"I can't retreat from that view" ... Foreign Minister Bob Carr agrees an internal review he co-authored should be released.
Foreign Minister Bob Carr agrees that a Labor Party internal review that he co-authored should be made public.
The fraught internal dealings of the ALP were again in the spotlight yesterday with former finance minister Lindsay Tanner airing a harsh assessment of those who ousted the former prime minister Kevin Rudd.
Mr Tanner, in Politics with Purpose, argued that the coup was an extreme overreaction to deficiencies in the Rudd style that have since been enormously exaggerated by ministers.
Former MP Maxine McKew also called for the release of the review, saying she believed the Labor Party was being run and owned by a few "who don't want to see reform of a 120-year-old party".
The internal party review was commissioned by Prime Minister Julia Gillard after the 2010 federal election, due to concerns about falling membership and the disrupted campaign that resulted in the present hung Parliament. Senator Carr conducted the review it with fellow senior Labor Party figures John Faulkner and Steve Bracks.
After sections of the report were obtained by the media, renewing tensions between Ms Gillard and Mr Rudd, the authors called for it to be released in its entirety to defuse party in-fighting.
The Sydney Morning Herald's Phillip Coorey obtained the so-called "sealed section" of the 2010 election review, which cited a period of drift and complacency for the Rudd government that began in mid-2009, after the opposition, under Malcolm Turnbull, was crippled by the Godwin Grech "utegate" affair.
"Throughout this period there were 1900 press releases, however unlike with the earlier periods of government, there were no iconic issues for the public to latch on to," the report - as quoted by the Herald last December - said.
"Ministers would make announcements and then move on to something different very quickly. In this context, the government was beginning to be seen by a portion of the population as lacking a core purpose and being driven by spin."
The report accused the Rudd government of being rich on themes, announcements and talking up a narrative but short on substance and follow-through.
The leak inflamed tensions between Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard, with the former understood to be convinced the "sealed section" had been aired deliberately to damage the former prime minister.
Despite calls from various sections of the party, the report has not been publicly released. Senator Carr, who was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs by Ms Gillard in March, said his stance on the matter had not changed since his entry into federal Parliament.
"I can't retreat from that view," he told reporters in New York, where he and Ms Gillard are supporting Australia's bid for a seat on the UN Security Council. "I held a view at the time, naturally I hold it now."
Recommendations from the report, including the failed push to elect delegates to the national conference, in a bid to to dilute the power of the factions and the unions, were discussed at the Australian Labor Party national conference late in 2011.
With AAP