Readers of the The Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Financial Review, and all of the internet were treated to some angry thoughts from a former prime minister this morning — and no, this time it wasn’t Abbott. Kevin Rudd has had two letters to the editor published in today’s major newspapers, and also sent a tweet for good measure.
In the SMH, Rudd takes aim at Tony Wright’s implicit assertion he was axed for inaction on climate change. Quietly slipped beneath a one-line jab about the ATO from Susan in Lithgow, Rudd’s letter lists his government’s legislative action “for the record” including the introduction of the renewable energy target, the Kyoto Protocol and Copenhagen Accord.
Over at the AFR, things were significantly more fiery as the former PM took aim at the “personalised bile” of Aaron Patricks. Reacting to Patrick’s suggestion the Libs may be “infected by the Rudd Syndrome”, Rudd backed up his moves against Julia Gillard saying her 2010 campaign was “the worst-run in Labor history” and she had “fundamentally breached faith of her government with the Australian public” in the first place.
On Twitter, the theme continued. Rudd clearly resents how the history books are remembering him.
Of course, this kind of commentary isn’t entirely new. Rudd is a bit of a regular in the newspapers. In a letter published just over a month ago in Fairfax papers he called Turnbull a “politically desperate … second-rate Prime Minister”, pointing out that the PM had lost 27 opinion polls in a row. He’s also recently contributed analysis of foreign policy in written pieces for SMH and The New York Times.
While it’s well and good to lend his expertise when asked for, constantly surfacing to nitpick columnists and correct the record is a dubious strategy if he’s looking to win back any public favour. Australians are tired of sniping and political bickering (and incidentally increasingly warming to Gillard’s version of events delivered on the nation’s largest stages).
This morning Bill Shorten was even able to sneak in a zinger on the former PM. That should be a terrifying wake-up call to Rudd that it’s time to change course.
Piss off Kevin, you are sounding like Mark Latham.
And I voted for you in 2007. I’ve still got the T-shirts.
But he did drop the ball on climate change, the defining challenge of our generation, and wouldn’t go to a double dissolution election when he would have won with spare change, and thereby set about the disaster of Abbott.
Gillard was a far more effective PM and politician, and that must grate. Worst of all, Labor might still be in government if he had the courage of his convictions. Instead, we have a dozen mostly lost years, apart from the early Rudd years and a very productive minority government that created Gonski and the NDIS.
I was going to say that your first para. was bang on.
Then your second was even better.
Yes, Rudd should fall quiet. He was not sacked for losing polls but for autocratic tendencies and lack of the modesty required for timely correction of mistakes.
But he was right about many things- the apology being the best- and is absolutely right about how second rate ( Godwin Gretch) Turnbull is. Turnbull has not disappointed me as I had no expectations.
Can we all come to an arrangement? If you guys in the media just ignore this pompous twat he just might go away. Then, maybe, he will be forced to inflict self serving drivel on poor foreign ”folks” who don’t know him. I remember a Labor member once said, ”If you like Kevin you don’t know him” I voted Labor until this treacherous troll took over. Can’t he just go away?
Geez you have a cheek Kevin.
You had your chance, you piked out, wouldn’t accept what happened, wrecked Gillard’s chances to govern effectively and set the country up for the LNP and a senate full of great minds.
Your work really is done mate.