Labor has lost purpose, says former Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner

BOB Carr has called for Labor Party figures to stop bagging the government after former minister Lindsay Tanner took a swipe at the party, saying it has lost its purpose and removing Kevin Rudd was a mistake.

Mr Tanner told The Australian today: “I agree with John Howard’s assessment. Had Labor kept its nerve we would have won the 2010 election.”

“I think panic was a significant factor in the removal of Kevin Rudd as prime minister but there were multiple factors involved.“

His comments prompted an angry response from Foreign Minister Bob Carr, who called for an end to the criticism of the party.

Mr Carr, in New York for a meeting of the UN, said the public was sick of hearing about what is wrong with the party.

“We went through a stage where every galah in a pet shop had an opinion about what was wrong with the Labor Party. Now I’m sick of that. I think the public is sick of it , we’ve got to talk about what the Labor Party has got right and there are a lot of things it’s got right in government and talk about what Tony Abbott and the Liberals have failed to do and got wrong,” he said.

“I think the Labor Party has been anatomised to the last fibre. Everyone has volunteered to say what’s wrong with the Labor Party. I’m saying it time to say what’s right about the Labor Party and what the Labor Party has done for Australia.

“If I were in retirement, if I hadn’t taken this job it would have been push over to have polished off another book number 20 on what’s wrong with the Labor Party. It’s too easy. I’m sure there is terrrific analysis in Lindsay’s book because Lindsay is very brainy. But it’s got a bit too easy to write another book spelling what is wrong with the battered old Labor Party.”

“For goodness sake if you want a case study of a political body without a soul, go to the Liberal Party.”

Mr Tanner today labelled the attack on Mr Rudd’s character by senior ministers during the battle over the party’s leadership earlier this year as “high exaggerated” and “extremely perverse”.

He said the attacks on Mr Rudd damaged the party’s image with voters.

“It is impossible to attack the Rudd government without undermining the Gillard government.

“The sad thing about all this is that Labor is trashing its own great achievement. In spite of everything that has since happened, we should be very proud of our government’s handling of the 2008-2009 crisis.

“And we should be proud of the face that when it really mattered, four leading Labor figures with a history of personal rivalry and conflicting ambitions were able to put tension aside and act to protect Australia in a time of global turmoil.”

Mr Tanner resigned the day Mr Rudd was removed and did not contest the 2010 election. His harsh critique of Labor comes as he promotes his new book, Politics with Purpose which is a collection of essays, speeches and articles he wrote from 1990-2012.

“I think it is getting a little too easy to bag the Labor Party. I’ve got a different approach and that is to talk up what is right about the Labor Party,” he said.

Mr Tanner also said the party had become poll-driven, lacked purpose and needs a “complete root-and-branch rethink about why we exist”.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard who is also in New York, responded to her former colleague’s bleak assessment of by insisting her government understood its role.

“I can be very clear about the government’s purpose,” she said in New York where she is attending the United Nations Leaders Week.

“The government’s purpose is to keep the economy strong, to make sure that not only today, but tomorrow, Australians have got the best of opportunities and we maximise our prosperity as our region changes, and then we find a way to share that, that is fair and meets the needs of the Australian people.”