Julia Gillard: 'Rudd was menacing, angry and bullying.'

Julia Gillard claims Kevin Rudd once tried to physically intimidate and bully her after an Opposition tactics meeting in 2007.

Mr Rudd says Ms Gillard is a liar.

It is just one of many moments where the memories of the two protagonists in the Rudd-Gillard years jar when recounted in the ABC’s much-anticipated documentary, The Killing Season, which goes to air next Tuesday.

The first episode shows starkly that the two have constructed their own memory worlds and move in different universes.

The value of this series is that, for the first time, the world views are presented together and in the words of the players.

Viewers can decide whether one, the other, or neither is closest to the truth.

In Julia World, her sense of disquiet about Mr Rudd’s leadership style pre-dated his prime ministership but she hoped his “anxiousness” about always needing to be the centre of attention would dissipate.

It didn’t and the longer he reigned the more disturbed Ms Gillard became — by the end of 2009 she describes his style in government as “chaos”.

In Kevin World, the two got on famously and he was oblivious to her profound concerns about him until the night she stepped into his office in June 2010 and took his job in a “coup”.

Gillard’s account of bullying ‘utterly false’, Rudd says

Ms Gillard’s story of the 2007 confrontation is a dramatic moment early in the documentary.

“I was the convenor of our Parliamentary tactics committee as the manager of Opposition business,” she says.

“Kevin was always very anxious, you know, to strut his stuff in Question Time and tactics hadn’t gone his way. I had taken a view about something else forming the issue of the day.

“And after the tactics meeting had broken up he very physically stepped into my space and it was quite a bullying encounter.

“It was a, you know, menacing angry performance.”

Mr Rudd says the story is a lie.

“Utterly false,” he says. “Utterly, utterly false.”

In his world there were never any sharp moments between them.

“Never,” he says. “Never with Julia, including on the night that she marches into the office to announce the coup. I said to her repeatedly: ‘But Julia, you’re a good person. Why are you doing this?'”

Gillard admits abandoning promise to back Rudd for two elections

Given that many people have already taken sides in the Rudd-Gillard saga, it is unlikely The Killing Season will change many minds in the disputed terrain of Labor’s history wars.

But it is fair to say that Ms Gillard does not emerge well from the first episode.

She admits she told Mr Rudd she would back him for two elections, a promise clearly abandoned.

“Getting us back into government in 2007 was a big ask,” she says.

“We needed to win a lot of seats. So clearly, Kevin wanted to know that he would be supported for more than one shot, and I was prepared to say that.”

Asked why the Gang of Four that shut out the rest of Cabinet during the Global Financial Crisis was not disbanded sooner, Ms Gillard says: "Because I think in Kevin's view, in particular, he liked to do business that way".

Mr Rudd brands that "the most creative reconstruction of a political memory I've ever heard".

"I remember Julia, in particular, enjoyed and liked the relative secrecy of that small gathering," he says.

And it at least appears that when Ms Gillard routinely frets about the former prime minister's way of working, it is as an internal monologue or with someone other than the man himself.

"I consistently put the view that we needed to move to a more regular decision-making style," Ms Gillard says.

"And increasingly I discussed that with Wayne Swan, because we both knew what it was like to be in the middle of the decision-making chaos."

Crucial question — did those chats with the former treasurer include what to do about Mr Rudd?

"A lot of them were about that, about managing Kevin." Ms Gillard says, before underlining that they did not include talk of a coup.

"None of them were leadership discussions. None of them were leadership discussions about replacing Kevin."

Rudd 'better prepared than anyone in the world' for GFC

In fact, watching the first episode one could reasonably ask the question — why on earth did Labor get rid of this guy? Because if there is a hero in the first 70 minutes, it is Kevin.

Mr Rudd swept to victory in a campaign Mr Swan concedes is the best he has ever seen.

He captured the public mood on climate change, as he did magnificently in his moving apology to the Stolen Generation.

In the view of former Treasury secretary Ken Henry, it is Mr Rudd who first spots the looming catastrophe of the financial crisis.

Dr Henry says Mr Rudd was well ahead of Treasury, and by the time the crisis hit he was "better prepared for any of this stuff than any political leader anywhere else in the world".

It is a view supported by former US Treasury secretary Hank Paulson and former British PM Gordon Brown.

Mr Brown rightly credits Mr Rudd with being one of the prime movers in ensuring the G20 became the main international forum for dealing with the crisis.

That it continues to be the leading platform for discussions between presidents and prime ministers is perhaps Mr Rudd's most enduring legacy.

The round one winner? Rudd, but watch this space

The woes of the government grew in 2009 — the debt rose, the school building program was getting tagged as wasteful by the press, and then there was the disastrous home insulation rollout.

But these were troubles that belonged to all of the executive, not just the prime minister.

It is the same with the return of asylum seeker boats. And it should be noted, because the show does not, that it was a change of policy backed by the entire Labor Party that rekindled the people smuggling trade.

When asked repeatedly at the time if there was a connection with the unwinding of the Howard-era Pacific Solution and the rise in the number of boats, every minister, MP and senator denied it, saying "push factors" were at work.

Given the same government, from December 2009, began rebuilding every brick in the border protection wall, it is safe to assume Labor then recognised there might have been a policy link.

It was the moment that 78 Sri Lankan asylum seekers effectively took over the Oceanic Viking that the public confidence in the former prime minister began to crack.

According to Ms Gillard, this incident told her "where our decision-making processes had degenerated to".

She began regular chats with Mr Swan about this, but proffers no evidence that she once raised it with Mr Rudd.

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 first part of Sarah Ferguson's documentary series The Killing Season, The Prime Minister and his Loyal Deputy, goes to air on Tuesday June 9 at 8:30pm on ABC and on ABC iView.

This post originally appeared on the ABC and was republished here with full permission. 

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