Gillard also has a teflon quality. Nothing sticks. She showed that at her first news conference as PM when she admitted a share of responsibility for Rudd Government mistakes and then effortlessly distanced herself from them.
With Rudd’s loss of credibility (it was “dissolving like an aspirin”, according to one plotter), Labor had just about lost hope of getting a message out. Now, the mining tax row is defused and a new leader can expect the microphone to herself for a few weeks. Voters who’d stopped listening to Rudd are tuning in to hear Gillard.
What happened to Rudd was brutal. He may not have deserved it. But it has turned the game back to Labor.
When Abbott was up against a PM whose approval rating was plummeting, his own unpopularity did not matter a lot. It certainly matters now.
Something else that matters is the problem Abbott has with some women because of conservative social views he expressed in his “Captain Catholic” past.
Liberals, of course, deny there is such a problem, but their own sensitivity shows they know better. In Parliament on Tuesday, for example, Health Minister Nicola Roxon spoke of services put in place to help young couples deciding whether to start a family.
These things, she said, had not been available when Abbott was Health Minister because he had “let his personal views get in the way of good policy”.
That caused Liberal Kevin Andrews, himself a conservative Catholic and close friend of Abbott, to rise – shouting and waving his arms – to protest about “this foul sectarian attack”.
More revealing, perhaps, was a recent incident during an Abbott media conference in Victoria with Sarah Henderson, Liberal candidate for Corangamite.
Asked whether her views on abortion were consistent with Abbott’s, Henderson opened her mouth to answer but Abbott cut her off.
“Everyone is entitled to a personal view and we have a lot of personal views in the community and inside political parties,” Abbott said. Sure. But that does not mean candidates should not be questioned about their personal views.
Anyone who thinks abortion is not a political issue should look at its prominence in US politics.
The real reason Abbott gagged former TV presenter Henderson is that he knew about opinions she had expressed in a 2004 newspaper column.
“I vehemently disagree with Tony Abbott’s views on abortion,” she wrote, also blasting Abbott’s “naive” belief that the morning-after pill was “encouraging rampant sexual activity in young people”.
So, while Abbott was effective against Rudd, he is not exactly tailor-made to run against Gillard.
Changing leaders again is not an option, but it is more important than ever that Abbott keeps his natural aggression and his social conservatism well hidden.
A shocked and shattered Rudd, meanwhile, will take a long time to come to terms with what his party has done.
On a cold assessment, it might have been necessary. As I wrote last week, Labor under Rudd was probably cactus in the election. The right wing heavies who organised the Gillard coup had the same view.
And Rudd did himself no favours. “His internal behaviour in the end was stuff no one could cop,” one told me. “He was friendless.”
Just the same, in a speech to caucus after accepting that he lacked the numbers to contest a ballot, Rudd made a powerful point: necessary reform was often unpopular.
If factions were going to move against leaders who dipped in polls, it would be a strong disincentive to reformist government.
It’s all water under the bridge, though. And the manner of Rudd’s dispatch provides another possible positive for Labor.
When the chance came, the ambitious Gillard did not hesitate to plant the knife in Rudd’s back. Any sexists who thought a woman might not be tough enough for the job of PM can rest easy.
Laurie Oakes is political editor for the Nine Network. His column appears every Saturday in The Daily Telegraph