Bill Shorten should use leadership rival Anthony Albanese “a lot, lot more”, former prime minister Kevin Rudd has counselled.
In an interview on ABC’s 7.30 on Monday promoting his memoir Not for the Faint-hearted, Rudd also defended his government’s legacy on the national broadband network and said he is not as optimistic about the result of the same-sex marriage postal survey as other progressives.
Asked if it was a mistake that Shorten was chosen as Labor leader in 2013, given Rudd described Albanese as the “most gifted natural politician” he had seen, the former prime minister noted that he had set up the process in which caucus and Labor members have equal 50-50 say over the leader.
“One reason I came back to the leadership in 2013 was to get caucus to agree to a system of selecting the leader so that it was not possible to launch a midnight coup,” he said.
“Through that process Bill Shorten was elected, so I can’t defend the process and then pick and choose [the outcome].”
Rudd said his support for Albanese was “long-standing”, noted he was the deputy prime minister during his second stint in the top job and described him as a “highly effective and competent minister”. “And if I were Bill [Shorten] I’d be using Albo a lot lot more.”
Albanese has served in the infrastructure portfolio since Shorten defeated him in the 2013 leadership contest after Rudd lost the election to Tony Abbott.
While never straying into the terrain of disloyalty to the Labor leader, Albanese has created points of difference by criticising Labor’s “shocker” Employ Australians First ad that featured Shorten and no people of diverse backgrounds and suggesting an alternate reading of the 2017 budget that the Coalition had ideologically surrendered to Labor.
Asked how Shorten would govern as prime minister, Rudd praised him as a “consensus builder”, adding that quality – which he called his “natural strength” – would be important if and when Labor returned to government.
On the same-sex marriage postal survey, Rudd said he had encountered “a lot of optimism” about how the vote will turn out.
“I just worry about what’s happening below the radar here,” he said.
“The conservatives have a phenomenal opportunity to mobilise the agents of fear, anxiety and concern, and to play on deep historical and cultural sensitivities.
“I’m not as buoyant as some in terms of inevitability of this result, or … how convincing it will be.”
During the postal survey campaign, which will conclude on 7 November, Guardian Australia has reported no campaign material flouting laws that require authorisations including Facebook ads encouraging people to request new survey forms to change their votes and a robopoll using push-poll techniques to warn marriage equality will lead to “radical gay sex education”.
Nevertheless public polls have consistently shown the yes campaign leading opponents of marriage equality, and with participation estimated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics to have already reached 67.5%, the yes side is heavily favoured to win.
Explaining why he had written the memoir, Rudd said democracies are “increasingly in peril” in the United States, Europe and Britain.
“I think, therefore, if people are simply drained out from participating in the political process and leadership it’s to the greater peril of democracy in longer term.”
He said he hoped the book contributed a “shot in the arm” to progressives to overcome fear and discouragement and take part in politics.
Asked about Labor’s record ahead of the Four Corners special on the NBN and after Malcolm Turnbull blamed Labor for its failure, Rudd rejected the claim his government had created a white elephant broadband network.
Rudd said the criticism was “grossly unfair” because the Abbott and Turnbull governments had “changed horse in midstream” by junking Labor’s fibre to the premises (FTTP) network in favour of fibre to the node.
He said this changed the model “completely”, contributing to poor take-up rates because people “don’t see the advantage” without more reliable bandwidth and speed.
“What we had planned and had began to roll out was perfectly designed for this nation’s needs ... you cut that off ... frankly the changes lie all on your head.”
Rudd argued News Corp had opposed the NBN and FTTP because it did not want competition to pay TV Foxtel, and accused the Liberal party of following News Corp’s lead.
