Kevin Rudd

The joke when Peter Costello was trying in vain to cobble together a viable leadership push was that he had enough supporters to fill a Tarago van. Kevin Rudd probably has around the same level of support – Kev’s van might also be fitted with a trailer to carry a few extra bods up the back – but it in numerical terms it is far from being an unstoppable juggernaut which will steamroll Julia Gillard out of the top job.

It’s the numbers that matter in politics. In the absence of good numbers, aspiring leaders fall back on psychology. History suggests it offers no sure path to the leadership. Quite the opposite.

Peter Costello was a bit like the dorky guy at the school disco who hung around in the corner hoping a girl would ask him to dance.

Continue reading "Memo Kev: Pee or get off the pot" »

As key moments go, it ranked with Gough Whitlam’s dramatic dismissal speech branding Malcolm Fraser “Kerr’s cur’’ or the latter’s lip-quivering concession on election night, 1983.

It was June 24, 2010. Before a huge media throng, a teary Kevin Rudd, his composure failing, his bewildered family staring awkwardly forward, detailed his achievements one by one. Long silences exacerbated the tension.

It was excruciating.

Continue reading "Kevin 2.0 could be better. Or it could be even KRuddier." »

Typically, leadership contests have that nagging chicken-or-egg feel about them.

They usually involve a period of intense public speculation with various insiders anonymously cited as backing this option or that.

It is a process which can leave voters suspicious of motives if only because change, division, and conflict, make great news copy.

Continue reading "Julia Gillard is on the highway to the danger zone" »

How far do you commute to work? One hour? Twenty minutes? Do you work from home? Where’s head office? Do you think a person who has to drive 15 minutes to their workplace is unqualified to do the job?

In politics, like no other job, being born and raised in the one area is some sort of political necessity. It’s a ridiculous thought because if we all thought like that, we’d be doing piecemeal work from home on looms.

This week, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd called Campbell Newman an ‘alien’ because Newman doesn’t live within the electoral boundary of Ashgrove. Newman lives one suburb away from the seat of Ashgrove. Does this mean he is unqualified to represent the people of Ashgrove?

Continue reading "Politicians don’t have to live in their own electorates" »

Julia Gillard needs time to repair her scarified personal standing in the broad electorate and this year simply will not give it to her. She also needs time to reorient political debate to economic management and other areas of relative Government strength. Again there simply will not be enough days for her in 2012.

This is a measure of both the magnitude of the Prime Minister’s plight and the crammed agendas for this year, the crucial positioning period leading up to the scheduled election in 2013.

This week Ms Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott will bid to impose their own structure on the national debate in major speeches—Mr Abbott tomorrow and Ms Gillard the day after.

Continue reading "So much ground to make up, so little time to do it" »

Those in the business of applying the defibrillators to Julia Gillard’s prime ministership have been quick to talk up her grace and decency during the tent embassy mayhem, while also pointing an accusatory finger at Tony Abbott for inciting the chaos.

Whatever sympathy Gillard may have received after her frightening ordeal will now be undermined by the resignation late Friday of a junior staffer who had stupidly worded up the protesters as to Abbott’s whereabouts. Nevertheless the PM clearly handled herself with courage and compassion.

The footage revealing her asking the security service to ensure Abbott would also be safely escorted from the restaurant was a credit to her. She didn’t know she was on camera, and there was nothing confected about her concern. Laudable, too, was her comment later that day that her only regret was the violence had disrupted an event recognising the courage of emergency services crews. At a more human level, Gillard simply looked terrified as she was rushed from the building. Only the most jaundiced critic would have felt for her as she was dragged to safety.

Continue reading "Year starts with shoe off, trouble ahead is a shoo-in" »

Julia Gillard will need to do more to win over the MPs who have deserted her than the offer of a sizzled sausage and a weekend whiteboard session. The love may have come too late.

With Parliament due to resume in less than two weeks, the fragility of the PM’s leadership will be the issue she most has to deal with. And for her, there can be no moving forward from the horrors of last year, until she gets the monkey off her back.

For that reason, Labor MPs are left with little doubt that the so called special caucus “planning day” scheduled for the Sunday before Parliament resumes, is all about Kevin Rudd.

Continue reading "Butchers papering over the cracks in Caucus" »

BY all accounts it was an extraordinary sight. Kevin Rudd was in flying form. As were his guests. Last Saturday night, while dining at Noosa’s trendy eatery, Bistro C, adoring patrons mobbed the foreign minister’s table.

They flattered and fawned over the local celebrity, who was born nearby in the hinterland of Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. An obliging Rudd did his best to accommodate them, leaving his guests at the table to stand arm in arm for group shots with his fans. He was in his element.

But that wasn’t the most extraordinary of things. Few people noticed the other man sitting at the table with him. And why would they. The former Attorney General Robert McClelland, dumped only last month in Julia Gillard’s frontbench reshuffle, is hardly a household name in Queensland or a face that many would necessarily recognise. But there he was, the political cuckold, dining with Rudd and several members of their families, as if they were long time friends.

Continue reading "PM beware former foes dining in fancy restaurants" »

Earlier this week, we learned that North Korean dictator and supreme being Kim Jong-un is the “Genius of Geniuses”.

This life-changing knowledge flowed gently into our puny human brains through the magic of a video presumably produced by Kim Jong-un himself.

So far, no one - except a bunch of people in gulags - has disputed this. And why would you? Who wouldn’t want a leader who is the official Genius of Geniuses? A crazy person, that’s who.

Continue reading "Stop horsing around and hail our glorious leaders" »

Let’s get one thing straight up front. Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott probably deserve points merely for surviving this arduous first calendar year of minority government. With everyone on a steep learning curve, the most obvious lesson is that there is a parallel between minority parliament and the concept of dog years: twelve months of this ages a government like the full three years of a normal term.

The other lesson is that while Julia Gillard has shown she is as tough as nails, simply refusing to blink, Tony Abbott has also adapted to the situation better than he’s been given credit for.

So, to some ratings.

Continue reading "Someone’s getting grounded: our pollies’ 2011 report card" »

With Parliament over for the year and Christmas just around the corner, our politicians will be looking forward to a well-earned rest. So what will they be reading over the summer break?

Usually they tell us they’re tucking into long, complex works by Tolstoy or Dostoevsky or biographies about obscure and impressive sounding military strategists from ancient Rome. Of course that’s rubbish.

Luckily, someone in Kevin Rudd’s office has leaked the entire list of what our leaders will really be reading this summer. Some of the highlights are reproduced below.

Continue reading "The definitive summer reading guide for our pollies" »

Much has been made this week of the leaked excerpts from the ALP’s election post mortem by Bob Carr, Steve Bracks and John Faulkner.

The excerpts leaked were highly critical of Kevin Rudd but the authors now say that there is even more material that has not been released that paints a very different picture.

Now, in yet another extraordinary exclusive, an explosive second extract has been leaked to the Joe Hildebrand column. Of course some people say these excerpts have also been selectively edited but I see no evidence of that…

Continue reading "Leaked report reveals leaked reports cause leaks" »

“She gave us nothing really, no inspiration and no feeling for the party’s mood. She calls Abbott ‘Dr No’ but it’s Julia who’s going to be known for saying no, and sometimes for things she later praises like emissions trading and probably gay marriage.”

This damning critique came not from an Opposition MP or conservative commentator, but a moderate member of the ALP’s Left.

It speaks to a growing frustration that was all too evident in Sydney last weekend when the PM had to be rescued from the membership following the embarrassing “we are us” opening address to National Conference.

Continue reading "She robs Rudd of office, then rubs him from history" »

The ALP national conference is coming up and this time it might actually be interesting rather than an event more scripted than an inflight safety announcement.

By this time next week the Labor Party will know whether it has reinforced its claim to stand for something or simply invited internal voices of dissent to an unseemly shouting match.

Further, Julia Gillard will know whether the party gave her the authority she needed or was marking her down because of the manner of her elevation.

Continue reading "ALP conference: This party’s no cause for celebration" »

I’m a young, Caucasian, university-educated male. Like many who match that description, I have a longstanding man-crush on the President of the United States, due to arrive in Canberra this afternoon.

It’s not just because Barack Obama is such a cool cat. It’s not just because of those 2008 YouTube videos of good-looking ladies singing about how excellent His Excellency is. It’s not even really because of his policies, some of which are spot-on and others, questionable.

I’ve got a man-crush on Obama for an old-fashioned reason. He can spin a story that’s at times, enchanting. He can tell compelling yarns with Hollywood-style blockbuster special effects.

Continue reading "Tell a good story, Barack, or you’ll end up like Our Kevin" »

The polls show that he is the people’s choice for prime minister.

And Kevin Rudd believes that, if the Labor Party still has a soul, it will soon heed the will of the people by committing an act of mass contrition, recognising that the factions were wrong, and reinstalling him to the job he secured so comprehensively at the 2007 election.

Rudd’s mind at the moment is driven by two things. One is personal, the other is pragmatic.

Continue reading "A behind-the-scenes look at Kevin Rudd: The Sequel" »

Despite what Tony Abbott would have us believe, the striking thing about the build-up to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth was not division between Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd. It was the way they worked together.

The two rivals put differences aside to try to ensure that CHOGM is a success. And they will consider it a success if the Commonwealth leaders leave Australia with smiles on their faces.

That’s what it’s all about. Keeping all of the 53 delegations happy. Because folks, behind the talk about strengthening the Commonwealth’s commitment to democracy and human rights, the Gillard Government is approaching the summit as a $60 million PR exercise.

Continue reading "Big guns down weapons for UN Security Council seat" »

Striding along Rome’s Piazza Navona in late September, his “Nikon necklace’’ bouncing off his chest as a sign of a duty-free camera indulgence, was Paul Keating.

He was, he told a group of Australians, constantly being stopped by Australian tourists who wanted a chat and to get in a photo with him.

It was suggested to him he was having the same public popularity problems as Kevin Rudd.

Continue reading "Rudd not a Caucus winner, but an expert on talkfests" »

I am becoming increasingly tired of seeing, hearing or reading in the media, former Prime Ministers or politicians struggling to retire from political power and influence with dignity.

Anyone with even a modest interest in politics could compile a substantial list in just a few minutes. Think Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke, Pauline Hanson, Peter Beattie, Bob Carr, Cheryl Kernot, Jeff Kennett, Mark Latham, John Hewson, Peter Costello, Graham Richardson and Peter Reith and you will have just started. Why don’t these ex-pollies just put the kettle on and relax?

Then of course there is deposed Prime Minister Kevin Rudd who is suffering the “Kath and Kim “ syndrome: “Look at me, look at me, look at me!”

Continue reading "FOOI #10: Ex-pollies, just shut up and put the kettle on" »

Today’s news that an Iranian actor faces a year’s jail and 90 lashes for starring in a South Australia-funded film is an affront to justice, artistic license and about 100 other things. It is, however, very good news for a certain K Rudd.

The man who was Prime Minister until he walked backwards into a very long scimitar has had a good week. Not since he confronted a jaded John Howard and his despised WorkChoices at the 2007 election has Rudd been presented with such a string of scenarios tailor-made for his popularity.

If politics is normally the equivalent of facing missiles hurled at 100 miles an hour, this week has been T-Ball for Rudd. First, he out-manouevred Gillard with the Kuta Kid, owning the news cycle and making Gillard’s phone call to the boy’s cell look like a desperate grab for attention. Now he’s got the chance to go into bat for Iranian actor Marzieh Vafamehr.

Continue reading "This must be a job for SuperKevin…" »

“Always forgive your enemies,” wrote Oscar Wilde, “nothing annoys them so much”. And no advice could be more prescient for Kevin Rudd, who must be feeling positively Churchillian at the prospect of being drafted back in to the Labor leadership.

The former ALP headkicker Graham Richardson, who is by his own admission more of an outsider these days than an insider, has claimed that Victorian backbencher Alan Griffin and West Australian senator Mark Bishop are running the numbers for Mr Rudd.

Commenting on the suggestion, the former PM mixed requisite denial with a rather heavy dose of aggression, attacking “factional bullies” and taking every opportunity to put the focus back on Tony Abbott. He is, quite literally, on the campaign trail – but the electorate is only an afterthought here. The voters that matter are in caucus.

Continue reading "The caucus dominoes could soon be falling Rudd’s way…" »

There is something enticing about the idea of life in the foreign service, with the promise of exotic travel, dealings and double-dealings with diplomats from the dodgiest regimes, cocktails on the lawn at lavish ambassadorial residences.

We have been reminded this week, however, that a very large part of the role of the foreign service is to lend a helping hand to ratbags who get themselves into strife overseas, and believe that it’s the job of the Government to get them out of trouble.

You would imagine that any Australian diplomat posted to a place such as Phuket would spend most of their time arranging ambulances for guys called Wazza who ploughed their Vespa into the back of a tuktuk after 14 bottles of Singha, safe in the knowledge that our Government can save them from their own stupidity.

Continue reading "Help me Kevin 747. You’re my only hope!" »

Kevin Rudd’s head is entitled to have swollen a fair bit recently. All week newspaper frontpages have been telling him how magnificent he is and how not-magnificent the current PM is. But just as magnificent as Rudd’s approval ratings is the gaffe (or perhaps, Freudian slip) he made this morning.

Kevin747 had just landed back home, shoulders sore after rubbing them against UN boffins all week in New York, when he said during an interview with a regional radio station that he was a “very happy little vegemite being Prime Minister - being Foreign Minister of Australia”.

It’s a ruddy spectacular slip, especially considering the leadership speculation kerfuffle of the past month. To commemorate such a brilliant verbal stuff-up, The Punch presents a few of the more embarrassing or just plain unfortunate conversational cock-ups of recent times.

Continue reading "A Ruddy spectacular compendium of gaffes" »

We’ve seen a lot of political oddity courtesy of this Labor crew – a first-term PM knifed and crying in the courtyard of Parliament House, his successor vowing to reveal “the real Julia” while never deviating from her robotic spin, and stunning and historic depths plumbed in the polls.

But last weekend, amid the circus that is Gillard’s embattled and high court rejected “Malaysia solution”, another surreal political moment occurred. 

A bizarre cross between hostage negotiation, desperate plea and slap in the face – yes, I’m referring to Peter Beattie’s “Dear Kevin” letter.

Continue reading "The oddity of Beattie’s ruddy “Dear Kev” letter" »

Kevin Rudd jet setting around the world partying with some of the world’s most powerful people might look like fun. It might even look like a waste of our tax dollars. Then again, it’s his job as foreign minister.

Suck it up, people. You might not like the guy but he’s got a job to do and he’s doing it. So what’s the problem?

Today The Daily Telegraph delivered a damning report of Kevin Rudd clocking up over $1 million on travel in his first nine months as foreign minister. Some will say it’s his revenge against Gillard knifing him in the back, making a big note of himself around the world. That’s rubbish.

Continue reading "Who gives a flying buck about Kevin 747’s expenses?" »

Much has been made of the tasteless descriptions of Prime Minister Julia Gillard on placards at anti-carbon tax rallies. Tasteless they are. They are also not really a world away from the descriptions used by our former prime minister Kevin Rudd to convey his toxic disregard for his successor.

Since losing the job in a swift and brutal coup just over 12 months ago, Rudd has been less than circumspect in his contempt for Gillard, at times in very public settings where he has gone out of his way to run her down to anyone who will listen.

When Julia Gillard seized the leadership last year, despite the role of the factional heavies, she took personal ownership of the decision to move against Rudd, memorably declaring that his was “a government which had lost its way”. Maybe it had, but in relative terms, it’s hard to see where that assessment leaves her government. A government which has lost its way, both its paddles, and has capsized its barbed-wire canoe in the deepest recesses of shit creek.

Continue reading "Rudd’s return a brilliant idea, possibly doomed to fail" »

On Saturday night Kevin Rudd celebrated having one million followers on Twitter. “Thanks a million,”  he tweeted.

But how many of those followers are members and senators of the Australian Labor Party?

Kevin Rudd can gathered all manner of tallies reflecting his popularity, but he has to get a majority in the federal Labor Caucus if he is to return to the job of Prime Minister. And Julia Gillard (67,131 Twitter followers) isn’t going to help him get it.

Continue reading "Kevin Rudd: One million followers and counting" »

Exquisite for some, bitter for others, the irony or perhaps karma of Labor’s current dilemma cannot have escaped members of Julia Gillard’s embattled caucus.

Last year, out of the blue and with no warning, they moved on a popular prime minister in what for most Australians was the dead of night.

On an otherwise non-descript Wednesday in June, the nation turned out the lights with one PM and awoke on Thursday with another. It was not foreshadowed in any way and has never been adequately explained.

Continue reading "Labor’s karma not dogma their own worst enema" »

Perhaps the most damaging outcome of all the dysfunction wrought by the Gillard Government is the shocking loss of respect for the office of Prime Minister itself.

If the headlines of “Dead Woman Walking” and the litany of ridicule in the weekend papers wasn’t enough to convince you that respect is lost, then tonight the ABC launches At Home with Julia - a sitcom, mockumentary, call it what you will, about the private life of Gillard and her partner Tim Mathieson.

Of course, I haven’t seen it - it may well be a touching tribute. Just as Spinal Tap was an erudite tribute to those much misunderstood rockers. Point is, it’s playing for laughs.

Continue reading "At home with a PM who’s lost all of Australia’s respect" »

Have you heard of Changsha, Chengdu and Chongqing? How about Wuhan or Weifang? Indeed try a little test: name seven cities in China … you can even count Hong Kong.

To my shame, I was unaware of any of these places before I set off for China last week. I was also unable to name seven Chinese cities.

As a late ring in for our Foreign Minister – who had something on even closer to his heart than China – I joined Trade Minister Craig Emerson in leading a trade delegation to China of a hundred Australian businesses.

Continue reading "A city the size of London in the middle of China" »

Twelve months ago today, Julia Gillard was reduced to seeking public support from the man she had turfed out of the Prime Minister’s office so mercilessly just over a month before.

“I have said yes to that request,” Kevin Rudd told reporters gravely after approaches for help made on behalf of Ms Gillard during the August 21 election campaign.

Mr Rudd had been in hospital, as he is now. He now is recovering from a heart operation. A year ago it was removal of his gall bladder.

Continue reading "Drop the defibrillator. The “real” Julia has a pulse!" »

Want to know how Australia’s $4.836 billion in Australian overseas aid will be spent in 2011-12? Finding out is not easy of you are a journalist or documentary filmmaker and do not want to rely only on Department of Foreign Affairs press releases and what is to be found on the DFAT and AusAID websites.

“I am committed to enhancing the transparency of our aid program,” writes Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd on the DFAT website. “When people are able to access information, they are better able to hold those who are managing their money — whether AusAID, partner governments, or international organisations — to account.”

Noble sentiments - but how does Rudd’s professed commitment to transparency and accountability stack up when it comes to providing media access to the aid programs on which this money is being spent?

Continue reading "We need to know whether aid is helping in Africa" »

The COAG reform agenda, having stalled long ago under Labor’s chaotic governing style, is showing about the same signs of life as the US housing market, if the latest performance reports are anything to by.

The 2009-10 performance reports released in recent days did not make for pleasant reading. Almost two years after the deadline for Kevin Rudd’s promise to take over the hospital system if the states did not lift their game, we are still no closer to a solution.

Elective surgery waiting times rose nationally while “financial barriers” caused one million Australians to put off seeing a GP. No doubt these financial barriers will only worsen as the inflationary effects of Labor’s stimulus spending come home to roost through higher taxes and interest rate hikes.

Continue reading "Reform agenda has slowly COAGulated" »

It loomed like an end of year exam. Threatening. Dreary. Ominous. And completely necessary in order to proceed into the next year.  As Labor MPs braced for the anniversary of the most tumultuous day in Australian politics since the dismissal of Gough Whitlam, they already knew it would be tough. But what really ate away at them was what Tony Abbott had been skilfully exploiting for months.

The switch to Julia Gillard had failed. The Government had spiralled downwards.Yes it had survived an election, but even that “win’‘, by way of backroom negotiation after the fact (hardly the Australian way) was a poison chalice.

At around 27 per cent, Labor’s primary vote is now at the lowest level for any federal government in the 39 years of Nielsen Poll and the first time one of the major parties had dipped below 30 per cent. Equally galling was that twice as many voters prefer the man Ms Gillard had displaced. If an election were held now, the ALP would have been decimated.

Continue reading "Doom! Gloom! Gillard celebrates one year" »

Those of you who are eagle-eyed and able to connect the dots may have noticed our elected representatives have been participating in a scheme in the service of our nation this week.

It was suggested by outgoing MP Lindsay Tanner, who reflected that the political scene was far too serious lately and in dire need of some levity. To combat this he suggested something bold, something daring.
Parliamentary joke time.

Continue reading "Did you hear the one about Parliament joke time?" »

One day in the near future the world as we know it will come to an end.

Australia will have become a series of atolls populated only by Gold Coast property developers and surrounded by smug hippies snorkelling past saying “I told you so”.

I speak of course about climate change, which is now certain to drown us in saltwater and self-pity and consign our grandchildren to interbreeding with dugongs in a bold but unbecoming attempt to keep the species alive.

Continue reading "The humanimals in our government will kill us all" »

In music, “polyphony” is when a composition has more than one melody playing at the same time. This term should be adapted for the political sphere. So, all and sundry, I hereby declare the label ‘polliephony’ be applied to those times when pollies try and win both sides of the argument - in other words, when they try to walk both sides of the street.

Polliephony is unfortunately a technique that is pervasive in almost all Australian political debates. However, for purposes of “programmatic specificity”, I’ll focus on its use in the asylum seeker debate.  This is because the asylum seeker debate is ripe for the use of polliephony, as it has two distinct sides of the street to walk on: one ‘tough’ and the other ‘humane’. 

Which brings us to one of the more remarkable and indelible uses of polliephony in modern Australian politics. Kevin “Bonhoeffer” Rudd’s notorious “tough but humane” approach to border protection.

Continue reading "Phony pollies and polyphony on asylum seekers" »

There are two ways to deal with dumped political leaders. They can either be accommodated or destroyed. The fatal mistake the Labor Party made when it knifed Kevin Rudd last year was that it tried to do both.

Since Rudd’s removal the party’s public position is that there is a valuable role for Kevin to play at senior levels of government, that he is a team player, an asset in foreign affairs, someone who adds depth to the Cabinet and continues to enjoy deserved popularity with the voters.

The party’s private position is that Rudd is a high-maintenance sook, was a bully and a control freak as leader, that he is now using foreign affairs to gallivant about big-noting himself, that he is running Julia Gillard down to whoever will listen, and that it would have been best for everyone if he’d bowed out gracefully ahead of last year’s federal election.

Continue reading "Forlorn hope that a smited Kevin would go quietly" »

In April a school group from the NSW central coast was in Paris on the way back from an emotional visit to Australian war graves on France’s Western Front.

Maybe it was the excitement of a wonderful overseas trip, maybe it was homesickness that explains what happened in Paris. But the point is, it wasn’t unusual.

The pupils had stopped to take in Notre Dame Cathedral when they came across another tourist attraction usually not seen back home at Brisbane Water and Tuggerah Lakes.

Continue reading "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship…" »

This time last year Labor’s factional bosses were loading the bullets into the chamber so that Julia Gillard could pull the trigger on Kevin Rudd’s prime ministership. No-one saw it coming - even on the night of the coup the most senior members of the government were dismissing the reports as a beat-up – and few predicted the chaos which would ensue.

Caucus was so quick to fall into line that Kevin Rudd ducked a leadership ballot after confidantes advised he would receive a humiliating handful of votes. The party believed that Julia was its saviour and two months later it failed to win a majority, with Ms Gillard having taken the government from its unassailable 2007 landslide position to a shambolic day-to-day operation, reliant on the vagaries of rural independents and inner-city Greens.

The polls now all point to a comfortable Coalition win at the next election.

Continue reading "Nothing to celebrate on Julia’s 1st birthday as PM" »

When I bring up the subject of Kevin Rudd’s brutal factional knifing, I am often accused of living in the past.

In fact nothing could be further from the truth. For example, let me take you back to 44BC.

This was another year when a group of factional powerbrokers decided their personal political interests would be much better served if they too knifed a leader who, despite his widely acknowledged vision and intellect, was criticised as being too imperious and autocratic.

Continue reading "Veni vidi vici Vo Vo*. Why Rudd is a modern day Caesar" »

They both have the unpleasant distinction of being among our shortest-lived political leaders – in the case of Malcolm Turnbull, just 13 months as Opposition Leader, in the case of Kevin Rudd, just two years and six months as Prime Minister.

The political decline of both men was intertwined with their shared belief in climate change and support for an emissions trading scheme.

They also have in common a somewhat imperious manner which grated with their parliamentary colleagues, who have often described them as condescending and aloof. It is unlikely that either man will ever lead their party again. Despite that reality, right now, the two biggest internal problems confronting the Labor Government and Liberal Opposition hinge on both men.

Continue reading "Tony and Julia battle for air with Mal and Kev show" »

Population stability in Australia today is all about immigration patterns and policy, not about some notion of enforced family size.

If it weren’t for sky-high levels of immigration we would already be well on the track to population stability, as are a number of other much wiser OECD countries.

At least the Burke review did not re-endorse Rudd’s “unapologetic” call for massive population growth.

Continue reading "We need to stop the cult of endless growth" »

It’s instructive to go back to the Kevin07 campaign advertisements, not least because the man himself seemed so confident and so damned chirpy.

The ads underline the fact it wasn’t long ago that many voters were prepared to place their trust in the abilities of the Labor Party.

Nielsen polling released Monday found Kevin Rudd was preferred leader of the Labor Party, 55 per cent to incumbent Julia Gillard’s 38 per cent. It was more a comment on Ms Gillard than a sign the mob wanted Kevin back, but the comparison was stark.

Even as Foreign Minister - even though he seems rarely in the country - Rudd retains the ability to connect that he mobilised so devastatingly against John Howard in 2007.

Continue reading "Video killed the Ruddio star" »

There was much laughter and teasing from the Labor side about the decision of the Queensland Liberal National Party to install a leader who wasn’t even in the Parliament. Federal Labor has its own leader in exile, except he’s inside the Caucus.

His name is Kevin, he’s from Queensland, and he’s here to do anything other than help Julia Gillard as she grapples with the horrors of minority government and seeks a difficult second term.

Julia Gillard has her work cut out for her. She’s up against not one but two alternative prime ministers, Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd. Tony Abbott is currently unassailable. Kevin Rudd is simply uncontrollable.

Continue reading "There’s nothing Julia can do about Kevin" »

It was another poor week for the Government, and one in which the Opposition didn’t have to lift a finger.

In fact, Tony Abbott just rode off into the sunset swapping the noisy “gutter politics” of the last weeks of Parliament for the majesty of the open road.  His lycra-clad parade along the 2011 Pollie Pedal charity bike ride gave us a new variant - gusset politics.

But Julia Gillard’s misfortune had nothing to do with nagging suspicions of where the alternative PM keeps his spare pair of socks.

Continue reading "Rogue Rudd has Gillard over a barrel" »

He’s jokey, he’s hokey, he’s contrite, he’s frank. He’s Kevin Rudd and he’s trying to convince you he has learned his lesson.

KR #2 last night used an ABC political chat show, Q&A, to suddenly start talking about some of those events of the past 12 months which are still shaping and plaguing the ALP and the government.

Rudd did so with a beguiling combination of Dad Jokes and aw-shucks language (in which Zimbabwe becomes Zim and Americans were Yanks, factional leaders were thugsters).

Continue reading "Chilled out Rudd is sticking the elbow in" »

The situation in Libya is constantly changing. For the latest updates see news.com.au.

It is hard to agree with the Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd on many things these days, but his efforts to effect a no-fly zone over Libya three weeks ago struck a controversial, but important, note. A pity, then, that the usual international politics surrounding the Western alliance and the United Nations bogged down the process to the point that the rebels in Libya were on their last legs when the UN Security Council vote was taken on the matter.

Centre after centre of opposition were lost to Gaddafi’s reorganised forces, and his family-led offensives bit into what seemed like a promising revolutionary movement late last month.

The Colonel is a seasoned campaigner both within Libya itself, and in global politics. Ronald Reagan tried to take him out by a surprise missile attack on his palace in 1986. The missiles didn’t harm him, but were said to have killed an adopted daughter and some other members of his extended household. He reportedly took to spending his nights in shifting tents from then on, blending traditional culture (he was born in a tent) with forms of security which have been most effective.

Continue reading "Rudd was talking some sense on Gaddafi" »

So Kevin Rudd reckons he’s a better bet to captain the Brisbane Broncos than run for Prime Minister again.

Julia Gillard, who once laughed off her Lodge aspirations by claiming she was more chance to play for the Western Bulldogs, could be forgiven for taking that as a declaration of war. 

From earthquakes and tsunamis to violent insurrection in the Middle East, 2011 has borne witness to enormous devastation – which, while tragic for those involved – has certainly enabled Rudd as Foreign Minister to suddenly become more ubiquitous on Australian television than the Daddo brothers. 

Continue reading "Kevin Rudd: Master of disaster" »

It’s time that Mr. Rudd learned some manners.

Imagine, for a moment, that your house has caught fire. Imagine that some of your family members are still inside the house.

You are doing everything within your power to get them out, and to safety. At the same time, you know that some of your family members have already died.

Continue reading "Rudd’s demand for ‘urgent briefings’ downright rude" »

One step forward, one step back. Elation, tempered by frustration.

These are the yin and yang senses in the Gillard camp as the PM flies back to Australia today following what should have been an unqualified triumph: a full White House reception extending to a schools visit, an address to a joint sitting of the US Congress, and meetings with all the key figures including the United Nations, General Secretary, Ban Ki-moon.

But for the still new-at-the-job Julia Gillard, struggling to stamp her authority on the prime ministership at home and abroad, Kevin Rudd, the man she displaced last June, remains a fly in the ointment.

Continue reading "Gillard is still struggling to clip Rudd’s wings" »

Most of us at some stage or another have received an invitation to a school reunion. Although I would hate to admit how long it has been since I left high school.

Even more sobering was an email I received inviting me to a reunion for the class of 1981 diplomatic cadets joining the Department of Foreign Affairs.

It is worth thinking about how much the world has turned on its head over the last 30 years.

Continue reading "The world has changed a lot, except the threat of violence" »

The loneliest man in the Labor Party never stops talking to people.

You would be financially wrecked if you had the telephone bill of Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd who is dialing around the international dateline.

He listed his calls yesterday - over the past few days he has spoken to the UN Secretary General, the US Secretary of State, the US Deputy Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, and the heads of the IMF and the World Bank.

Continue reading "KRudd. Lonely. Bitter. Savage. And quite chatty." »

Political leaders, be they premiers or prime ministers, need protection - especially during the tough times when the polls look sick, and the backbench can get nervy.

‘Twas ever thus. Bob Hawke could rely on the dominance and iron discipline of the Right faction. Factional heavyweights like Graham Richardson and Robert Ray controlled the numbers ensuring nothing untoward occurred.

It was a highly effective arrangement with only one major weakness. When some of those closest to him swapped sides it was game over. That’s politics. The King is dead, long live the King.

Continue reading "Keep voters close, and your political allies even closer" »

``Everywhere you go, always take the weather with you,’’ goes the much loved Crowded House song.

But if you’re in politics, it’s more often the weather which takes you and its colossal force can sweep you away.

Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott should remember this because climate and climate related politics have shaped many a political turn over the years.

Continue reading "When the weather can change the political climate" »

Over the past fortnight Kevin Rudd has monitored two major Australian issues from vantage points which don’t seem perfect for the task.

When Australians were reported to be trapped and in danger in Egypt, he was in Switzerland. When a massive cyclone hit his home state, he was in Lichtenstein.

Today, he will be back in the country for the first time in those two weeks, arriving just before the resumption of Parliament for the year.

Continue reading "Kevin 707: Rudd’s travel starts to raise eyebrows" »

In the aftermath of the Brisbane floods Kevin Rudd cast himself in the role of volunteer-in-chief, wading through the waters in his uniform of rolled up chinos and sodden business shirt. It’s easy to be cynical, I guess.

The real volunteers, of course, sought no recognition for their work. Over 22,000 of them, ably commanded by Lord Mayor Campbell Newman, rolled though Brisbane to lend a hand.

These volunteers are a testament to the Australian spirit of generosity and mateship. But Kevin Rudd could still do something genuinely useful to help the cause of volunteering.

Continue reading "AUSCORPS: Time for an official army of volunteers" »

Kevin Rudd might be egotistical, self-serving, mistake prone and a control freak but he is perfectly suited to the foreign ministry.

Although Rudd demanded the foreign affairs portfolio at the barrel of a gun, it’s a win-win situation for him and Australia. Rudd gets to travel the world and prepare for a post-political career and the country gets can rest assured that its biggest political liability has one of the least influential portfolios in government.

Rudd cannot do damage as Australia’s chief diplomat because diplomacy is the most overrated profession since travel agents. International relations is not about the high politics of the diplomatic elite; rather, it is about globalisation and interactions between individuals and firms operating within a global market.

Continue reading "Kevin Rudd is in exactly the right place" »

On a crisp night in Jerusalem just over a week ago, Kevin Rudd hosted drinks for a small bunch of journalists at the famed King David Hotel.

The globe-trotting Foreign Minister had jetted into Israel from Egypt, punctuating the whistle-stop visit with meetings with Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres.

As he sat nursing a whiskey - neat, on the rocks - Rudd was jovial enough but could barely keep his eyes open. He looked like he needed a week’s worth of sleep.

Continue reading "Kevin Rudd’s still flying solo" »

News that our Diggers have rejected Kevin Rudd’s pessimistic view of the war in Afghanistan is no surprise.

A foreign minister who derides the French and German contribution to the conflict as nothing more than ‘organising folk dancing festivals’ when each nation has suffered nearly 50 casualties is insensitive and out of touch.

Like our European friends Australia’s participation in Afghanistan is part of a broader international effort that is making considerable progress.

Continue reading "Why Australia must stay the course in Afghanistan" »

Monday 13/12/10

6:00am

Arrive in office. Ask mini-Rudd if he’s prepared the morning news summary. Mini-Rudd says he’d really prefer I called him Lucas. Tell mini-Rudd I’d really prefer it if he were older than 22, because I find it really awkward having to push around my chief of staff.

Mini-Rudd says as chief of staff he should not have to do news summary. Demand mini-Rudd get me coffee before he finishes news summary. Mini-Rudd grumbles something about going to the union.

Continue reading "Journal of a Rudd staffer: a touching soap Oprah" »

Here’s some of what the Prime Minister Julia Gillard told the Parliament on October 19 this year (you can read her whole speech starting on page 692 here):

To ensure the new international strategy can be delivered, last December the United States committed to a military and civilian surge in Afghanistan. The elements of this surge are now reaching full strength. Once fully deployed, this will take coalition force numbers to roughly 140,000. US forces on the ground have tripled since early 2009. The total force now has the resources required to deliver a comprehensive international strategy focused on counterinsurgency and designed to deliver transition.

Continue reading "Gillard deserves the benefit of the doubt on Afghanistan" »

Here’s something ironic. Kevin Rudd seems to be the only one keeping Wikileaks in perspective.

Who knows whats going on behind closed doors, but this morning the foreign minister was channeling Rhett Butler. “I don’t, frankly, give a damn about this sort of thing,” Rudd told Sunrise. Perhaps he’s of the view there was nothing in this morning’s Wikileaks cable reports we couldn’t have read in any Australian newspaper late last year or early this year.

Everyone else, however, including Julia Gillard, Swedish authorities and most of the political figures in the United States, is at risk of losing the rhetorical war with Julian Assange that’s been set off by the latest round of leaks.

Continue reading "Trying to neutralise Assange a bad strategy for authorities" »

So Kevin Rudd’s been musing about the Chinese and how we might need to be ready to “deploy force” if efforts to integrate the PRC into the rest of the world go horribly wrong.

We established long ago the former PM has a tendency to get a bit carried away in discussions with other world leaders. Remember how he allegedly got off the phone from George W Bush and regaled his dinner guests with the cracking yarn that the then-US president didn’t know what the G20 was.

Or how in Copenhagen he went off about how the Chinese were trying to “rat-f**k us”. And who can forget his nickname for the UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon - “Spanky Banky”.

Continue reading "Kevin Rudd’s bravado is actually a bit of a worry" »

The Prime Minister has now spent more time overseas than her predecessor ‘Kevin747’ did in the same period.

Partly a product of timing – the end of the year begs attendance at a number of multilateral forums – she has visited the troops in Afghanistan; lobbied for the World Cup in Switzerland; conducted bilateral visits to both Malaysia and Indonesia; and attended the Asia-Europe Meeting in Brussels, the East Asian Summit in Vietnam, the G20 in South Korea and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation in Japan.

Gillard’s latest trip was to Portugal for a NATO meeting on Afghanistan spending by her calculation “fifty-five hours in the air for eighteen on the ground”.

Reflecting earlier this month in Japan on her travels before flying overnight back home for Parliament she said, “There are a few moments when you would have to say it has been a bit slow but overwhelming it has been a good experience”. But just how she has been doing out there on the world stage depends on which audience you speak to.

Continue reading "Gillard’s doing just fine on the world stage" »

Calling this political year a long one is a little like Usain Bolt recenlty describing himself as “quick”.

This year’s political highlights were as extraordinary as they were painful. The language describing them is consistently one of violence: a spiked ETS policy, a Prime Minister stabbed in the back, an election on a knife edge and, finally, a hung parliament.

On the battle field that was federal politics in 2010 we had those that thrilled and those that failed. Tomorrow we’ll give our verdict on the best performers. But today, on the second last day of Parliament sitting for the year, The Punch presents, in no particular order, our most underwhelming MPs who have disappointed or just disappeared in 2010.

How are you still a Minister Peter Garrett?

Continue reading "The 10 worst performing MPs of 2010" »

The infamous ‘gang of four’, making all government decisions, came to symbolise the style of the first term of the Rudd-Gillard Government, and is reminiscent of the first chaotic days of the Whitlam years.

In 1972 Gough Whitlam and Lance Barnard were sworn in as an absurd two-man ministry making a raft of two-man decisions, which set the scene for three years of extraordinary incompetence and profligacy.

Today, marks the third anniversary of the election of the current government and it can be argued that Labor’s abandonment of cabinet government, and centralisation of power around a select few, similarly set it down the pathway to the mess it is now in.

Continue reading "Government’s third birthday nothing to celebrate" »

The parallels between US politics and ours provide interesting lessons.

Just as we saw an historic swing against a one-term Labor government here in August, the US mid-term election last week saw a stunningly massive swing away from Obama’s Democrats that has the conservative Republicans gaining control of the House of Representatives.

Just a year ago both parties had immensely popular figureheads, in Rudd and Obama, who had been swept into office on a wave of symbolic rhetoric and grandiose promises. Granted, Rudd didn’t quite top Obama’s assertion that he would stop the seas rising, but he came close.

Continue reading "What Gillard could learn from Obama’s mistakes" »

Australian Ambassador to Japan, Murray McLean OAM, caught up with Thom Woodroofe at APEC this week and discussed the prospect of him moving to be our man in Beijing, and the behaviour of the Chinese at Copenhagen last year .

Reports in the Australian Financial Review last weekend suggested that Murray McLean is on the shortlist to be our head diplomat in Beijing.

While the job has been advertised internally in DFAT, the mandarin speaking Ambassador humbly brushed off the suggestion he was being considered for the shift to China. He says he will go “wherever the government wants him to go” when his term expires “sometime in 2011”, but he may be asked to pack his bags for Beijing before then.

Ambassador McLean has been our main man in Tokyo for almost six years now, a lengthy appointment by any measure. But his CV oozes China.

Continue reading "Who will be our man in Beijing?" »

A funny thing happened in Melbourne yesterday morning. A very senior politician answered a whole lot of questions in complete sentences, with barely an acronym, and without the repetition of a handful of sound bites.

This politician - to the surprise of some of the people in the room - even expressed an opinion on some issues. An actual opinion.

This aberration on the political scene didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow among the people who had seen her up close before. For the rest of us, however, it was quite shocking.

Continue reading "We should set our politicians free to be themselves" »

It is tempting to see parallels between federal Labor’s flat-lining election result and the drubbing Barack Obama’s Democratic Party received at this week’s mid-term elections.

But much of the skin Obama lost came from doing difficult things in his first two years whereas Labor’s collapse came from ducking them.

The Democratic Party lost 52 seats in Bill Clinton’s first term. The Republicans went backwards by 26 House seats under Ronald Reagan; by eight under George H W Bush (the father); and by 30 in George W’s second term. But all of these were dwarfed by the shellacking handed out to Democrats under presidents FDR and Harry S Truman who lost seats at the rate of 71 in his middle term (he had three of them) and 45 respectively. All were re-elected.

Continue reading "Obama copped it for too much, Gillard for too little" »

As a social researcher, you always try to keep your mind open and your ears alert to any slightly change in public sentiment.

While it’s rare to hear anything new when you are listening to voters talk about politics, you have to allow yourself the opportunity to be surprised.

The week after Labor secured the necessary support to form government, we were in field conducting research for our bi-annual Mind & Mood report.

Continue reading "The mood altering effect of the new paradigm" »

In the bottom of one of my drawers at home I’ve got this really cool grey T-shirt with a picture of Barack Obama and the words “Obama for yo Mama” written on it.

We’ll actually it’s not that cool anymore, which is why it’s now in the bottom of the drawer.

I never had a Kevin ’07 T-shirt but you can bet there are a lot of those sitting in cardboard boxes and stuffed in the back of cupboards these days too, destined for use only when washing the car or cleaning the bathroom.

Continue reading "We all pay for Obama killing off inspiration politics" »

As Lazarus rose (albeit for a book launch) this week, the gaping leadership chasm that has been the Prime Ministership since John Howard’s departure was glaringly exposed.

A recent article in The Spectator on John Howard had the by-line “Remember when Australia had a real PM?”  It’s a fair question.

John Howard’s re-emergence on the national stage this week, along with a raft of shoe-throwing unwashed Howard-haters, only served to remind the public what it has been missing: conviction politics.  Plain and simple.

Continue reading "Recent PMs haven’t risen to fill Lazarus’s shoes" »

The relationship between Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard was bound to be a fragile one. But it now looks like the Prime Minister has grounded her Foreign Minister, potentially damaging our international relations.

Kevin Rudd should have been in Brussels this past week with Julia Gillard.

The Prime Minister was in town for the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), a gathering of forty leaders from the two continents which Rudd lobbied hard to have Australia become a member of as Prime Minister. The leaders (or their deputies) of major and middle powers like China, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea attended with their Foreign Ministers. But Rudd was nowhere to be seen.

Continue reading "Why wasn’t Rudd in Brussels with the PM?" »

They both attended universities in Adelaide, were members of the ALP, and both wanted desperately to become prime minister of Australia. One of them actually did it. The other, well, even to say he came close would be generous.

They are Julia Gillard and Brendan Nelson. There they were yesterday. Gillard, the all-conquering but nonetheless skin-of-her-teeth winner of the 2010 election campaign which had made her Australia’s first elected female prime minister (she already had the other record of first female PM sewn up). And Nelson - a distant echo from the recent past. A man who rather too frequently even for his irrepressible smile, had acquired the unfortunate prefix ``hapless’’ during his trevails as Liberal leader.

History shows, as we all know, that they ended up on different sides of the political fence and pursued markedly different trajectories to their current positions. Yet as fate would have it, yesterday, this unlikely pair with way more differences than similarities (despite the above) found themselves on the same team.

Continue reading "The odd couple: PM Julia meets Ambassador Brendan" »

MONDAY 27/09/10

First time in Parliament House since leadership spill.

Never thought I’d be back here. Had been in Pakistan doing media for an NGO. Was really thriving. My experience of NSW Labor factional warfare was the perfect apprenticeship for navigating Pakistan’s male-dominated, clan based society.

Then about ten days ago, ran into Rudd. He was on marathon tour of the region, trying very hard to write notes, listen, and look concerned simultaneously.

Asked Rudd where his staff were. He’d fired them three camps ago. Offered me a promotion, a pay rise, and the right to swear at him.

I couldn’t refuse.

Continue reading "Journal of a Rudd Staffer: Let the games begin" »

If you didn’t like cricket would it be any easier to bear if you were forced to watch a one day international as opposed to a test match? No, because you just don’t like cricket.

The first Question Time following the much publicised changes to parliamentary procedure was sharper, quicker and more concise but it was still just politics.

Questions were dodged by Julia Gillard and her Government, and cheap political punches scored by the Abbott’s opposition. So if you didn’t much care for politics under the old paradigm, the new one isn’t going to do much for you.

Continue reading "New paradigm, new rules, same old politics" »

This week Kevin Rudd is in New York City, this time not as Kevin 747, or even Kevin ‘07 but rather as Kevin 0.7.

In the year 2000 world leaders got together to discuss how we could eradicate poverty. The result was the heralded Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) a set of aspirational targets designed to alleviate poverty by 2015. This included goals such as halving hunger, progress on infant and maternal health and universal primary education.

Each developed nation was asked to give 0.7 per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP) toward achieving these goals, Australia has only committed to 0.5per cent.

Continue reading "Hi, I’m Kevin 0.7 and I’m here to help" »

The flooding in Pakistan was an unavoidable natural disaster. The measures we take now will decide if we can avoid an ongoing humanitarian disaster.

Last Thursday I visited Pakistan to inspect the flood damage and the Australian response in Kot Addu, near Multan in the Southern Punjab.

The UN High-Level Meeting on Pakistan today met to discuss the adequacy, or inadequacy, of the international response. This meeting has one challenge – to prevent a natural disaster becoming a humanitarian calamity that could have been avoided.

Continue reading "What I saw in Pakistan, and why the world must help" »

I’m sure I am not alone in saying that every time I see Kevin Rudd on the television these days I hear Metallica playing Enter Sandman in the background and expect him to jump on a Harley and blow away a Columbian drug lord with a sawn-off.

Or maybe he just has a certain look in his eye.

The sad truth is that there have been no winners in this agonisingly protracted and policy-free election campaign. No winners except Kevin, that is.

Continue reading "One lesson from the election: Don’t mess with Kevin" »

It’s hard to imagine a politician more comfortable with the convoluted parlance of international diplomacy than Kevin Rudd.

The freshly-minted Foreign Minister just held his first press conference to announce he’s zipping off to Pakistan enroute to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly Leaders’ Week (that’s “the UNGA” to the cool kids).

It was a very different Kevin Rudd to the surly-looking outcast at yesterday’s ministerial swearing-in ceremony (you can read Sam Maiden’s account of yesterday here.)

Continue reading "Rudd like a pig in mud in the Foreign Ministry" »

Despite it being the dawn of the Sunshine Parliament, Julia Gillard is going to have to make some decisions about her cabinet based very much on the darker and drearier realities of the last Government.

Between former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, former Prime Ministerial backstabbers and powerbrokers in Mark Arbib and Bill Shorten and Robb “this could go on for a while yet” Oakeshott, Julia Gillard is faced with political equivalent of a surgical face transplant in a NSW public hospital.

Heres are a few people and portfolios that are going to leave the Prime Minister with some headaches:

Kevin Rudd

He’s not so much the elephant in the room as he is an erudite 200 kilogram, opera singing multi lingual gorilla in the room that regularly supplies analysis for the six o’clock news. Queensland was apparently upset that he got dumped as PM, but as he never really seemed to disappear so it’s unclear why they were so upset.

Continue reading "Gillard’s big cabinet headaches" »

Put My Way on the karaoke machine. It’s the end of the night and the sun is coming up on a new government - a Labor minority government, to be precise. If you’re a bit of a political tragic having followed the campaign and its surreal denouement, tomorrow you might wake up feeling as if someone has died.

But conversely if you don’t care - and many normal people don’t seem to have given a hoot, in fact being politically rudderless has been a subject of some mirth - you might feel as if that irritating but really fun friend of yours has just left town. Anyway here’s The Punch’s list of our favourite shark-jumping and oddball moments of the 2010 campaign. Add yours in the comments, and we might build out the list. Let’s start with today’s silliness:

1. Rob Oakeshott’s speech announcing who he would support: Really, could he actually have drawn it out any longer? He started with a list of thank-yous that made it seem like he was accepting an Oscar, then proceeded with a meandering justification of his decision that prompted Laurie Oakes to wonder if we would be here another fortnight. But in the end said he would support Julia Gillard in helping Labor form a minority government.

Continue reading "Goodbye campaign 2010, we’ll miss you" »

In the next few days we should know whether Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott will be the next Prime Minister.

Regardless of whoever prevails they should do the country a favour and appoint the leader they knocked off to be the country’s chief diplomat.

The position of Minister for Foreign Affairs, which for the moment at least also has trade tacked on, is a coveted portfolio. Unlike most other ministries it has traditionally involved dealing almost exclusively with matters core to the national interest with a lesser regard for the day-to-day trench warfare of politics. Until Kevin Rudd came along.

Continue reading "Rudd and Turnbull are the safe hands for foreign affairs" »

With foreign policy barely rating a mention in the election campaign, the strongest indication we will have of the eventual winner’s view on the world is where they decide to go first.

Like most elections this campaign wasn’t fought on foreign policy.

Even with the tragic deaths of three soldiers in Afghanistan it was a passing topic. Tony Abbott did promise to dump Australia’s bid for a seat on the UN Security Council and appoint a Minister for International Development. But the closest we got to a genuine debate on our place in the world was one about which island country to our north to send asylum seekers.

Continue reading "The foreign affairs guessing game: first stop for the PM?" »

The torturous negotiations over who can form a Government have taken an interesting twist, with former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd arriving in Canberra as talks with crucial independents begin.

The former Prime Minister, turned backbencher, turned Labor election campaigner has arrived at the same time crucial talks with rural independents Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott and Queenslander Bob Katter are taking place at Parliament House.

While Mr Rudd’s office says his trip to Canberra is not directly related to an attempt to form a Labor Government with the three independents, the former PM has a good relationship with the former independents, and is understood to have contacted Mr Katter on election night congratulating him on his re-election.

Continue reading "Is it Rudd to the rescue once more?" »

I asked a bloke who has senior runs on the advertising board in “branding” of politicians to explain the election campaign.

He said the best analogy lies in bank ads. Writing campaigns for banks, he explained to me, is all about creating a distraction. “After financial deregulation, a gulf emerged between what retail customers wanted from banks and how bankers regarded their retail customers. The customers wanted a relationship with their bank. The bankers couldn’t care less.”

In the 90s, focus groups among average Australians who put their money with a given bank always ended in tears. “People would stand up and shout and cry. They felt incredibly let down”.

Continue reading "Brand-mad politicians acting like a pack of bankers" »

Veteran Labor heavyweight, Graham Richardson was asked several weeks back what Kevin Rudd would really think about a Labor defeat. The powder-dry former senator conceded that somewhere in the dark recesses of Rudd’s soul, he’d probably be delighted.

That may have been true just after his demise. And to be fair, a degree of schadenfreude is only human after such trauma. But a few weeks on and with the voters’ judgment hanging like Damocles’ Sword, Kevin Rudd must now be hoping for an ALP victory. His future prospects and his legacy depend on it.

Whether fair or not, nothing short of the Government surviving will salvage Kevin Rudd’s reputation with his colleagues.

Continue reading "Rudd’s fate hangs in the balance today too" »

One of the more unusual comments of this election campaign was made by Julia Gillard on The 7.30 Report this week when the Prime Minister batted away questions about the personal repercussions of defeat on Saturday.

“Oh, this isn’t about me Kerry,” Gillard said. It was a funny remark, and an engagingly selfless one, as it’s hard to envisage anything more personal than serving yourself up to the judgment of the nation in a general election.

Most people who enter politics do not exit politics on their own terms. You can only begin to imagine what the sense of rejection must be like for past leaders, or even no-name backbenchers who have to grapple with the fact that the loss of their seat is effectively a signal from the community that they just don’t like them enough to make them their representative.

Continue reading "If it’s not about you PM, who is it about?" »

Tony Abbott’s National Press Club address today demonstrated the greatest fear of the Coalition going into Saturday’s election: that although this may not be a good government, people will give them another chance because it’s their first term.

Abbott’s main line of attack focused on the ousting of Kevin Rudd, one that has not been central to the Coalition’s campaign so far:

“Why should people give the Government a second chance when Kevin Rudd wasn’t given a second chance?

“You don’t owe this government anything, so don’t be taken in by the plea that you have to give them a second chance.

Continue reading "Tony connects the dots, but is it too late?" »

The Labor Party campaign launch today should be a lesson in why waiting till your last week for a campaign launch is not a good idea: because it could fall flat.

In a very close campaign today’s Labor launch won’t hurt Julia Gillard’s chances, it just won’t do anything extra for them, and that would’ve really helped right now.

There was nothing new in what Gillard had to say today, and was made doubly painful by a meandering and confused speech by former Prime Minister Bob Hawke.

Continue reading "Counterpunch: Wow, that was really average" »

When Julia Gillard successfully challenged Kevin Rudd for the Labor leadership, she brought the noble profession of politics in this country into disrepute. Prior to Gillard’s ascension to the office of PM, politics was a gentlemanly undertaking carried out with a spirit of fair-play. On 24 June 2010, the Gillard coup against Kevin ‘The People’s Prime Minister’ Rudd destroyed this tradition, and sullied the good name of the office of PM. 

That, at any rate, has been a core theme running throughout this election campaign.

In his closing remarks at the leaders debate, for example, Abbott claimed that ‘decisions will be made by Cabinet, not powerbrokers’, implying that Gillard was somehow beholden to shadowy background figures and that he himself is just a free agent. Similarly, Abbott has tried to run the line that the sight of Kevin Rudd on the campaign trail will remind voters of Labor’s ‘political thuggery’.

Continue reading "Fresh from his brutal coup, Abbott bemoans brutal Labor" »

There are some things that haven’t been ignored this election: babies, old Julia, new Julia, Kevin Rudd, Mark Latham, pretty much all past Labor leaders, maternity leave, Alexander Downer, John Hewson, Peter Costello, debates, the seat of Lindsay, asylum seekers in the seat of Lindsay.

You may have also noticed that, despite this campaign being anything but boring, it has also not been about many things. Here’s a few to ponder:

1. Childcare: The debate around childcare seems to have been sucked up by that of parental leave. But we shouldn’t forget that children will need somewhere to go when their parents go back to work and, short of running for the LNP in North Queensland, they may have to be put somewhere. Labor rolled out Kate Ellis to try and sell their broken promise on this earlier in the year. But despite the Government going back on their promise to build 260 new childcare centres, the Coalition haven’t talked much about it either except playing with the indexation of the rebate.

Continue reading "At least 8 issues this election has been ignoring" »

With the election running faster than a ‘roo on the hot desert’, the Australian slang and euphemisms have been coming thick and fast. For a politician it is clearly a calculated move: during the recent televised debate, Tony Abbott dropped the term ‘fair dinkum’ four times before Gillard started using it back in an ironic sense.

Even Kevin Rudd made his return to the campaign trail claiming that ‘I actually don’t think Mr Abbott is fair dinkum.’ But really, are any of us buying this usage? How many Australians can listen to politicians using slang terms, and find it natural and believable?

For many Australians, slang is a part of every day life. It’s a useful way of shortening our sentences, has created a sense of camaraderie, and done wonders for defining the Australian image. But much about Australian slang comes from its casual delivery, and it’s association with a relaxed atmosphere. Neither of which are terms used to describe politics.

Continue reading "Fair Dinkum pollies, enough with the slang" »

The full set of these pictures probably got passed over a little over the weekend because of (a) it being the weekend and (b) Mark Latham.

You may have seen a few of them but there were a total of 10 photos from the meeting between Prime Minister Julia Gillard and her predecessor Kevin Rudd. It makes for an excruciatingly awkward compilation of shots with neither Gillard nor Rudd looking at all like they want to be there in a single frame.

The rest of the photos follow over the jump. They don’t need captions - they’ve just been given numbers for easy reference in the comments. Enjoy - and let us know if you have a particular favourite.

Continue reading "When Julia met Kevin: the full set of photos" »

Divorce can be a bitter and messy affair. Political relationships are no different, especially when the break-up has hinged on a power play for the highest post in the land.

When Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd met on Saturday for the first time since the Labor leadership coup they looked more like a divorced couple reluctantly brought together to iron out a settlement than a reunited team working together to win an election.

The body language between the pair in the pooled video and pictures from the closed-door meeting spoke plenty to many outside observers.

Continue reading "Body language: how readers saw the Rudd-Gillard photo" »

Update 4.48pm: The circus is officially in town. Mark Latham has confronted Julia Gillard at the Ekka at Brisbane’s showgrounds claiming that the Labor Party has complained about his working as a journalist on the campaign for Channel Nine, and that she had refused his interview requests. Ms Gillard was civil and rejected both his claims.

The confrontation has capped a day of chaos for the ALP, and also gave a reminder of the same macho approach Latham took as Labor Leader when he almost crushed John Howard’s hand with an aggressive handshake at a radio studio on the eve of the 2004 poll. Latham today leant into Gillard and waved his finger at her demanding she answer his unproven allegations of a complaint. 

Update 2.55pm: So - Mark Latham stayed out of the press conference, but his presence cast a heavy shadow as Gillard tried in vain to keep things on track. Today has been a combination of poor management and bad luck for the Gillard campaign, well evidenced by the bizarre arrival of Latham in his capacity as budding star reporter for Channel Nine.

Gillard’s reconciliation with Rudd is likely to be seen as being as deep as a puddle, and now her former friend Latham has added to the atmosphere of calamity. All in all Gillard should be glad this all happened on a Saturday when most of us had our attention elsewhere, but it will be a hard day to recover from.

Update 2.40pm: Asked if she apologised to Rudd for the events of the past six weeks Gillard said: “The discussion I had with Kevin was about the campaign and the reelection of the Government.” I think that’s a no.

Update 2.38: “Reality exists whether [the media is] there or not. Kevin and I had a positive and constructive discussion.”

Update 2.33pm: They will campaign separately to “maximise spread”, and Rudd will attend the Labor campaign launch.

Continue reading "Gillard’s campaign debacle" »

Paul Keating reckoned you got a certain legitimacy by ``taking’’ the leadership from your opponent in an open contest rather than through having it handed to you.

Certainly in his case, voters had plenty of time to get used to the change when he finally knocked off Bob Hawke after a long-running and acrimonious campaign of destabilisation.

The high profile Treasurer had even carried himself off to the backbench for a spell before launching a successful second challenge. Traumatic as it was, the evisceration of Bob Hawke’s leadership was a bloody and drawn out affair but it was comparatively transparent.

Continue reading "Julia’s leadership struggles for legitimacy" »

JG: hey kev

KR: hey kev what

JG: I still like u

Continue reading "Revealed! The secret text messages of Kev and Julia" »