http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/rudd-says-labor-risks-losing-30...Former prime minister Kevin Rudd says federal Labor stands to lose at least 30 seats at the next election unless the party reinstates him as leader.
The Queenslander also praised senior cabinet minister Anthony Albanese's emotional backing, describing it as "above politics".
While Prime Minister Julia Gillard is widely tipped to emerge victorious when a caucus ballot is held on Monday morning, Mr Rudd says only his leadership can help Labor win back those who voted for it in 2007.
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In a Fairfax newspaper column published on Sunday, the former prime minister said Labor would lose power in a landslide at the next election if it stayed with Ms Gillard.
"Without a change, Labor stands to lose 30 or more seats at the next election," Mr Rudd said.
"No simple defeat. That would set us back a generation."
Under that scenario, Labor would be left with fewer than 42 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, putting it in an even worse position that its defeats in 1975 and 1996.
Mr Rudd also praised Mr Albanese for tearfully declaring his support on Saturday.
"Albo's emotional reaction has moved us all," Mr Rudd said.
"He has risen above the politics of the day, the week, the year."
In the rival News Ltd Sunday papers, Mr Rudd's former press secretary Lachlan Harris has accused Ms Gillard's supporters of setting out to destroy his former boss with "extremely nasty" character attacks.
"In the past week, the federal Labor Party has introduced a new strategy into leadership challenges, a public, pre-emptive, on-the-record, neo-nuclear strategy," he said.
"What is so different, and so radically dangerous about this strategy is that it turns the always risky process of leadership battles into a brutal zero-sum game."
Mr Rudd said he only found out Mr Swan had changed his position after Julia Gillard had launched her challenge when he simply said: "Oh, I'm backing change."
"That was it," Mr Rudd said. "No prior warning, no nothing."
On Wednesday, when Mr Rudd resigned as foreign minister, Mr Swan issued a statement that savaged his record as prime minister.
"The party has given Kevin Rudd all the opportunities in the world and he wasted them with his dysfunctional decision-making and his deeply demeaning attitude towards other people including our caucus colleagues," Mr Swan said in the statement.
Mr Rudd also attacked former health minister Nicola Roxon who on Friday said the former prime minister's approach to government was often "ludicrous".
Ms Roxon said at one point he suggested taking over the entire health system with four days notice and without any materials for cabinet or any legal advice.
But on Sunday, Mr Rudd said that just after he was toppled by Ms Gillard in June 2010, Ms Roxon came up to him and his wife Therese Rein at Canberra airport.
According to Mr Rudd she said at the time: "A lot of people said they couldn't work with Kevin, that's what they are saying now, but that has never been my experience."
Mr Rudd claimed Ms Roxon, now the attorney-general, had said Mr Rudd had always supported her through the health reform process.
Mr Rudd said, like Mr Swan, Ms Roxon never told him of her concerns.
"There had never been anything which Nicola had ever raised with me."
Mr Rudd also denied describing Ms Gillard as "a childless, atheist, ex-communist" at Adelaide's Stag Hotel in February 2011.
News Ltd reported on Sunday that Mr Rudd made the comment when plotting a comeback.
Gillard government minister Kate Ellis told News Ltd: "I know for a fact that he was talking down the prime minister."
Mr Rudd said on Sunday he was a guest of then South Australian premier Mike Rann and his wife at the hotel function.
Also present was Mr Rudd's media adviser Daniel Street.
"They were with me the whole time," the former foreign minister said.
"Neither of them, nor do I, have any recollection of having said anything of the sort.
"That is not my style. Other people have said that about the prime minister (but) I've made a point of not focusing on anyone's religious beliefs or otherwise."
Mr Rudd said he accepted that people had issues with his time as prime minister but he had changed.
"Of course people have some legitimate criticisms of some aspects of my past performance and I accept responsibility for that," he said.
"We all learn from past mistakes and I can improve."
But he said he wasn't the only one to get things wrong.
The personal attacks from his former ministers were unprecedented, he said.
"When you're in the midst of a campaign for the leadership of parliamentary Labor party, people are going to say a whole lot of things out there in the heat of a campaign and I think there's a whole lot of things said about yours truly which perhaps should not have been said."
If he lost to Ms Gillard on Monday, he believed the anti-Rudd campaign would continue.
"I would be concerned that they would run an argument up the public flagpole that 'look, the only reason the Labor party continues to do badly in the polls is because of Kevin Rudd' - that's been the convenient excuse for 12 months.
"Or whatever the outcome of the Queensland election it's because of Kevin Rudd.
"I think it's time some people actually accepted responsibility for their own actions."
Mr Rudd said Ms Gillard had made her own mistakes which had nothing to do with him, citing the reneging of the pokies deal with independent Andrew Wilkie and her speech to the national Labor conference in December.
But he said he would not challenge again before the next election.
"If Julia is returned on Monday then she will have my unequivocal support between now and the next election because we have interests way beyond individuals here - they are the millions of Australians who depend on us to form a Labor government and to prevent Mr Abbott inflicting on Australia the ravages of the most extreme right wing the country will ever seen."
He also expected the party to unite behind him if he won the ballot.
"It's time for us to unite rather than divide."
Mr Rudd said whether he or Ms Gillard won on Monday, it was time for the "faceless men" to lay down the cudgels.
"There is a fear, on the part of many, that other folk will line up and have a go at whoever the leader is that emerges from Monday," he said.
"I would be very concerned if that were to happen.
"We are 18 months out from an election. It's important the party unify."
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