When veteran journalist and former Hawke media adviser Barrie Cassidy first started thinking about this book in December 2009, Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd were leaders of their parties. Within six months, both men had been deposed. Cassidy contends that both men stole their parties away: Turnbull by insisting on a climate change policy that the majority hated; Rudd by his authoritarian rule and disregard for MPs and party members. In the end, both parties came and took back their parties.
Cassidy contends that the removal of Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister, in the lead-up to the 2010 election ranks with the Dismissal, the disappearance of Holt and the day Fraser called an election as one of the four big stories in Australian politics in the last 50 years. The Party Thieves is more than just a campaign diary of the 2010 election; it is an analysis of a tumultuous eight months in politics, and the impact on the party and the population.
