Experience is Beazley’s greatest weapon

This morning Kim Beazley turned to his one undoubted asset in his attempt to dispel again the stories that he would be replaced as Labor leader before the next election. Experience, he told the morning press scramble, is what the Australian people wanted in a leader and that is why he would take his party to the next federal election.

No great vision of what he would do with the job of Prime Minister if he got it, just the bland assertion that the talk of a leadership challenge was speculation.

According to Beazley the years are on his side while being a handicap for Kevin Rudd, the Opposition Foreign Affairs spokesman who has emerged as the one credible leadership alternative. The past record of the nation’s Prime Ministers shows why:

Since the foundation of Federation, Australians normally have chosen men of maturity and experience to be their leader. Only Stanley Bruce and Bob Hawke stand out as exceptions and they were remarkable men. Bruce became PM before facing an election as leader and was a war hero to boot. Hawke might not have been long in parliament but he had a lengthy spell in public life behind him.

With the failure of a comparatively youthful Mark Latham fresh in their minds the members of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party are naturally wary of taking a risk again with inexperience. Kim Beazley can be thankful that there is no would be challenger of more experience than Kevin Rudd.