It always seems to be a staff stuff-up with Kevin Rudd. Here he was with John Laws yesterday morning:

LAWS : Okay, had he cleared that speech he made with your office?

RUDD : Mr McClelland made the speech last night, as I understand from a conversation with him this morning, the speech was drafted in his office and the staff member within his office has been counselled. I also understand from conversations this morning that a person in my own office saw a text of the speech but didn’t identify this part of it and so that staff member has also been counselled.

LAWS : Counselled or cancelled?

RUDD : Counselled, because I think the action involved that is delivering a speech like this, as you rightly said in your introduction, the lead-up to the fifth anniversary of the Bali bombings is insensitive in the extreme.

LAWS : Yeah, I just find it difficult to believe that you’re serious about counselling for a staff member for a Shadow Minister.

RUDD : Um no, what I’m talking about there is the, your question was, concerning a staff member in my own office and that’s where I said that person has been counselled as I’m sure the person within Mr McClelland’s office has been counselled and I spoke with Mr McClelland myself this morning and he agreed that given the, with my judgement, that this was insensitive to say the least given the season we are now in which is an anniversary which is so deeply painful to so many Australians.

LAWS : Yeah, you’re quite right there. Are you doing all you can, I imagine you are, to keep a lid on your Shadow Ministers? Peter Garrett, for example, he needs a lid put on him, doesn’t he?

RUDD : Well, I would defend my team against every other member of Mr Howard’s team…

Later in the day, the Labor leader took a bold step. He developed the theme he’d expounded earlier and admitted “ultimate responsibility is borne by the leader.”

We haven’t heard anything as strong as that from him before!