ALP minister backs Rudd return

Some senior ministers are not discounting a return of Kevin Rudd as prime minister in the next year if Julia Gillard cannot pull the Labor Party out of its disastrous polling.

Despite union boss Paul Howes yesterday asserting he would bet his house on Ms Gillard remaining Prime Minister until the next election, one senior minister told _The West Australian _ it was "inevitable" that the party would look to Mr Rudd, as MPs' self-interest began to outweigh their distrust and distaste of the former leader.

A Nielsen poll at the weekend showed the ALP's primary vote had collapsed to 27 per cent and that Mr Rudd was overwhelmingly preferred as prime minister to Ms Gillard.

Friday is the anniversary of Mr Rudd's demise as prime minister and Ms Gillard faces a difficult week calming backbencher nerves.

Mr Rudd enraged his enemies at the weekend with an interview in which he conceded he had been autocratic as prime minister and had surrounded himself with whiz-kids when "a few greybeards" with institutional experience would have been better. But one minister said Mr Rudd did not have to position himself for a return, "because Julia's doing that for him".

"I don't think she'll lead us to the next election - the faceless men who put her there will never give up on her because that would be admitting they were wrong in the first place," the minister said. "But few caucus members will have loyalty to anyone except to who might get them re-elected."

This was not a majority view in the Gillard ministry. One senior Labor MP said Mr Rudd was ousted because of his non-inclusive and dysfunctional style.

A Cabinet minister said Ms Gillard could win the next election if she took control of the agenda. This was not just in bedding down the carbon tax, mining tax and Malaysian refugee deal, but also in taking ownership of Australia's survival of the global financial crisis.

Former Queensland Labor premier Peter Beattie urged Mr Rudd to bury the hatchet, saying the tension with Ms Gillard would devastate Labor's vote.