^ I'm not sure how you can conclude that the election was not an endorsement of the coalition. They received over 45% of the primary vote (their best showing since 1996). You'd have to go back to the 1980s to find an ALP primary vote that was larger. As for the Senate (come July next year), I suspect that the Palmer, Liberal Democrat, Sport and Motor Enthusiast senators will be less hostile to the government than the current setup.
Latest predictions have Labor winning 57 seats. That's a long way from the wipeout that was predicted in some quarters with people saying Labor would be reduced to less than 40 seats. If Labor was so unpopular, then the Coalition should have romped home with a massive majority in both houses. Also, the Labor government passed a record number of pieces of legislation - hardly symptomatic of a hostile senate.
As for Rudd. He was just symptomatic of one of endemic problems with the ALP. He was simply the supreme narcissist among a party of narcissists. One can see this since the election. They were a rubbish government (pink bats, illegal immigrants, tractor sheds for schools, duff laptops for students, carbon tax, mining tax, government debt, jobs for the boys, gender wars, post code wars), but they want to blame Kevin Rudd and their disunity. If they cannot find fault with themselves now, they never will. Also, Rudd would've just been a fart-in-a-bottle if the other members of caucus had ignored him. They didn't, they allowed him to become the miasma he was. All, but those who resigned at his reinstatement to the leadership, have themselves to blame. They cannot lay it all on Rudd.
You could also accuse Abbott, Turnbull, Hockey and Joyce of narcissism. The difference with Rudd is that he didn't let go when he was deposed and continually worked to undermine the leader of his party. I agree that the party should have pulled him into line long before it became a problem. This is something that the ALP will need to reflect on long and hard.
As for a rubbish government? Sorry, just wrong:
Pink bats? Yes, unscrupulous installers ripped off the system - they always do. They also didn't train their staff properly, resulting in 4 deaths. The employers should be held accountable, not the government. Regardless of environmental benefits, it makes economic sense for houses to be insulated - less electricity use places less demand on an already burdened electricity grid.
Illegal immigrants? Don't get me started. It's not illegal to seek asylum. The problem lies in the source countries, not in Australian waters. ALP and Coalition both suck horribly in this area.
Gender wars? Gillard played the gender card, no doubt. So did Abbott. Neither side was innocent, and it was a disgusting era for Australian politics. May it never happen again.
Most of the rest is just Liberal party propaganda. If you can't see past the Coalition BS and see that some of the work that the ALP did was actually beneficial (like avoiding recession, NDIS, Gonski education reforms) then there's no hope.
The above makes me sound like an apologist for Labor; I'm not. I'm a swinging voter. I've voted Labor, Liberal, Democrats (remember them?) and, yes, Greens in federal elections. My vote goes to policies, not personalities. I look for evidence, not propaganda. I wish more people would do the same.