Third contender 'likely'Numbers with Gillard as phones run hotTime we heard about the real KevinGrattan: Albanese integrity puts colleagues to shame
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Labor's top tactician in parliament has declared he will vote for Kevin Rudd in Monday's Labor leadership ballot, giving the challenger his most senior backer to date.
Fighting back tears, Senior Cabinet Minister Anthony Albanese this morning declared he had decided last night to vote for Kevin Rudd over Prime Minister Julia Gillard, because "I believe our future prospects would be stronger under Kevin Rudd".
He said it also his only chance to register his dissent at the coup of June 2010, where there had been no ballot, in which Ms Gillard deposed the former Prime Minister.
Mr Albanese offered his resignation to Ms Gillard, but she refused to accept it, and pledged he would continue to serve her loyally as Leader of the House if she was re-elected.
"This is not the easy option," Mr Albanese said. "it's not in my personal political interests."
Mr Albanese said the past week had been "very traumatic".
"I have despaired in recent days as I have watched Labor's legacy in government devalued," he said.
Ms Gillard paid tribute to Mr Albanese as a "great Labor man with a great Labor heart" and said he continue to serve the party loyally as its chief parliamentary tactician.
"I can't imagine a government I lead without Anthony Albanese fighting beside me."
Earlier today, the Prime Minister declared she could beat Tony Abbott at the next election and likened the Opposition Leader to an overtired two-year-old having a tantrum, as one of Kevin Rudd's campaign strategists urged her not to stand in Monday's Labor leadership ballot.
Battling a series of polls that show her challenger is far more popular with voters, the Prime Minister this morning derided predictions of Labor defeat in 2013 as "lazy talk".
'I don't have a defeatist bone in my body," she told the Country Labor conference in Cessnock.
While hammering her pitch to differentiate herself from Mr Rudd - insisting only she could and had delivered Labor's vision - the Prime Minister got a welcome boost from the crowd.
"I didn't come here today to canvas your support in Monday's ballot," she said. A voice in the room yelled: "You've got it," to cheers and applause.
Meanwhile, in a dramatic intervention, strategist Bruce Hawker held a doorstop outside the Rudd family home in Brisbane and urged Ms Gillard not even to contest the ballot, noting the strong voters support for the challenger.
"She has to consider if the public is right or the backrooms and factions are right," Mr Hawker said.
Mr Hawker said MPs should look to the polls and back Mr Rudd because he was best placed to beat Mr Abbott, even as he conceded the leadership battle was damaging Labor.
The veteran Labor campaigner also declared that not everybody accepts that "Kevin Rudd to be the most delightful creature they have ever met" but that was not the best judge of who was best to be Prime Minister.
