There's something wrong with Kevin.

[Rorschach]

Kevin Rudd the PM that didn't see out a full term.
The rude, megalomaniac, control freak, micro-manager, that has turned almost an entire cabinet against him.
He's back!

But why? After Labor unceremoniously dumped on him and humiliatingly defeated him in a spill.

Could it be that Kevin is here to help?

Or could it be that this time Kevin is playing the game where he shows he can be more successful against, more damaging to Abbott, the Liberals and Conservatives (something he claims to be) than Julia Gillard?

[Rorschach]

Greg Rudd claims Kevin's 'rattling the cage'
September 13, 2012 - 4:41PM
Judith Ireland and Jessica Wright

Kevin Rudd’s brother Greg claims that the former prime minister is ‘‘rattling the cage’’ for another tilt at the Labor leadership.

Greg Rudd - who has plans to run as an independent Senate candidate in the next federal election - said that Kevin Rudd’s interview on the ABC’s 7.30 program last night was ‘‘letting his colleagues know that he’s still there willing to serve if they so wish.’’

Greg Rudd, a lobbyist, told Fairfax Radio in Brisbane this morning that he would not ‘‘spin’’ around the issue. ‘‘It’s basic Kevin rattling the cage,’’ he said.
Speaking out ... Kevin Rudd has been very visible in recent weeks, sparking speculation he has his eye on the top job.

Kevin Rudd says he has a responsibility to get out and argue the case against Tony Abbott.

In July, Greg Rudd, told Fairfax his brother would not challenge for the Labor leadership again, but observed: ‘‘he’ll definitely take it if they ask’’.

He also said of Kevin Rudd: ’’A leopard doesn’t change his spots.’’

This comes as the member for Griffith’s caucus colleagues have shot down claims he is lining up for a second shot at his old job, declaring his comments are being overanalysed and dramatised.

Mr Rudd’s appearance on 7.30 , in which he lambasted Queensland Premier Campbell Newman’s first budget, was hailed by Doug Cameron - a powerful figure in Labor’s Left faction and Rudd supporter - as a ‘‘fantastic’’ performance.

Senator Cameron said Mr Rudd was ‘‘running a strong Labor line’’ as a team player. Senator Cameron a strong Rudd supporter.

‘‘I think everyone in the Labor party needs to be out there, fighting the team game, as Kevin Rudd is doing.’’

Mr Rudd said during the wide-ranging interview that he has ‘‘a responsibility’’ to get out and argue the case against Tony Abbott.

Asked whether Labor could win under Ms Gillard’s leadership, Mr Rudd said, ‘‘Of course the government can prevail,’’ but it took four questions before he used her name, saying ’’under Prime Minister Gillard’s leadership’’.

‘‘My voice won’t be silenced in the public debate because the issues at stake for Australia are so stark,’’ he said.

Finance Minister Penny Wong said it was ‘‘absolutely right’’ for Mr Rudd to lend his voice to criticism of the Coalition.

Questions over Mr Rudd’s perceived leadership positioning were due to ‘‘people [who] watch every move a little too much and tend to dramatise things’’.

Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr rejected suggestions Mr Rudd was ‘‘encroaching’’ on his ministerial turf by attending international events such as the World Economic Forum in China, where the former prime minister was interviewed.

Mr Rudd was ‘‘perfectly entitled, in fact duty bound’’ as a former prime minister to use his experience for the greater good of Australia, Senator Carr said.

Environment Minister Tony Burke - who was a key player in the 2010 leadership coup - said there was no evidence Mr Rudd was actively seeking the leadership again.

‘‘I’ve seen no evidence at all that he is,’’ he said. ‘‘I really think this is overanalysing it.’’

But Australian Greens leader Christine Milne said it was clear Mr Rudd wanted his job back.

‘‘It certainly appears as if he has never gone away actually in terms of his leadership aspirations,’’ she told ABC radio. ‘‘But he is going to fail in doing that because he doesn’t have the support in the Labor Party, from what I can see.’’

Senior Minister Simon Crean said Mr Rudd had demonstrated he was ’’prepared to play in the team’’. Kevin the team player... what was it his brother said? Oh yes, "A leopard doesn't change its spots."

Mr Crean said it was reasonable that backbenchers gave interviews on TV, adding if they were banned from doing so there would be public and media outcry.

With Richard Willingham and AAP

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[Rorschach]

new book from Button...
being a Labor man don't expect that somewhere along the way this won't be plugging Gillard and the Government.

excerpts...

We need to talk about Kevin
February 25, 2012
James Button

The truth is, Rudd was impossible to work with. He regularly treated his staff, public servants and backbenchers with rudeness and contempt. He was vindictive, intervening to deny people appointments or preselections, often based on grudges that went back years.

He made crushing demands on his staff, and when they laboured through the night to meet those demands, they received no thanks, and often the work was not used. People who dared stand up to him were put in "the freezer" and not consulted or spoken to for months. The prodigious loyalty of his staff to him was mostly not repaid. He put them down behind their backs. He seemed to feel that everyone was always letting him down. In meetings, as I saw, he could emanate a kind of icy rage that was as mysterious as it was disturbing.

He governed by - seemed almost to thrive on - crisis. Important papers went unsigned, staff and public servants would be pulled onto flights, in at least one case halfway around the world, on the off chance that he needed to consult them. Vital decisions were held up while he struggled to make up his mind, frequently demanding more pieces of information that merely delayed the final result. The fate of the government seemed to hinge on the psychology of one man.

As I watched this unfold in Canberra, I tried hard to put aside my own poor experience of working for Rudd. I had also been a journalist for more than 20 years, and I knew that just because three people complain about something or someone it does not make it true. When 30 or more witnesses do, you can start to believe it.

In Canberra I kept waiting and wanting to hear the other side of the story: that Kevin could be unpleasant, but that overall he was a good bloke. Or that his chaotic management style did not impair his effectiveness. But amazingly, apart from a handful of conversations praising his formidable intelligence, his efforts on the economic crisis and the fact that he left some ministers alone to do their work, there was no other side to the story.

The hardbitten commentators will say that character or kindness are irrelevant to politics, that what counts is getting the job done. But you can never escape the human factor. In the first six months of 2010, Rudd's personality and government policy collided, to catastrophic effect.

As I say, I hardly know Julia Gillard. But from my own impressions and conversations with people who know her well and who have worked for her, I believe she is a decent person. She is warm, she is smart. She listens to people, treats them with respect. She has shown guts. Under relentless pressure, she has run a happy office.

I have no idea of the precise moment at which she decided to challenge Rudd, but I am certain that she had been as loyal a deputy as he was likely to get. Through the hard months of early 2010, she had long talks with him to keep him on track. Of all the whisperings I heard against Rudd until the time I left Canberra in April 2010, none involved her. In fact, she protected him. As one of her advisers said, they were ''joined at the hip''.

But she also knew what Rudd was like. In mid-2010, I imagine, she saw him spinning out, saw the polls, saw an election approaching, believed that in this climate his capacity for chaos was likely to grow rather than diminish. This was not about ambition. Sure she might have wanted to be prime minister one day, but not under these circumstances, not with the consequences that were bound to follow. But in politics you don't get to pick your moment, it picks you. Hers came. She took it.

I supported the coup at the time, and misread its meaning and consequences as much as anyone. Australians were not ready for this. They did not follow the frenetic tweets on the night of the challenge. They were not on the other end of the phone outside the Canberra Vietnamese restaurant. The next morning they woke up to a new prime minister. They knew they had not been told the whole story.

The deed was murky and brutal, and we still don't know quite how it happened. But we can be clear about why. If it was only the act of faceless men, as Rudd has said, why was the caucus majority against him so overwhelming that he did not even dare to stand?

In a fine piece in this paper on Monday, Katharine Murphy wrote that Rudd's swearing and ranting on the leaked YouTube video only confirmed what everyone in Canberra knew about Rudd's character. "Who knew that?" she wrote. ''Well, all of us. We were there - the political staff, bureaucrats, colleagues, journalists, the public who got that side of Rudd through the accounts we all wrote - piecing it together. It wasn't that long ago."

I think people misunderstand Gillard. In time her minority government will be judged far more kindly than it is today. She has got cabinet working again after Rudd effectively shut it down. Through her negotiating skills, and capacity for patience and respect, she has got big things done. Yes, she has made mistakes. All beginning prime ministers do: look at John Howard's first 18 months. However, the Rudd government's skilful economic management has continued on her watch. Unemployment remains low. The mining tax, the National Disability Insurance Scheme, means-testing the private healthcare rebate, support for higher pay for community sector workers, the changes to schools proposed in the Gonski Report - these are all big reforms in the best Labor tradition.

By initiating the Henry white paper to look at Australia's place in the coming Asian century, Gillard has begun the process of telling a much bigger story about Australia's future, the absence of which has dogged and trivialised our politics in recent years.

Even in Labor's weakest, most mistake-ridden area - asylum seeker policy - the government has been quietly and successfully moving large numbers of people out of detention and into the community.

Most importantly, the carbon tax is a historic reform, the start of Australia's contribution to the long battle to save the planet. All these shape a platform on which Labor could still mount a winning campaign against Tony Abbott.

Well there's the plug and....

Voters need a clear sense of the policies of both parties. In Abbott's case, how will he repeal the carbon price and trading scheme yet still fund his climate change commitments? If he cuts the mining tax, how will he ensure Australians get a fair share of the wealth being generated by the boom? How will he turn back boats at sea without risking deaths? What is his larger story for Australia? Democracy runs on this kind of scrutiny. It's not happening.

...the political bias.





James Button is a former Age journalist who worked for the Rudd government for 15 months. He is writing a book about the experience.

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