Former prime minister Kevin Rudd acted as ''Lord High Executioner,'' during Labor's tumultuous ACT preselections for the 2010 election, according to a newly published history of the affair.
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An account of the controversial and divisive battles for the seats of Canberra and Fraser, was published this week by the Australian Policy Online project.
In it there are claims that the then prime minster personally intervened to eliminate a former Mark Latham staffer from the race.
The report also reveals the extent of the attempted interference by the ALP's national heavyweights in the process of selecting a candidate for the city's two safe seats.
According to Terry Giesecke, ALP member and author of Preselection 2010, The ALP selects its candidate for Fraser, Mr Rudd, ''lent upon,'' Michael Cooney, who was then chief of staff for ACT minister Andrew Barr, forcing Mr Cooney out of the race.
The thwarted candidate is now a senior speechwriter for Prime Minster Julia Gillard while the leadership tension between Mr Rudd and Julia Gillard is expected to erupt soon into an open confrontation.
According to the paper published by the project, a joint venture between the ANU's Australian National Institute for Public Policy and the Swinburne Institute for Social Research, Mr Cooney had been chosen to take the seat in a deal imposed by factional warlords on members of the ACT's Labor branch.
Under the deal, Mr Cooney, a member of the Centre Coalition faction, was to be preselected for the southern seat of Canberra while Nick Martin, of the Left caucus, would be preselected for the northside Fraser seat.
''The benefits for faction members were obvious, more opportunities for their members and a certain predictability and stability within the party as a whole,'' Mr Giesecke writes of the deal. However, members of both factions had some misgivings about the deal and the candidates.''
But the arrangement fell apart, according to the author, after Mr Rudd told Mr Cooney to drop out of the preselection process.
Mr Giesecke writes that it was the third time Mr Rudd, who is referred to as the ''Lord High Executioner,'' had intervened in a preselection.
''After the deal, Centre Coalition candidate for Canberra, Michael Cooney, was lent upon by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to withdraw,'' Mr Giesecke wrote.
At the time, it was alleged that Mr Rudd was motivated by a personal grudge against Mr Cooney. The Foreign Minister is overseas and neither his office nor Mr Cooney responded yesterday to requests for comment.
In the wake of the collapse of the deal, academic Andrew Leigh, a member of Labor's non-aligned grouping, took the preselection for Fraser from Mr Martin while the ''broad right'' Gai Brodtmann claimed victory in Canberra. Mr Giesecke writes that the result was a victory for the party's ACT branch which was able to achieve its desire for a ''rank and file'' preselection, despite Mr Rudd's alleged intervention.
The secret ballot that was conducted, instead of the ''show and tell'' system sometimes used when the ALP votes, meant that the influence of factional bosses over the outcome was greatly reduced, according to Mr Giesecke.
''Once the preselection was underway, preselectors were able to make up their own minds without too much trouble,'' he wrote.
''Factions could but try.
''To succeed all faction members would need to be happy with the deal. Apparently, they were not.''