Cast your mind back to the glory days of Australian politics: 2010-2013, when Julia Gillard knifed Kevin Rudd, Kevin Rudd knifed Julia Gillard, and the whole Labor government got spectacularly turfed out of office, ushering in the joyous reign of Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

In June 2013, then-Prime Minister Julia Gillard called a leadership ballot after months of ongoing tension between her and Rudd. Poor polling and regular leaks from within her own party had made Gillard’s position untenable. She eventually lost the leadership, handing the Prime Ministership back to Rudd who ended up losing the federal election a few months later.

But there was another leadership ballot in 2013, months before the one that saw Gillard deposed. This one was won by Gillard. In fact, she was the only nominee.

The story behind this phantom challenge, held five years ago to the day, is a perfect case study of the absolute absurdity of modern politics.

The Background

By the beginning of 2013, Gillard’s Labor government had a serious problem. The party had consistently been down in the polls since 2011 and as a result a number of Labor MPs were agitating for a return to Kevin Rudd as leader.

Rudd had already challenged Gillard for the leadership the year before, but was thoroughly defeated when several of his colleagues revealed what they really thought of him as Prime Minister (it was ugly).

Rudd publicly denied he wanted to return to the leadership but he and his supporters were regularly accused of being behind damaging leaks that undermined Gillard’s authority and distracted from her attempts to actually govern.

Things got much worse after Labor went backwards at the WA state election in March. Former state Labor minister Alannah MacTiernan called on Gillard to step down and a couple of weeks later Joel Fitzgibbon, the chief Labor whip, confirmed the party was rife with leadership discussion.

Over the next twenty-four hours the future of the Labor party, and Australian politics, would change forever.

Simon Crean Blows The Place Up

Simon Crean was the leader of the Labor Party between 2001 and 2003. When Kevin Rudd led Labor back into government after the 2007 election he was appointed Minister for Trade. In 2013 he was the Minister for the Arts.

As Arts Minister he released Labor’s landmark national cultural policy: Creative Australia. The policy was broadly welcomed by the arts community, which had long decried the lack of a national, cohesive and well-funded plan for the arts. But unfortunately for Australia’s artists the policy never got fully implemented, because days after it was announced Crean decided to blow up his political career in spectacular fashion.

On the morning of 21 March 2013, Julia Gillard delivered a national apology to people affected by forced adoption or removal policies. It was a significant and sombre event, and Parliament House was packed with hundreds of people who had suffered under those policies, along with their families and their friends.

But by lunchtime the tone in Parliament had changed dramatically. Crean, who had a relatively low profile as minister, held a surprise press conference at 1pm and dramatically called for a spill of the Labor leadership. It would turn out to be least Machiavellian thing to ever go down.

Crean clarified that he wasn’t running for the leadership himself, but was calling on Rudd to step up and put himself forward in order to end the speculation and damaging leaks.

“He [Rudd] has got no option but to run,” Crean said. “I don’t want any more games, I’m sick to death of it, it’s about time he stood up and instead of having his camp leak things, actually have the courage of his conviction and his belief.”

Now you’d think that before holding a press conference to announce you’ve lost faith in your own Prime Minister that you might check with the main contender for the leadership beforehand. But that’s not what Crean did. In fact he told the press conference that he hadn’t even spoken to Rudd in the past 48 hours.

Turns out that was a massive mistake.

Gillard Hits Back

Gillard responded to the Crean announcement by sacking him from Cabinet and announcing a leadership ballot would be held at 4:30pm that afternoon. But there was a major problem for the anti-Gillard forces within Labor: they still didn’t have a candidate. Rudd wouldn’t confirm if he would nominate.

To highlight just how uncoordinated the whole thing was, Labor Senator Ursula Stephens retweeted a fake Kevin Rudd Twitter account that announced Rudd would run.

Thanks! I'll be putting my name on the ballot for the leadership. It's time we got our Party under control. #auspol _KRudd (via @_KRuddMP)

— Ursula Stephens (@ursulastephens) March 21, 2013

She later acknowledged the account was fake but tweeted that she hoped Rudd would “step up”.

Sorry folks that was a phony Kevin Rudd tweet, but I sure hope the real one will step up!

— Ursula Stephens (@ursulastephens) March 21, 2013

Over the next three hours Labor MPs counted the numbers but still no one knew if Kevin Rudd would stand.

Then, at 4:20pm, just 10 minutes before the leadership ballot was supposed to kick off, Rudd announced he wasn’t going to run against Gillard.

“The only circumstances under which I would consider a return to leadership would be if there was an overwhelming majority of the parliamentary party requesting such a return, drafting me to return and the position was vacant,” Rudd said, which basically means he wasn’t going to put himself forward unless his colleagues were literally begging him.

In the end there were no nominees other than Gillard. She was re-elected unopposed. The whole thing had been a clusterfuck. An extremely dramatic clusterfuck, but a clusterfuck nonetheless.

The ABC’s Annabel Crabb said it was “like a piece of performance art” conducted by “genuinely confused people”. Chris Uhlmann described it as “utter farce”. The Australian‘s Nikki Savva said “there has never been such an inept attempt to dislodge a leader”, and it’s hard to disagree.

The Aftermath

If you’re thinking that this whole political catastrophe could have been avoided if Crean had bothered to check in with Rudd before he pulled the trigger, you’d be bang on. But wait until you hear the best part.

It turns out that when Rudd got wind of what Crean was planning to do at his press conference he tried to get in touch with him.

Rudd reportedly texted Crean the following message:

“Gidday Simon. I’m told you saw the PM last night. If that’s so and if in any way it touches the leadership, and if you are making public comments, please give me a call beforehand. My position is as before. All the best. Kevin.”

First up, who the fuck says ‘G’day’ like that? Man, Rudd was a weird unit. But more importantly that’s a pretty clear message. Rudd is saying to Crean, “Mate, don’t blow the place up without getting on the blower to me first, cheers.”

So what happened? Well Crean didn’t see the message, because he left his phone in his office when he marched off to the press conference. The idea of Crean’s phone buzzing repeatedly on his desk with notifications from Rudd asking him to not call for a leadership spill, exactly when Crean was calling for a leadership spill is both extremely hilarious and depressing considering how high the stakes are.

The attempt to roll Gillard was undone by sheer technical incompetence and poor communication.

Of course, a few months later Rudd was successful in deposing Gillard and the rest is history. But the events of 21 March 2013 will go down as one of the best examples of what not to do politics in Australian history.