Gillard was a disloyal deputy, says McKew - Sydney Morning Herald

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Said to have been directly undermining her leader before she challenged him ... Julia Gillard. Photo: Getty Images

JULIA GILLARD was involved in the ''conspiracy'' to topple Kevin Rudd as prime minister days before the coup, according to new claims that contradict her account.

In a new book, the former Labor MP Maxine McKew calls Ms Gillard a ''disloyal deputy'' who was directly undermining her leader in the days before she challenged him.

Ms Gillard has always maintained she was loyal to Mr Rudd until the day she challenged him. But Ms McKew says the then deputy prime minister showed internal Labor research critical of Mr Rudd to a senior member of the caucus in the days before the challenge.

A very precise recollection ... Maxine McKew's new book Tales from the Political Trenches.

This Labor member believes his encounter with Ms Gillard was part of a ''conspiracy against Rudd'', Ms McKew writes. The member is not named in the book. Ms McKew told the Herald that she interviewed the MP several times but has agreed to protect his identity. Asked whether she found him a credible source, she replied ''absolutely''.

This senior government MP ''has a very precise recollection'', she writes in the book, Tales from the Political Trenches, to be published on Monday.

''This individual was in the deputy prime minister's office in the days prior to the coup.

''Gillard produced the UMR documents, by now two weeks old'' - a reference to internal Labor Party research on the electoral standing of Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard - ''and went through the detail and emphasised Rudd's deficits.''

This suggests that Ms Gillard was undermining her prime minister, using the same internal research as that used by the so-called ''faceless men'' to marshal caucus support for a challenge, before the day she confronted Mr Rudd.

Ms Gillard has always insisted that ''I made up my mind on the day''. She told a news conference in Canberra on February 12: ''I made my decision to ask Kevin Rudd for a leadership ballot on the day that I spoke to him and asked him for that leadership ballot. When people had sought to raise the matter with me earlier I had declined to have the conversation with them and no amount of speculation here or media interest will change that simple fact that I made up my mind on the day that I asked Kevin Rudd for a ballot.''

When asked by the ABC program Four Corners in February whether she had seen the internal research used to undermine Mr Rudd, Ms Gillard said she had no ''specific recall''.

The program disclosed that two weeks before the coup Ms Gillard's staff had drafted an acceptance speech for her if she won the prime ministership.

Asked about this, Ms Gillard said staff commonly prepared for contingencies but there were two key points: ''No.1, I didn't direct anybody to write a speech for me, and No.2, I made up my mind on the day.''

Ms McKew finds this incredible: ''Come again?'' she writes. ''Gillard exercises top-down control over her office. Her forensic attention to detail sets her apart and her careful planning of every career move is legendary.

''I remembered some of my own experiences working to her office. A speech I'd prepared for a Sydney Institute presentation in 2009 was vetted and parsed by three separate Gillard staffers before I was 'allowed' to deliver it.

''Nothing happened without Gillard's say-so.''

Ms McKew writes that the then Labor secretary, Karl Bitar, has to take responsibility for commissioning the internal research used against Mr Rudd. Mr Bitar is now a lobbyist for James Packer's Crown Ltd.

She reports interviewing the Labor senator and party elder John Faulkner on the subject. He said: ''For a party official to use party research to undermine a serving Labor prime minister … is quite improper and should never, never be tolerated … I am aware of caucus colleagues who were shown or handed research. I consider this was just sheer bastardry.''

Ms McKew was an ABC journalist before contesting the seat of Bennelong for Labor at the 2007 election and beating John Howard. She lost the seat at the 2010 election. She was parliamentary secretary for education and childcare, and parliamentary secretary for infrastructure.

She counts herself a friend and supporter of Mr Rudd.

Tales from the Political Trenches is published by Melbourne University Press.