It’s been a busy few days of self-flagellation for PM Kevin Rudd, from the demotion of Peter Garrett to his appearance yesterday on Insiders. He’s “doing a Beattie” as the Queenslanders say, acknowledging that his government has made mistakes in a wide number of areas and failed to deliver on key promises, but apologising and promising to work harder.
Kevin Rudd said “I’m sure we’ll take an even bigger whacking in the period ahead and the bottom line is I think we deserve it, both not just in terms of recent events but more broadly. We’re taking a pounding because we haven’t been up to the mark.”
What risks does Rudd’s mea-culpa carry? Here’s what the pundits say:
The Age
Michelle Grattan: PM bares himself for a flogging, and may get it
Leaving aside insulation, there is a danger in talking up the government’s failings. Some voters who have been satisfied might think that if the PM believes they should give it a whack, perhaps they should.
Sydney Morning Herald
Phillip Coorey: Rudd’s humble pie leaves a bad taste
The government had tried to do too much. Its achievements had been lost, its mistakes accentuated and voters had not noticed any tangible impact on their lives.
Herald Sun
Laurie Oakes: Decisive Rudd to atone for failures
Rudd has promised to improve his communications skills, but recognises it will not be easy to shed his eye-glazing “wall of sound” technique.
The Australian
Dennis Shanahan: Kevin Rudd’s mea culpa carries risks
It is the end of a state of denial about Rudd’s public support, his management style and his priorities.
Glenn Milne: Seeing through a poor performance
Which raises an interesting question in itself; if Rudd is now admitting that Garrett’s maladministration is actually his fault why hasn’t he put himself in charge of fixing it? Another expression, this time not Latin and distinctly more contemporary and potentially applied to Combet comes to mind: fall guy.
Editorial: Kevin Rudd’s mea culpa should be a turning point
Many who meet Mr Rudd are amazed at his command of detail on a broad range of issues. This partly reflects his intellect, but it could also be a sign that he has acted too much like a national premier rather than the Prime Minister and is overly focused on the minutiae of government and not enough on the big picture.
ABC
Fran Kelly: Is this the end of Prime Ministerial Blah Blah?
But you can throw all the money you like at a problem and it won’t help unless you can persuade people that what you’re doing will be effective.
Looks like he’s trying one from the Peter Beatie playbook (must have picked it up while he was a public servant in Queensland). The problem is that Beatie pulled it off because he really did sound and act like the Bloke Next Door, whereas Rudd’s rehearsed version still sounds as hollow as ever.
As A strategy it will work because the News Limited journalists rely on denial and the smell of a scandal to keep the story rolling on. By admitting to faults with the insulation program it leaves the News Limited journalists with no story. So when you don’t have a story then attack the personality and his style of your target (remember they did that to Paul Keating). I will be watching the News Limited response to this new development with interest.
Yet another false face of Rudd. Who is he? After 2 years of prancing around on the world stage with smugness and arrogance, puffed up by past opinion polls his ego has caught up with him. Now he reinvents himself again. Voters are waking up to you Mr Rudd.
KRudd has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, he couldn’t say anything else.
The Australian people know this has been a gigantic stuff up and any rebuttal would be dismissed point blank. KRudd is an expert spin doctor, i don’t think any policitian of the past 40 years has done it better than our current PM. He has ‘mates’ everywhere, partnerships all over the place, it’s all happening for our PM, no need to worry. Wait a minute, all of a sudden he has some opposition and whether you like Abbott or not he is stirring the pot and our once unflappable PM is saying “we must lift our game” In other words someone is now looking at him with his hand in the cookie jar. It won’t be just those men in white coats circling KRudd, Tony Abbott is looming large in KRudd’s world of dreams. As the election approaches KRudd now knows it’s ‘No Time For Games’.
Basically he has attempted to head off the great Australian tendency to cut down tall poppies. If he and Labor got the advantage of media bias the Libs and Abbott get they would be massively ahead in the polls.