The PM has broken a pact he made to former premier Morris Iemma to privatise the NSW electricity industry. A FURTHER blow has been dealt to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's credibility, with revelations he broke a critical promise to help former NSW premier Morris Iemma privatise the state's electricity industry in return for him delaying the project until after Mr Rudd was elected in November 2007. In an explosive tell-all book by The Daily Telegraph's chief political reporter Simon Benson, Mr Iemma confirms a secret pact was made with Mr Rudd while he was Opposition leader. They would to go to war with the union movement after Mr Rudd was elected if the State Government delayed its critical reforms. Those reforms would have helped pay for more than $20 billion worth of road and rail projects in Sydney. In a secret meeting during the 2007 APEC summit, Mr Rudd pleaded with Mr Iemma to delay plans to privatise the power industry over fears a union backlash would torpedo his election campaign - a campaign fought largely on John Howard's industrial reforms. If you help me, I'll get elected and you will prosper. Work with me and, when the time comes, we can f. . . them [the unions] together," Mr Rudd is revealed to have told Mr Iemma in a meeting attended by two other senior Labor staffers. Sometimes we have to save the [union] movement from itself. Less than a year later, having walked away from the commitment, Mr Rudd refused to step in to protect Labor MPs under threat from unions opposing privatisation when Mr Iemma called to have the favour returned. "I'm asking you to support me on a matter of principle," Mr Iemma asked the PM in a telephone conversation on August 27, 2008. "It's a state issue, I can't get involved," Mr Rudd replied. A week later Mr Iemma was forced from office after his privatisation plans collapsed. The revelations contained in Betrayal come at a time when Mr Rudd's popularity has plummeted to an all-time low -- primarily because of a long list of broken promises and policy backflips. In an exclusive interview with Paul Keating contained in the book, the former Labor prime minister also takes aim at the party machine's leadership which ran NSW - and whose key people are now among Mr Rudd's closest advisers - claiming the NSW Labor machine which he once led had become a "patronage club" no longer capable of delivering meaningful reform. I think the problem with Centre Unity in NSW [the Right] is that it lacks now an ideology. When I say an ideology, it lacks an ideology other than the sheer pursuit of power," Keating said. It's clear enough about that, but power for what? And to do what? This is where the national Party always depended on Centre Unity, its processes, its real-world touch. When the motivation of the machinery of the party is unfurnished as to policy purpose, it has nothing more to offer than to focus on marketing and polls. After a while the public becomes aware of this and they realise that marketing and spin have no basis.