Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, whose bitter rivalry sparked the most rancorous period in modern Australian Labor history, entered a secret Kirribilli-style agreement whereby he would relinquish the prime ministership to her after two terms if they won the 2007 election, a new book has claimed.
The political memoir by the former Victorian socialist left leader and senator Kim Carr details his negotiation of the prime ministerial handover deal, together with his allegation Gillard reneged by using “tricked-up” polling funded by the Australian mining industry to undermine Rudd in 2010 during his government’s first term.
