In November 1974, the embattled leader of the Liberal Party, Billy Snedden, offered the memorable if unfortunate comment that his colleagues would walk ''through the Valley of Death on hot coals'' in support of his leadership.

As it turned out, their interest in the Valley of Death was less than Snedden had anticipated. In March 1975, he was ousted by his backbench colleagues in favour of Malcolm Fraser, who led the opposition to a landslide victory in the election held on December 13 1975 following the dismissal of the Whitlam government.

Nearly four decades on, Julia Gillard and her backers are also offering their backbench colleagues a visit to the coals. Under her leadership, the ALP has plumbed unprecedented depths of unpopularity. Indeed, so unpopular has her leadership proved to be that the failure of the caucus to do anything about it itself becomes a reason for ordinary voters to doubt whether ALP members deserve any more time in office.

To appreciate why this is the case, it is useful at the outset to look at analyses of the data collected by the Australian National University as part of the Australian Election Study in 2007.

Two points about Labor's victory emerge very clearly from these analyses. First, while broad party identification explained the bulk of the vote, in net terms Kevin Rudd's leadership secured an additional 1.4per cent of the vote for the ALP, almost 175,000 votes.

Second, the other main factor explaining the swing in 2007 was disapproval of the Howard government's industrial relations policy. The combination of a tired government's unpopular policies and a popular Labor leader brought about a change of government.

In no sense was the 2007 election a broad endorsement of the ALP machine, or its factional bosses, or their way of doing things.

For all the voters who switched to Labor because they liked Rudd, his unexpected removal and the refusal of ALP powerbrokers to countenance his return to The Lodge constitute a daily insult.

This is something that Simon Crean and his ilk manifestly do not understand. By acting as they did, the faceless men signalled that in their view these voters were too stupid to understand what was good for them, or to be taken seriously.

It is hardly surprising that from day one, Gillard and her backers have confronted a mass electorate in which a significant number of disgusted voters regard them as treacherous assassins, and are not reticent about voicing their scorn for the Gillard team.

This has long been obvious from all the opinion polls, even those like this week's Nielsen poll that are merely disastrous for Labor rather than totally catastrophic. It seems that some backbenchers have picked this up during their Christmas holidays. They should have thought of it in June 2010.

Had Gillard proved an impressive leader, this problem might have been overcome. But few Australian leaders have been as unimpressive. In her recent book, Thinking About Leadership, Nannerl O. Keohane argued that leaders ''determine or clarify goals for a group of individuals and bring together the energies of members of that group to accomplish those goals''.

Gillard, unfortunately, has successfully created the impression that she has no higher goal than clinging on to office. It is no wonder that large numbers of voters have simply stopped listening to her: they are disinclined to believe a word she says.

Gillard's broken promises on carbon tax and on poker machines, whatever one thinks of the final policy outcomes, have eaten away at any claim she has to be a principled leader. When pressed to outline her philosophy or fundamental beliefs, she classically produces statements of such utter banality that almost no one would bother paying them the least attention.

Worse, she is prone to grope for simplistic policy postures to meet the demands of shock-jocks; or to buckle when faced with vociferous pressure groups such as the mining and gambling industries.

These are the mark not of a ''leader'', but of a wheeler-dealer. Her flaky ''Timor solution'' to the complex asylum-seeker issue put this weakness on display right at the beginning of her premiership, well before she had to cope with the travails of minority government.

Part of Rudd's appeal was that he made Labor look like more than just a patronage network. Gillard's rise completely undid all that; under her leadership, the stench of factional politics has been impossible to dispel.

Where she has succeeded until now is as a party manager, an area where Rudd proved weak. But being a party manager rarely means much in terms of wider leadership.

Robert Menzies was forced out of office in 1941 by a revolt of obscure backbenchers, after having lost three of his most devoted ministers in a plane crash. The line ''You'll never win with Menzies'' floated round for years thereafter, but did not stop him from becoming Australia's longest-serving prime minister.

Managing a party is ultimately a matter of technique; being a national leader is a matter of character, values, and judgment and cannot be learned from a script. Being an adequate party manager will never save a weak leader from electoral oblivion.

Most of the factors cited by Rudd's opponents to justify his removal were of little concern to a majority of the general public, and the opinion polls before his ouster made that clear.

The last Newspoll before Gillard displaced Rudd on June 24 2010 saw the ALP leading the Coalition in the all-important two-party preferred vote by 52-48 (June 20), up from 51-49 (May 30) and 50-50 (May 16).

The last three Essential Report polls before Rudd was knifed showed Labor leading by 52-48 (June 20), 51-49 (June 13), and 52-48 (June 6).

Despite disputes over school halls and ceiling insulation, the ALP remained plainly ahead under Rudd's leadership. Whether it can regain that position given the damage done by the Gillard team is unclear, but by now the alternative is starkly obvious.

With Rudd, there might be a chance to survive. Under Gillard, let alone one of her uninspiring, failed acolytes, the ALP is staring at decades in the Valley of Death.

Professor William Maley is director of the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy at the Australian National University, and co-author of The Theory of Politics: An Australian Perspective and The Australian Political System.

Labor Being Led To The Abyss