party are predicted to win the September election and any leadership change this close to the ballet would likely not affect the outcome. So perhaps, before Rudd and his supporters try going for the top job they should sit back and consider that any action will probably not reinstate the Labor as the governing party. The only way of a victory for the government is for all party members to concentrate on supporting Gillard as Prime Minister and coming up with sound policy, demonstrating that they can still offer a better future for Australia, rather then a government led by Tony Abbott.