Kevin Rudd in Parliament during Question Time. Picture: Kym Smith Source: The Daily Telegraph
JULIA Gillard faces the most crucial 24 hours of her leadership as it emerged Labor polling taken on the eve of Kevin Rudd's political assassination revealed a rebound for the overthrown PM.
The polling, which suggested Labor could still have won an election in 2010 under Mr Rudd's leadership, was kept a secret from him, most senior ministers and the majority of the Labor caucus for fear it could have unravelled plans for the coup already under way.
The secret polling also contradicts the official Labor research used at the time to convince MPs to replace Mr Rudd.
The revelations come as former minister Joel Fitzgibbon last night warned that there was "unrest" among Labor MPs and the party faced being "wiped out" at an election, in comments that other MPs said had stirred up leadership tensions.
Mr Fitzgibbon, who is the Chief Government Whip but supports Mr Rudd, said "it's so obvious something's going on" inside the Government.
With Federal Parliament to sit today for the last scheduled session before the May 14 Budget, Mr Fitzgibbon appeared to start a countdown for a leadership change, saying it was a "silly concept" that Labor could make a switch between the Budget and the September 14 election.
The Government faces another disastrous day today. Draconian media regulations proposed by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy are in disarray.
The PM's support says she has lost votes in caucus, but not enough to deliver the leadership to Kevin Rudd.
Mr Rudd's numbers men also claimed the former PM had 47 solid votes, Ms Gillard 42 with the rest of the 102-member caucus undecided.
Ms Gillard's backers are claiming support of almost all 30 ministers, despite at least five well known to be backing a Rudd return.
It has emerged that while Labor officials had cancelled a round of scheduled polling the week before the June 24 coup, one had already been commissioned and was "in the field".
The survey was conducted by UMR research on June 22-23, 2010 in the marginal South Australian seat of Kingston. Results had started to filter back on the night of the coup.
They showed Mr Rudd well in front of Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister - 50 to 39 per cent.
More critically, the numbers showed the swing against Labor was nowhere near as dire as was suggested to MPs, with only a 0.5 per cent swing against the Government in that marginal seat.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard faces another tough day in Parliament. Picture: Kym Smith
Senior Cabinet sources confirmed no one had been told about the Kingston numbers, claiming they would have been seen as "inconvenient".
A spokesman for the PM said she had no knowledge of the Kingston numbers.
Several Cabinet sources now claim they believe the research shown to ministers and key MPs had been "cooked" up to support the case to dump Mr Rudd.
"Things weren't great for the Government then, but they were nowhere near as bad as what was being suggested internally," said a senior Cabinet source.
"There was certainly no case for changing the prime minister."
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