THE polling woes of Opposition Leader Bill Shorten may be a hell of a frustration for pragmatic Labor supporters, desperate for that winning feeling, but the rules for leadership ballots are actually worthwhile.
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The losers in this regime are the ghouls in the media, the Labor Party and wider community who get high on the sport of leadership spills. I'm as much a ghoul of this drama as anyone.
Before he left the political scene, Kevin Rudd entrenched rules that require a 75 per cent caucus vote for a ballot to challenge a Labor prime minister and a 60 per cent caucus vote for a ballot on an opposition leader.
The actual ballot is then split evenly between caucus and the national rank and file membership. These ballots also can only take place when the party has lost an election.
The rules are not set in stone, but if caucus changed them, the recriminations from the wider membership would be overwhelming and damaging.
Bill Shorten is on a 15 per cent better PM approval rating, according to the latest Newspoll. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has that Midas touch. At the next election, he will garner a swag of votes from traditional Labor supporters.
"Mr Shorten is therefore safe to fight the election, due later next year, ironically under rules championed by another leader he knifed, Kevin Rudd."
Kevin Rudd was in that position in 2008, the same with Malcolm Fraser in 1975 and Bob Hawke in 1983.
In the better PM stakes, then Liberal leader Brendan Nelson polled just 7 pert cent in 2005, Labor leader Simon Crean polled 14 per cent in 2003 and even Mr Turnbull polled only 14 per cent in 2009, before being deposed by Tony Abbott by just one vote.
Mr Shorten is therefore safe to fight the election, due later next year, ironically under rules championed by another leader he knifed, Kevin Rudd.
As well, history shows that pretenders usually have two goes at toppling a leader.
It took Harry Holgate two goes to depose Doug Lowe in 1981, Ray Groom deposed Robin Gray in two goes, Paul Keating had two attempts at deposing Bob Hawke and Mr Rudd took two goes to regain the prime ministership from Julia Gillard.
The Labor Party doesn't have the luxury of time to weather multiple leadership showdowns. With the polls the way they are, I would be telling Malcolm Turnbull to go in February next year, in order to lock in a contest with Mr Shorten at the Labor helm, and deny the Labor Party a fertile campaign period in January, when people are still on holidays. The election is due later next year.
If the Labor Caucus ditches the Rudd leadership rules to get at Mr Shorten, its first fight would be with the wider membership, before firing a single shot at the conservatives.
This is the beauty of the Rudd reforms. It stops polling apoplexy. It gives a leader a chance to dig themselves out of the doldrums and lets a prime minister live or die at election time on their performance.
The Libs will never agree to these reforms because the rules would have locked them into backing Tony Abbott, and the Liberal Party is far more ruthless to bother with such token loyalty.
Bill Shorten should only face disqualification through criminal misconduct and even a powerful union Royal Commission found none of that, despite exposing his dealings as a union official.
In 2016, it's Turnbull versus Shorten, or Turnbull versus a Labor Party in disarray.
Still, there's something romantically triumphant in sticking with an unpopular leader and facing total annihilation, bonded together. That sort of fierce and brutal defiance is so lacking in politics today.
