Maxine McKew and Kevin Rudd as they toured a North Ryde primary school during the 2007 election campaign, where they both beat John Howard. Picture: Renee Nowytarger Source: The Daily Telegraph
JULIA Gillard is a control freak who manufactured a leadership crisis to become PM in a "classic stitch-up" of Kevin Rudd, according to a new political memoir.
Former star Labor recruit and ABC broadcaster Maxine McKew has delivered the blistering assessment in a new book, Tales From The Political Trenches.
Party chiefs are furious the book's release has been timed to reignite Labor's leadership wars in the traditional leadership "killing zone", the final parliamentary sitting week of the year.
The Sunday Telegraph can reveal the book accuses Ms Gillard's supporters of cooking up a false story to trigger the leadership crisis.
The Prime Minister had long maintained her decision to challenge Mr Rudd for the leadership was only made on the day, a view Ms McKew dismisses as a fiction.
On June 23, the day of the leadership showdown, it was reported Mr Rudd's chief-of-staff Alister Jordan was sounding out MPs on the leadership, a clear sign he did not trust Ms Gillard's pledges of loyalty. Colleagues say the report enraged Ms Gillard, who confronted Mr Rudd in the prime minister's office before issuing a leadership challenge.
But Ms McKew contends it was all a fig leaf to cover the plot to seize the leadership.
"It was totally manufactured," Ms McKew writes in her book.
"To make any sense at all the leak had to come from Gillard supporters.
"Was this a case of mock outrage by Gillard?"
But Labor MP Michael Danby has revealed for the first time that he was one of many MPs Mr Jordan spoke to and he believed the subtle soundings to be about the leadership.
"My impression was that Alister was visiting a lot of people who were critics," Mr Danby told The Sunday Telegraph.
A senior Labor MP has also told The Sunday Telegraph Ms Gillard had been sounding out MPs and visited him on the Monday to discuss the government's fortunes.
"Gillard was up to her eyeballs in the whole thing," he said. "She called me around to her office on the Monday. I said we should back Rudd in. She gave me a bit of a non-response. In retrospect, it was a very strange conversation." Ms McKew dismissed suggestions the November 1 release date was about stoking leadership tensions, arguing it was simply about pre-Christmas sales. "I have certainly reviewed the events leading up to Rudd's removal as leader. To produce a memoir where I did not mention this exceptional event would not have been credible," she said.
"I am aware this book will cause discomfort for some in the Labor Party. Others will welcome it."
Labor insiders predicted the book would prove "explosive". Some Labor officials have turned on Ms McKew, accusing her of throwing a "hissy fit" during the 2010 campaign and throwing away her prize seat of Bennelong, which she won from John Howard in 2007.
"She effectively went on strike," a Labor source said. "Her view was she had beaten Howard and she couldn't lose."
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