Australia’s corporate media still gets a little frisson of excitement when the Americans choose to notice us, a little echo of back in the ’70s when Australia being mentioned in a Hollywood movie or TV show would make the news.
Such cultural cringe was put to work yesterday when journalists began hyperventilating over Donald Trump’s remarks about Kevin Rudd, current ambassador to the United States. Asked by the head prefect of British xenophobia Nigel Farage — at the behest of Sky News — about Rudd, Trump didn’t seem quite sure who he was talking about. That’s understandable (Trump’s cognitive decline makes Joe Biden’s look benign), with the 77-year-old offering “I don’t know much about him. I heard he was a little bit nasty. I hear he’s not the brightest bulb. But I don’t know much about him.”
Clearly Rudd has made less of an impression than Anthony Pratt, whose repeated meetings with Trump — including Trump telling him highly secret defence information — at least had the former president recalling him as the “red-haired weirdo”.
Trump’s vague remarks got local journalists very animated, with The Australian’s unfortunate Adam Creighton declaring it was “a major problem for Australia” and that Anthony Albanese’s choice of Rudd as ambassador was “reckless”. One Nine hack declared Rudd was “[damaging] Australia’s most important security alliance” and that he “will imperil Australia’s standing in Washington and make it harder to convince Trump to hand over America’s precious nuclear-powered submarines”.
Hilariously, that would actually be one of the few positive outcomes from a second Trump term, enabling Australia to free itself from the absurd AUKUS debacle we’ve locked ourselves into, and taking pressure off the US nuclear submarine production process.
Only at the Financial Review did James Curran mock this ridiculous pearl-clutching by News Corp and Nine, pointing out some much-needed historical context.
There’s some more historical context that is worth pointing out as well. Whom did Trump appoint to be his ambassador to Australia? Why, that would by A.B. Culvahouse, who arrived in Australia… in March 2019. Trump didn’t even bother filling the position for two years, leaving a gap of 30 months, or more than half his entire term, between ambassadors. Nothing quite says a good relationship like letting years go by without appointing a representative. Everyone at the time (including us here at Crikey) loved to say what a good job Joe Hockey was doing in the unpleasant task of cosying up to the Trump shambles in Washington, but it was repaid with utter contempt back here.
And for those who seem to think Australia should be taking its cues on diplomatic appointments from Trump, how about some other ambassadorial behaviour? Those with long enough memories will recall George W. Bush’s ambassador to Canberra, Tom Schieffer, during the illegal and disastrous Iraq War. What did Schieffer do? Publicly attacked then opposition leader Simon Crean for his criticism of the war and said Australia would struggle to negotiate a free trade agreement with the US if it elected a Labor government. Schieffer later attacked Crean’s successor, Mark Latham, over his commitment to withdraw Australian troops from the Iraq disaster (Rudd was Latham’s shadow foreign minister at the time), suggesting that would encourage terrorism. In a disgraceful breach of diplomatic protocol, Schieffer attended a Liberal Party fundraiser.
Crean — whose stance on Iraq has since been as strongly vindicated as Bush, John Howard, Alexander Downer and Schieffer have been disgraced — hit back at the ambassador at the time: “He does not have the right, nor does any ambassador, to interfere into the domestic politics of this country,” Crean said. “That’s unprecedented and unacceptable.”
The criticism of Rudd relates to comments he made before he agreed to take up the position in Washington. No one is suggesting his performance in the role has been in any way problematic — whereas Schieffer aggressively violated protocol, interfered in Australian domestic politics and engaged in clumsy partisanship.
At the time, many in the media, especially the pro-war US-owned News Ltd papers, cheered Schieffer’s egregious behaviour on. Strangely enough, 20 years later, many are cheering on Trump against an Australian diplomat.
Let’s at least hope they’re right, and in a second Trump term, Rudd brings the same touch to AUKUS as he brought to the Gillard prime ministership. History will thank him.
Should Anthony Albanese pick someone else to be ambassador to the US if Donald Trump is reelected, or should he stick with Kevin Rudd? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
Dead right on AUKUs, BK. That would be a very positive outcome from Trump. Even Karvelas this morning was wringing her hands over AUKUS. Just shows how much the ABC has been swept into the hard right mindset.
Even Karvelas? How quickly people forget what she was like when she worked on the Australian. (If you don’t know what I mean, try Googling Karvelas Larissa Behrendt).
It’s USUKA, everyone. Get the order and consequent perfectly apposite sound of the acronym right.
I find Rudd quite repulsive, but, as BK notes, if he utilises the ruthless skills he employed to depose of Gillard, and applies them to the strategic idiocy that is AUKUS, I’ll put aside that revulsion.
But seriously, what a load of hot air over nothing…
Here’s a suggestion though, if we are talking ambassadors – how about we have an adult discussion about the possibility of ousting Mr Amir Maimon, the current Ambassador of the State of Israel to Australia?
Nonsense ‘The Cedar….’ that job is held jointly by Greg Sheridan and that fellow Sharma
Hello,who was it did a job on Rudd then? He was prime minister after all and had seen the Rodent out the door.He had a bit of a mouth and he didn’t hold back when he was criticising some one but some of the poor petals couldn’t take it.Oh dear,how sad,never mind.
Or less generously, he behaved like a psychopathic control freak who had a sook when the wheels fell off his attempt to cut the Greens out of negotiations on an emissions policy. Knifing him for Gillard was the smartest thing that the ALP ever did.
?
Repulsive ! That’s a bit excessive.
I like him, he is extremely intelligent and knowledgeable. I know it makes him sound
arrogant, a bit like Keating, they both don’t suffer fools. But I think we are better off
when the brainy ones are in charge.
We’d have been better off if he was deputy PM behind Gillard from the start. We’re certainly better off when the brainy ones are in a position of influence, but Rudd was indeed a dud in some ways, while Gillard was very nearly an all-round champ.
Plus, imagine how sweet it’d have been if Howard was defeated by a woman; the shadenfreude would’ve lasted years.
Rudd was too ambitious to be anyone’s deputy.
Gillard was not ‘all good’. She made one change that has led to a court case that raises a constitutional issue.
In 2013 Julia Gillard changed the Sex Discrimination Act to make gender identity and sexuality protected categories, but not sex. This means that the law no longer contains definitions of the terms “man” and “woman”.
The result is the Tickle vs Giggle court case to be heard in the Federal Court on 9th April. This case is about who can access an app intended for female people only. This case raises a constitutional issue and also the matter of Australia’s adherence (or lack of) to the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
Most Australians will not have heard about this case because the mainstream media avoid any mention of it.
“Tickle vs Giggle” – you’ve got be kidding me.
Holy fck, that’s gold. But I can’t imagine why the MSM wouldn’t be all over the clicks to be had around this.
Rudd made a genuine attempt to be a better prime minister than any in living memory.
He unfortunately just didn’t have someone to strong arm him when the media started to say disparaging things about him and he lost it.
No one since (apart from Gillard) has even tried to do anything.
Like religion, immigrants etc. it’s deflection from the right and filler for RW MSM to ‘inform’ low info voters and avoid analysis of substantive issues; too easy in our RW infotainment ecosystem.
So we signal to the world that we think Trump is going to win in Nov by replacing Rudd with someone new.
What happens if Biden is re-elected? We will look like the idiots we are
What happens if Trump is re-elected and doesn’t like the new guy? Do we appoint a new new-guy? And if he doesn’t like the new new-guy? ……? We will still look like the idiots we are.
Trump won’t even know, or care, unless someone tells him. But does Trump really like anybody? His ‘liking’ of even his similarly loony/nasty advisors (often appointed by him) is inevitably short-lived; look how many people he’s alienated, sacked, purged or whatever, just for not being sycophantic enough or appearing to be ‘losers’. He ends up filling positions with kith, kin, and in-laws, never mind their ineptitude, and I doubt he even ‘likes’ them in any sense. He only likes one person.
Cap, I do not think Trump likes himself to be honest. A dictator on the same level as Nero as Nero watched while Rome burned, Trum watched as Americans rioted!
Rudd should stay in U.S… Trump should not throw stones in a glasshouse as his IQ level is up there with the minions and at least you could laugh at the minions .
No one’s mentioned yet the really funny part of Trump’s little outpouring on Rudd; that he’s ‘a little bit nasty… not the brightest bulb‘.
He forgot to add that Rudd is a narcissist with absolutely no self-awareness. Now that might be at least half-true, but still hilariously ironic.
While we’re on the subject of 40 Watt IQs, https://newrepublic.com/article/178288/trump-haley-pelosi-media-2024.
We have the climate going to hell, genocide and politically engineered famines going on several countries and our right wing nutjobs are frothing over a couple of remarks from an absolute dill. No wonder we are in strife and dont know it.
These things will get our attention soon enough but then we won’t be ready.