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A leadership spill of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) was held on 4 December 2006. Opposition Leader Kim Beazley was challenged by Shadow Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, while Deputy Opposition Leader Jenny Macklin was challenged by Shadow Health Minister Julia Gillard in a joint-ticket. Rudd defeated Beazley, after which Macklin resigned, leaving Gillard to become Deputy Leader unopposed. ==Background== Kim Beazley was elected unopposed to become Leader of the Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition for a second time on 28 January 2005, replacing Mark Latham who resigned after Labor's 2004 election defeat.〔http://australianpolitics.com/2005/01/28/kim-beazley-returns-as-alp-leader.html〕 Shortly after his election, Beazley's opinion poll ratings fell to a level between 30-35% and never recovered. By November 2006, media sources were claimed that consistently bad polls demonstrated that Beazley did not have the "ability to cut through", and ''The Australians editorial complained on 22 November that "after 10 years and 10 months of Kim Beazley, it is still virtually impossible to say what he stands for".〔 * 〕 In addition, a series of embarrassing media gaffes, including referring to TV presenter Rove McManus as Karl Rove when extending condolences to McManus over his wife's death, raised questions about his ability and capacity to lead. Despite Beazley's personal unpopularity, the Labor Party was performing very well in the polls, consistently recording 50% and sometimes higher in two-party preferred polls. This was mostly attributed to interest rate rises, the AWB scandal, WorkChoices and many other policies and decisions of the Howard Government. Despite this, primary vote polls consistently had Labor below 40%, and it was widely opined that Labor would not be able to win the next election with Beazley as Leader. Throughout 2006 the Right of the Labor Party, especially in New South Wales and Victoria, had quietly canvassed replacing Beazley and his deputy Jenny Macklin with Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, respectively. Rudd was loosely aligned with the Right, while Gillard was a moderate left-winger. Labor sources later indicated that Rudd and Gillard had not themselves actively undermined Beazley, but had been effectively drafted.〔 Rudd's public profile in particular had increased considerably during 2006, mostly through his effective attacks on Foreign Minister Alexander Downer over the AWB scandal. In addition, he had appeared on the ''Sunrise'' program on a weekly basis for seven years alongside Liberal MP Joe Hockey, and in October 2006 had written an essay, "Faith in Politics", in national magazine ''The Monthly'' that sought to prove that conservative parties did not have a monopoly on the religious vote.〔 According to media reports, the Right of the Labor Party promised to throw its support behind Rudd for the leadership provided he challenge Beazley before Christmas. A Newspoll conducted in late November concluded that both Rudd and Gillard were significantly more popular than Beazley, and that Labor would be able to win the next election if it was led by either of them. An AC Nielsen poll conducted on 30 November came to exactly the same conclusion. On 30 November 2006, Rudd met with Beazley and told him that he intended to challenge him for the leadership. On 1 December, Beazley announced a leadership spill, after which Gillard announced she would challenge Macklin alongside Rudd as part of a joint-ticket. Both sides claimed that they were in a winning position, with Rudd claiming his team had a "bucketload of energy", while Beazley claimed that he had more experience. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Australian Labor Party leadership spill, 2006」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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