Editorial: A bloodless coup in Canberra

Opinion

Australians do leadership spills with the same unsentimental efficiency they show when disembowelling the Black Caps' middle order.

The speed with which Kevin Rudd was toppled and replaced this week took even seasoned Canberra-watchers by surprise. The knife was in, withdrawn and wiped clean almost before onlookers had time to gasp.

But if outsiders didn't see it coming, insiders did. A very few months ago, Rudd was riding higher in opinion polls than any Australian Prime Minister in history, with the exception of Bob Hawke. But by the beginning of this month, his leadership was doomed.

A poll in the Australian newspaper showed that Rudd was third in a three-horse race for preferred Prime Minister in prime Labor country, the western Sydney electorate of Lindsay. He trailed Julia Gillard - then his deputy - and Opposition leader Tony Abbott.

Extrapolated nationally, the results, indicated a 12-percentage-point swing against Labor; the Government would have been slaughtered in an election.

Outsiders might not have realised the knives were being sharpened, but Rudd would have. The coup could scarcely have been a surprise.

The implications of Rudd's fall from grace have not been lost on the leadership here. John Key ruefully commented that it showed the danger of taking one's position for granted and hoped aloud he wouldn't emulate Rudd's slide.

But Key, to judge by the skill with which he juggles the often-contradictory demands of his two coalition partners, seems more skilful at diplomacy than the former diplomat Rudd.

The latter, it appears, was not able to manage the powerful, not to say feral, factions with the ALP and was deeply if not widely resented within his Cabinet for a high-handed management style.

Major policy direction was hammered out by an inner circle, which comprised his Treasurer, his Finance Minister and Gillard.

Unsurprisingly the rest of the ministry was irked at being expected to rubber-stamp decisions. Enmities festered. Rudd, a Mandarin-speaking expert on Chinese history, forgot the old Chinese maxim about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.

The implications for New Zealand of the change of leadership are unlikely to be significant. In the short term, a Rudd visit planned for next week has been cancelled and it seems unlikely that Gillard will pick up the invitation until she has finished rescuing the Government's prospects in an election that most experts are picking will take place in September or October.

Fortunately transtasman relations are in good heart. Both countries seem to rub along well even when their governments come from opposite sides of the political spectrum - which has been almost continuously the case for the past quarter of a century.

The Closer Economic Relations agreement is now more than a generation old and travel between New Zealand and Australia, already little more than a bus ride in aviation terms, is set to become even easier with plans well advanced for a shared air-travel border.

Difficulties remain: the intractable argument over access for New Zealand apple exporters to Australian markets was finally referred to the World Trade Organisation and the imminent final decision seems, rightly, likely to go our way.

Differing standards on medicines and food safety have also proven minor irritants, but the new regime will bring the two countries back in step on greenhouse gas emissions.

Any other change in direction will be some time coming. Assuming Gillard can prosper beyond the initial honeymoon any leader enjoys - and a first woman premier can expect - she will have her hands full for a while. But on the basis of her record - and by the look and the sound of her - she is more than ready for the challenges ahead.