VIDEO: Is Kevin Rudd a communist dictator?
In recent weeks, the Liberal Party has been quick to blast the Prime Minister as a dictator. And a communist one at that. So how does Kevin Rudd stack up against Stalin, Mao and Kim Jong-Il?
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In recent weeks, the Liberal Party has been quick to blast the Prime Minister as a dictator. And a communist one at that. So how does Kevin Rudd stack up against Stalin, Mao and Kim Jong-Il?
Bernard Keane investigates in the latest instalment of his vodcast series, Crossing the Floor.
The full Crossing the Floor with Bernard Keane archives can be viewed on the Crikey website.
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Those on the right of the Liberal Party who think or say that Kevin Rudd is a Communist dictator only demonstrate their ignorance by such comments. A dictatorship is reliant on single party rule in single party government. We have a mixed parliament of several parties, elected by the Australian people. If the right of the Liberal Party still can’t cope with the loss of the last election, they need to get over it, and get on with life, and their job!
A dictatorship relies on the social control of the population as well as political control. Work life is regulated. Slavery, or close to it is common in dictatorships. Unions are outlawed. Political opponents of the government are interned in concentration camps, or prisons, and executed after show trials. None of this describes the current government. Rudd is certainly a centralist and keeps a tight grip of the control of power. But so did Howard and I remember a few years ago writing similar comments denying Howard was a dictator. An economist yes, in the true sense of the word, and a leader who had a tight control on the reins of power.
Throwing out easy comments that a leader is a dictator is lazy politics.