The term returned to prominence in February 2012, when Rudd resigned as Minister for Foreign Affairs and announced he would challenge Gillard in an attempt to regain the Labor leadership. The expression was also used to refer to the figures in the NSW branch of the Labor Party, such as Karl Bitar and Arbib who brought about the successive removals of Morris Iemma and Nathan Rees as Premier of New South Wales. Howes later published a book called Confessions of a Faceless Man. The term was revived in 2010 when a group of Labor factional leaders, including Bill Shorten, David Feeney, Mark Arbib and Don Farrell, with the support of the union leader Paul Howes, arranged for the Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to be removed as party leader and replaced by deputy leader Julia Gillard. The term 'faceless men' henceforth became a permanent part of Australia's political lexicon, nearly always being used in a pejorative sense when making reference to the Labor Party. The leaflet described Conference delegates as '36 unknown men, not elected to Parliament nor responsible to the people.' This tactic helped Menzies win the election with an increased majority, and led directly to Whitlam's campaign to reform the Labor Party's structure when he succeeded Calwell as party leader in 1967. The Liberal Party produced a leaflet headed: 'Mr Calwell and the Faceless Men'. The line was used effectively by the Liberal Party and its leader, Prime Minister Robert Menzies. In fact, there was a woman, Phyllis Benjamin of Tasmania, among the delegates at the Conference at the time. Reid commented that the ALP was ruled by '36 faceless men'. Neither Calwell or Whitlam were delegates to the Conference, which then consisted of six delegates from each of the six states. In the run-up to the campaign for the 1963 federal election, Reid commissioned a photograph of Labor Leader Arthur Calwell and his Deputy Leader Gough Whitlam standing outside the Kingston Hotel in Canberra, where the Conference was meeting, waiting to be told on what policy they were to fight the election. The term was first used in 1963 by Alan Reid, a journalist working for Sir Frank Packer's conservative Sydney Daily Telegraph, to refer to the 36 members of the Australian Labor Party's Federal Conference, which at that time decided elements of the party's election policy. Use of term Referring to the Australian Labor Party

1.3 Referring to the Liberal Party of Australia.

1.1 Referring to the Australian Labor Party.

Faceless man