ALP national secretary says change of leadership made a difference ALP National Secretary George Wright at the National Press Club in Canberra yesterday. KEVIN Rudd saved 25 seats for Labor after taking over the leadership from Julia Gillard on the eve of the September 7 election and left the party in a position to rebuild quickly to challenge Tony Abbott. ALP national secretary George Wright said internal Labor polling taken in the "second quarter" of the year showed the party was looking at being reduced to as few as 30 House of Representatives seats. In his post-election speech to the National Press Club, Mr Wright said the return of Mr Rudd to the prime ministership had completely changed the party's fortunes, and "immediately" after his return Labor had a prospect of achieving an "unlikely victory." "The change of leadership did make a difference," Mr Wright said, but Labor had been unable to sustain the gains to the finish line. Mr Wright praised Ms Gillard's courage. She is "a person you could tell the truth to," he said, and history would judge her more kindly. He said he had briefed her on internal party polling which suggested western Sydney would become a "Liberal heartland" and Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia risked being reduced to one Labor seat each. And we fully expected that Tasmania and the Northern Territory would return no Labor seats at all. We ended up holding 55 seats. As one commentator wrote, we pulled off a Dunkirk - suffering a major defeat, but managing to escape with our army intact. We live to fight another day. And fight we will. Mr Wright said the seeds of Labor's defeat were sown in the axing of a first-term prime minister when Mr Rudd was dumped in 2010. He said the government "never got over that." "Labor's history of infighting in office left us unworthy of re-election in too many voters' minds," Mr Wright said. He called on MPs to learn from past mistakes, for caucus to address the "culture" that sparked the problems and for it to put "indulgences" behind it. He said that, in retrospect, Labor may have done better if Mr Rudd had called the election earlier, but he didn't feel his advice on election timing had been ignored. Mr Wright called on the party to continue its internal democratic reforms. He said the changes in leadership election rules had delivered Bill Shorten the "most solid" platform that any Labor opposition leader has had for a long time. He called on the party to consider primaries for preselections in non-Labor held seats. But Mr Wright said despite the party's troubles, its programs would not be buried by the current government. Tackling climate change, justice for people living with a disability, needs-based education funding, world-class broadband, equitable access to university, properly funded retirement incomes, fair workplace rights, balancing the demands of jobs and the environment, these issues will not be kicked off the national agenda.