The Killing Season: Julia Gillard admits giving Kevin Rudd 'false hope' before ousting him as prime minister

By MELISSA CLARKE.

Julia Gillard has admitted she gave Kevin Rudd “false hope” that he would remain prime minister, the night she deposed him as Labor leader.

The pair discussed his leadership one evening in 2010, but later that night Ms Gillard moved to oust him when it became clear she had enough support to replace him.

“I do recall a discussion about Kevin having more time,” Ms Gillard said in an interview for the ABC documentary The Killing Season.

“I participated in that discussion and gave Kevin some false hope,” she said.

Ms Gillard approached Mr Rudd on the June evening about his leadership, after a series of bungles and backflips saw voters lose faith in him.

In the documentary, Mr Rudd recounts a compromise he offered his deputy:

“If, come the time of this election, I believe I can’t win, then of course I would step aside. I have no interest in taking the government over a cliff,” he said.

“If, by that stage, there is a judgement … based on the party’s independent research that I cannot win the election, I will at that point resign the prime ministership and offer an uncontested succession to you.”

Mr Rudd said Ms Gillard agreed and then “began discussing the detail of how that might work.”

But Ms Gillard disputes that, saying, “I did not agree.”

But she does concede she gave him hope his leadership was safe.

“I can understand why Kevin felt that, you know, there was a potential wedge of sun on the horizon.

“I should have been more straight forward and more clinical and less discursive. Being discursive did give Kevin false hope and that’s down to me.”

But Mr Rudd is adamant a deal was struck.

“She agreed. She not only agreed, but she had interrogated the detail of the formula on the way through.

“We shook hands. That’s not a wedge of hope,” he said.

At one point, Ms Gillard left the crisis meeting to consult with colleagues. Senior powerbrokers told her the majority of the ALP Caucus would back her in a leadership ballot.

In The Killing Season Mr Rudd describes Ms Gillard’s demeanor when she returned to the meeting.

“She walked in ice cold, ice cold, with absolute determination in her eyes,” he said.

“It was a complete transformation in five or 10 minutes … by a person who I’d always supported in good times and in bad, as she has supported me.

“There’s something pretty gut-wrenching about all that, something which tears open your heart.”

Ms Gillard recounted her own feelings at the time.

“You always have choices, but I don’t think there was any way of, you know, stuffing … the genie back into the bottle,” she said.

That is something Mr Rudd acknowledges.

“Once the dogs of war are unleashed, it’s very difficult to bring them back under control,” he said.

The meeting ended with Ms Gillard declaring she would challenge Mr Rudd’s leadership of the ALP.

Despite initially intending to contest it, Mr Rudd withdrew from the balllot after accepting Ms Gillard had the numbers she needed.

Ms Gillard was elected Labor leader unopposed the following morning and became Australia’s first female prime minister.

She went on to narrowly lead the ALP to victory in the 2010 election after forming a minority government with the Greens and independent MPs.

But the repurcussions of ousting a prime minister in the first term of office plagued her leadership for years after the event.

Ms Gillard survived a leadership spill in March 2013 when Mr Rudd declined to run against her, but lost a subsequent leadership ballot held three months later, which saw Mr Rudd return to the prime ministership.

The Killing Season: The Great Moral Challenge airs Tuesday June 16 at 8:30pm on ABC.

This article was originally published by ABC News. 

 © 2015 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved. Read the ABC Disclaimer here. 

Read more: 

The 6 game changing moments of The Killing Season.

“Being a hater might sometimes help you win in politics. But you’ll lose at life.”

The Killing Season: The only TV show anyone’s going to be talking about today.