The Rudd/Gillard government is a farcical replay of the Hawke/Keating government. The Abbott government will be a farcical replay of the Howard government.

Gillard could call a referendum on some policy, withdraw under pressure from state bureaucrats and financial markets, and step down for a government of national unity headed by a technocrat from outside the usual political system, named Kevin Rudd.

That kind of thing never happens elsewhere, but here in Australia you never know…

The trend till now under Rudd and Latham (and partly with Gillard) was to see power increasingly centralise and the values of the leader to replace those of the party. I see that increasing even more with a Rudd return.

The problem with that is that the factional system did give some internal order to the party and there could eventually be the potential for fragmentation, a sort of Aus Dem free-for-all.

Any sort of restructuring of the ALP would have to be in response to external factors, I agree. I tend to see the international situation being more of a catalyst in the medium term.

But Rudd’s return will be tricky nevertheless. Although, in my view, the underlying trends seem to be going only one way, to the bureaucratisation of politics. For now Rudd has the potential to place himself above both sides of the old political system (a sort of Bonapartism of politics than society, if you like).

But whether Rudd has a base (rather than his opponents simply lacking one) to shift the government’s fortunes & restructure the power relations at the top of the party I remain deeply unconvinced. Do you see this self-immolation of the old power structures as creating an opportunity for an inner-party Bonapartism?

I could only see that as logical if something shifted OUTSIDE the parliamentary sphere. Of which, as yet, there is little sign in Australia. The two things I can think of, which I’m not sure that Rudd could harness because of his politics, are a deep recession or a major rise in protest/strike action.