Julia Gillard offered to stand aside as prime minister in favour of her climate change and industry minister Greg Combet in June 2013 as Labor faced a resounding electoral defeat and Kevin Rudd was circling.



Combet, now retired from politics, makes the revelation in his new book The Fights of My Life co-written with Mark Davis.

“It was the second half of June, obviously the government was in a lot of trouble ... I spoke to (Julia Gillard) privately and I said there needed to be a caucus ballot to resolve it once and for all and

"Julia surprised me by saying she would stand down in favour of me if I stood,” Combet said in an interview with the ABC on Thursday night.

Combet said he had declined the offer because “firstly at a political level I thought it was a pretty difficult ... to install another Labor leader so close to an election ... secondly, Kevin Rudd’s momentum was very strong and also I was struggling with a few health issues at the time.”

Combet did not put a date on the meeting but Rudd eventually won the leadership and returned to the prime ministership in a ballot on June 26.

‘‘I was in constant pain with the problems that I was having, and the thought of taking on additional responsibility and not being 100 per cent fit to do it, in that febrile environment, it didn’t look easy,’’ he said in a separate interview with Fairfax media.

Gillard said that in her view "Labor’s electoral position would be best served by moving to a new leader, and I think you are the best person to take it on.....I will muster as much support as I can for you. I don’t know if it will be enough to get you over the line, but you are held in high regard and I would do everything I could to persuade people to switch their support to you.’’

Combet was critical of Rudd’s prime ministership saying he took “a pretty chaotic approach to governing” and should not have attacked Malcolm Turnbull at the same time as Labor was seeking to deal with him over the carbon pollution reduction scheme and Turnbull was facing dissent within his own party.

And he said he had been personally offended when Rudd said Combet “needed to be de-unionised” before getting a ministry after his election to parliament for the NSW seat of Charlton in 2007.

“The thought I had to be dehumanised I found a bit offensive ..it told me he didn’t understand the unions that well,” Combet said.