After knifing Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard while in power, shadow treasurer Chris Bowen says Labor didn't just change the party's rules, it changed the culture.
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With the polls predicting Labor to return to government six years after the party was kicked out of power, Mr Bowen says the lessons have been learned.
"To your question about whether I regret the Rudd-Gillard years in the broad and the instability, of course I do. I think we all do," he told the National Press Club on Wednesday.
"We got that wrong, and so we changed the rules. That's not unimportant, but more importantly, we changed the culture."
A decade of prime ministerial coups started in 2010 when Kevin Rudd was pushed out of the top job by Julia Gillard, before Mr Rudd then pushed her out again in 2013.
The coalition promised to end the instability in the top job, but then dumped Tony Abbott in 2015 and Malcolm Turnbull in 2018.
Mr Bowen said if Labor wins the May election, Bill Shorten will be the first Labor prime minister in more than 100 years to win from opposition with prior experience as a cabinet minister.
He said when the Howard government was elected in 1996, there were only three ministers with prior cabinet experience.
In contrast, 16 of Labor's 21 shadow cabinet members have been cabinet ministers before.
"I can't begin to tell you what a difference that will make, making us a better government for that experience," Mr Bowen said.
Australian Associated Press
