Rudd's return a form of absolution for the petty polling public who's fickleness was the excuse needed to bury the knife.
It's not about "justice'' it's about not being scene as some puppet for the trade union movement. People who think Labor's problems are about the carbon tax and BER are ignoring that Labor hasn't won more than 40% of the primary vote since 1993 except under Rudd. When Labor won the 2007 election it did so by redefining its agenda around the values and beliefs of a relatable personality: Rudd’s.
This is because there is no longer any great role for government to act as a sympathetic mediator between organised labour and business nor has there been since the latter days of Hawke’s premiership. Labor cannot continue to act as the political wing of the unions, whatever their role in twenty first century politics it is insufficient to form the bedrock of a modern party of government. The political success of Gillard’s leadership has always depended on her ability overwhelm the traditional Labor agenda with one of her own design which clearly she has not done. In fact upon taking the leadership, Gillard went one worse by adopting part of Tony Abbott’s agenda, acceding to the demands of the mining companies protesting the Resource Super Profits Tax, attempting to reintroduce offshore processing and Temporary Protection Visas and finally by swearing herself opposed to climate action. Both Crean and Shorten would have similar problems, relics from a different political paradigm where the Labor movement was entrusted with the protecting workers from a serious threat of oppression.
Rudd has such appeal because he is an antithesis to the old political paradigm. Like Turnbull he cast himself above the push and shove of old politics, to the chagrin of his colleagues who were still entrenched in it but to the adoration of the voting public.
