ALP national secretary George Wright says former government a 'gothic horror' story, tells MPs to 'get on with it'

Updated

ALP boss George Wright has likened the former government to a gothic horror story, and called on Labor MPs to address the culture of infighting in caucus and "get on with it".

The party's national secretary gave the dressing down while delivering his post-election assessment of the federal election campaign at Canberra's National Press Club.

"What I really want to say can be summed up in three words: I hate losing," he said.

Paying tribute to the discipline of the triumphant Coalition campaign, Mr Wright blamed Labor's infighting for the party's defeat.

"Labor's history of infighting in office left us unworthy of re-election in the minds of too many voters," he said.

"Labor didn't so much as lose the election and lose government as we lost it because of a lack of unity and too much infighting."

The slowing economy, deficit budgets and asylum seeker arrivals were also pointed to as "entrenched" political problems for Labor.

But Mr Wright, who ran the party's election campaign, said it was the "weight of disunity" that became "too heavy" for either Julia Gillard or Kevin Rudd to carry that proved Labor's undoing.

"Gothic horror was a favourite subject of mine at university, so as you can tell I'm perfectly qualified to have managed the Labor Party over the last three years," he said.

However, Labor's top administrative official also argued there were "good grounds for optimism" if the new team in parliament could unite behind leader Bill Shorten.

"The culture within the caucus and other parts of the party ... it must be addressed, but it can't be addressed by me waving a finger, it can't be addressed by Bill waving a finger," he said.

"It can only be addressed by people realising that we're actually there to represent something more than ourselves.

"If this generation of parliamentarians can seize that, I think we can come back into government very quickly.

"We've got to put it behind us and we've got to get on with it."

'Tough as nails' Gillard got 'straight' briefing on disastrous polling

Mr Wright also confirmed that internal polling - before the leadership switch back to Kevin Rudd - showed Labor would be reduced to just 30 Lower House seats and Western Sydney would become a "Liberal heartland".

He said he briefed then-leader Julia Gillard on the polling, giving her the news "straight".

"She had amazing resilience, and not a fragile person,' he said.

"She was tough as nails and she deserved to get the truth and that's the way I did it."

But Mr Wright came down on the side of those in the party who believe that returning Mr Rudd to the prime ministership saved the party from that dire outcome.

"Kevin campaigned extremely hard during the 2013 campaign, he threw everything that he had at it and he did make a difference," he said.

"And the change of leadership did make a difference."

In the end, the ALP held 55 seats in the Lower House.

He said the bounce in polling shortly after Mr Rudd made his comeback led him to think that the party could pull off an "unlikely" victory and that "in retrospect" the then-prime minister should have called an earlier election.

But he dismissed one of Mr Rudd's major policy announcements during the campaign - to cut company tax rates in the Northern Territory.

"I don't think that will be progressed too much further in the short term," Mr Wright said.

There have been reports that the policy was announced on the run, against advice from Mr Rudd's own policy experts and without consultation with ALP headquarters.

He also revealed that the leadership change prompted more than two-thirds of the party's campaign staff to quit because of a lack of "interest and willingness" to work for a Rudd victory.

"There were massive logistical issues and strategy issues that we had to deal with in a very tight timeframe," he said.

"Was it a perfectly-run, well-oiled machine campaign? No it was not.

"Did we hold it together? I think we did."

Mr Wright paid tribute to both former leaders and said it was up to Mr Rudd to decide if he would remain in parliament or not.

Topics: alp, political-parties, federal-parliament, federal-elections, australia

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