New facts revealed on 2010 ousting of Australian PM
Paul Kelly’s book effectively demolishes the political fictions manufactured to justify the coup against Kevin Rudd.
•Nick Beams
The June 2010 Labor Party coup in Australia
On the night of June 24-25, 2010, Australia Labor Party Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was ousted in a backroom coup organised within his own party. An extensive US network of “protected assets” within the Australian Labor Party, together with right-wing faction leaders, maneouvered behind the backs of the general population to remove Rudd and install Julia Gillard, the favorite of the Obama administration, without even a caucus vote.
The anti-democratic leadership coup was portrayed by the media as a result of opposition by Australia’s biggest mining companies against Rudd’s proposed tax on mining “super profits.” Sections of the mining sector, enormously profitable as a result of exports to China, had threatened to move offshore and sack thousands of workers if the modest tax went ahead.
However, as the WSWS explained, while the domestic destabilisation was an element, the decisive trigger for the coup was Washington’s intervention. President Barack Obama was increasingly dissatisfied with Rudd’s wavering commitment to the war in Afghanistan. Even more critically, Washington opposed Rudd’s advocacy of a so-called “Asia-Pacific Community,” a diplomatic mechanism that would seek to mediate tensions between the US and China. Just weeks earlier, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who espoused similar policies to Rudd, resigned following a concerted campaign against him by Washington.
US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks in December confirmed that the coup was “made in the USA.” They revealed Washington’s scathing assessment of Rudd and his attempt to implement a degree of power-sharing with Beijing, recognizing this would cut across US hegemony in the region.
From her very first day in office, Gillard made it abundantly clear that her government would stand unambiguously with Washington’s provocative efforts to undermine China’s influence throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Once installed, she scrapped the mining tax and signaled a deepening of Labor's right-wing policies. She also announced new measures against refugees and pledged indefinite participation in the war in Afghanistan and unquestioning commitment to the US alliance.
Shortly afterwards, the US Naval War College published a study that detailed Australia’s “numerous advantages” as a base from which the US military could control the vital sea lanes between the Indian and Pacific Oceans in the event of conflict with China. Australian ports and airbases were to be upgraded for use by the American military and the Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean made available as an airbase for US surveillance drones and, potentially, warplanes.
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Three years since the US-backed coup against Australian Labor PM
The SEP was alone in warning that the 2010 coup was bound up with a fundamental sea-change in geo-politics and a deepening assault on the basic democratic rights of the working class.
•Peter Symonds
Nixon-Whitlam tapes shed light on current Australian rifts over US-China conflict
An essay documents acrimonious exchanges in 1972–73 between the Nixon administration in the US and the Australian government of Gough Whitlam.
•Mike Head
SEP (Australia) first national congress
Resolution 5: The 2010 coup and the crisis of bourgeois rule
The following is the second of seven resolutions passed unanimously at the first national congress of the Socialist Equality Party (Australia) held from April 6 to 9, 2012 in Sydney (see: “Australian SEP holds first national congress”).See resolutions 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7.
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Political stench of 2010 coup haunts Australian PM
Along with domestic considerations—above all the demands of big business for tough austerity measures—US hostility to Rudd’s foreign policy was a decisive factor in his ouster.
•Peter Symonds
Australian government “delivers” on mining tax
The Minerals Resource Rent Tax delivers the immense concessions that Julia Gillard pledged to the big mining companies in June 2010, just after she was installed as prime minister.
•Mike Head
Australian government aligns with Washington’s anti-China stance in Asia
Gillard’s paeans to the Obama administration were clearly motivated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s sweeping outline of the global strategy of US imperialism in the latest edition of Foreign Policy magazine.
•James Cogan
WikiLeaks cables expose US hostility to Rudd’s Asia Pacific Community plan
American opposition to former Australian PM’s plan to ease tensions between China and the US, underscores Washington’s aggressive, confrontational orientation to Beijing.
•Peter Symonds
The WikiLeaks cables and the US-Australia alliance
Leaked US diplomatic cables have detailed the extraordinary level of involvement of the American state in the day to day functioning of Australian politics, laying bare the real character of the diplomatic relationship between Washington and Canberra.
•Patrick O’Connor
Australia: WikiLeaks cables reveal secret ties between Rudd coup plotters and US embassy
Key coup plotters in the Labor Party and trade unions—including senators Mark Arbib and David Feeney, and Australian Workers Union chief Paul Howes—secretly provided the US embassy with regular updates on internal government discussions and divisions within the party leadership.
•Patrick O’Connor
WikiLeaks cables cast fresh light on coup against former Australian PM Rudd
The latest round of US diplomatic cables distributed by WikiLeaks have cast fresh light on the circumstances surrounding the anti-democratic Labor Party coup on June 23-24 that ousted Kevin Rudd as Australian prime minister.
•Patrick O’Connor
After the Australian election: The way forward for the working class
The hung parliament that emerged from Saturday’s election is a further expression of the deepening crisis of the parliamentary system both in Australia and internationally.
•Socialist Equality Party (Australia)
New pamphlet from Mehring Books
The June 2010 Political Coup: A warning to the working class
Mehring Books is proud to announce the publication of The June 2010 Political Coup: A warning to the working class, a powerful collection of articles, comments and political statements analysing the extraordinary political coup that removed Kevin Rudd as Australian prime minister.
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SEP election campaign in Fowler finds...
Deep disquiet in western Sydney over Australian Labor’s leadership coup
The SEP’s campaign in the outer south-western Sydney electorate of Fowler for the August 21 Australian election has found broad hostility toward the backroom coup that installed Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
•an SEP reporting team
Australia: Labor’s factional war—a deepening crisis of the parliamentary system
The internecine war that has broken out in the Australian Labor Party, with the publication of a series of leaks aimed at damaging either Prime Minister Julia Gillard or her deposed predecessor Kevin Rudd, is more than a passing factional conflict.
•Nick Beams
Australia: Labor’s leadership coup starts to unravel amid leaks and counter-leaks
A war of damaging internal leaks has dashed the hopes of Gillard and her backers of using a snap election to bury all discussion about the implications of Labor’s June 23-24 political coup.
•Mike Head
Australia’s political coup and the role of the ex-left
The response of the middle-class pseudo-left groups to the coup that removed Australian Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and installed Julia Gillard has highlighted the class interests they serve.
•Laura Tiernan, Nick Beams
Australia: Gillard touts her economic “reform” credentials but coup questions persist
Despite Gillard and her colleagues’ best efforts to “move forward” and prevent any scrutiny of the unprecedented political coup of June 23-24, the still unclear story as to how Rudd was brought down, and by whom, continues to dog the Labor government on the eve of a national election campaign.
•Patrick O’Connor
The global economic crisis and the political coup in Australia
Socialist Equality Party (Australia) national secretary Nick Beams delivered the following opening report to conferences on “The World Economic Crisis, the Failure of Capitalism and the Case for Socialism,” convened by the SEP and the International Students for Social Equality in Sydney and Melbourne.
•Nick Beams
Mining executive’s speech points to key role in Australian coup
A speech by Rio Tinto chief Tom Albanese underscores the key role played by the major mining companies in the coup that removed Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and the ruthlessness of the pursuit of their interests globally.
•Nick Beams