Key Labor figures were suspicious about Kevin Rudd's credentials to lead the party, a new account of the era says.
The first part of a three-part series, The Killing Season, aired on ABC TV on Tuesday night.
The series by journalist Sarah Ferguson coincides with the fifth anniversary of Rudd's removal as prime minister and the second anniversary of his reinstatement.
Former minister Greg Combet, who led the ACTU before winning a federal seat in 2007, told the program he "had the s***s big time" over the way Mr Rudd and Julia Gillard toppled Kim Beazley in 2006.
"It is unusual in Labor history that a leader (Rudd) would come through with so little historical engagement with the union movement and who didn't know the leaders of the union movement," Mr Combet said.
Another senior figure, former ALP NSW general secretary and now Senator Sam Dastyari, said that on election night in 2007 he remembers activists turning to him and saying: "What on earth are we going to do now?"
Ms Gillard told the program that in 2006 she encountered a dark side of Mr Rudd, who had been anxious to "strut his stuff" in question time but was denied this opportunity because Mr Beazley was leader.
On one occasion, after being left out of Labor's parliamentary tactics, Rudd "physically stepped into my space", Ms Gillard says.
"And it was a quite bullying encounter. It was a menacing, angry performance," she says.
Mr Rudd tells the program: "That is utterly, utterly false."
The former PM is praised in the program for his efforts during the global financial crisis, but he accepts responsibility for the failure of one of the stimulus programs - the home insulation scheme.
Mr Combet, who was appointed to handle the aftermath of the scheme under which four men died, was scathing of it.
"If you are going to hand over $1600 to an installer to go out to someone's home to install insulation for free for the householder, you've got to at least have the life experience and experience of the real economy to say well: 'S***, that is open to abuse, isn't it?'"
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