DEPUTY Prime Minister Wayne Swan says the public attacks by ministers on Kevin Rudd's record as prime minister are not personal but an attempt to set the record straight.

Mr Swan said that until now, the Australian public did not know the real reasons for the June 2010 coup that led to Julia Gillard ousting Mr Rudd as Prime Minister.

Since Mr Rudd announced his resignation as foreign minister last Wednesday, several ministers, including Mr Swan, have gone on the record about issues they had with Mr Rudd and his management style.

Mr Rudd, who will go up against Ms Gillard in a leadership ballot on Monday, says he accepts people had issues with his time as Prime Minister, but he has changed.

"Of course people have some legitimate criticisms of some aspects of my past performance and I accept responsibility for that," he told Nine Network.

"We all learn from past mistakes and I can improve."

He said the personal attacks from his former ministers were unprecedented and unwarranted.

"When you're in the midst of a campaign for the leadership of Parliamentary Labor party, people are going to say a whole lot of things out there in the heat of a campaign and I think there's a whole lot of things said about yours truly which perhaps should not have been said."

If he lost to Ms Gillard, he believed the anti-Rudd campaign would continue.

However, Mr Swan said he and his colleagues were not mounting a personal attack against Mr Rudd, but advising the public of why he had to go.

"It is very important that there is an accurate record here," Mr Swan told the Ten Network.

He was unrepentant about speaking out against Mr Rudd.

"I didn't take those statements lightly ... but the fact is there is just no easy way to say that Kevin Rudd found it very difficult - particularly through 2010 - to take the decisions that needed to be taken and found it very difficult to provide respectful leadership in the cabinet."

He said he had tried to communicate those concerns to Mr Rudd, although Mr Rudd said no one within cabinet warned him he was at risk of losing the party's confidence because he was running a paralysed and chaotic Government.

"I, along with a number of senior ministers, was constantly talking to Kevin Rudd about the inability to progress the business of Government particularly through 2010 and late 2009," Mr Swan said.

Mr Swan also said he did not believe Mr Rudd had learnt from his mistakes.

Attorney-General Nicola Roxon, who criticised the way Mr Rudd handled health policy while she was minister, had some words of praise for Mr Rudd, saying his passion, vision and drive contributed to the implementation of major reforms in her previous portfolio.

But she said there had been no process to address differences of opinion on policy issues under Mr Rudd, in stark contrast to the way Ms Gillard operates.

Ms Roxon, Tony Burke and Peter Garrett are on the record saying they won't work in a Rudd ministry again.
 

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Dear Kev, nothing personal, love Swanny