Kevin Rudd, who always liked the sound of his own voice and was always impressed by the gravity of his own opinions, appeared on 7.30 last night and was interviewed by Leigh Sales. In normal Rudd style, there was a lot of verbiage and not much substance.
He is in danger of becoming the Labor Party’s equivalent of Amanda Vanstone.
Here are a couple of examples from the interview.
Anthony Albanese had just been elected to the Labor leadership without reference to the rank-and-file as was required by the rules introduced by Rudd and which saw Bill Shorten elected by the parliamentarians in 2013 against the wishes of the rank-and-file’
LEIGH SALES: Anthony Albanese’s the new leader. When you implemented the new leadership rules in 2013, the idea was to give the rank and file a say.
That hasn’t happened this time. Is that a bad thing, in your view?
KEVIN RUDD: Well I think it’s always good to have a vote, and I’m sure Albo would have welcomed one. I know him very well and those who would have run against him very well in addition.
But the interesting tempering thing about the rule which I brought in – which has given our party stability in leadership terms since 2013 – is that when people are putting themselves forward as a candidate for the leadership of the Labor Party, they also need to be mindful that it won’t just work as a back room factional stitch-up within the caucus.
They have to think very clearly at that point that they have to address 50,000 people out there across the rank and file of the party and every state of the Commonwealth.And that, I think, cautions against those who just want to do an internal factional stitch-up.
And then there was this
LEIGH SALES: And how might that relationship between the US and China being so fractious impact Australia?
KEVIN RUDD: Well, I’ve always had the view as Prime Minister and as Foreign Minister of this country in the past that Australia’s strategy for navigating our relationship with the United States as our strong, close ally and our deep relationship with China – political relationship, a strong economic relationship and cultural relationship – that we Australians have always been able to walk and chew gum.
I think when Mr Turnbull was in office, starting from the very end of 2017, it began to spin right out of control.
That’s in terms of self-inflicted wounds on Australia’s part; and then we’ve had the new dynamic of the Trump presidency and the trade war, and the proposition in the United States now that it’s time for America to engage in a new era of strategic competition against China, rather than strategic engagement.
So these two factors – one generated itself by this Conservative government in Australia, but the second, frankly, through no fault of Mr Morrison or anybody else, is the new dynamic of the US-China relationship.
It’s going to require very delicate handling in the years ahead in case we end up becoming genuinely the economic meat in the sandwich.
Isn’t that a great answer “genuinely the economic meat in the sandwich.”
It’s typical of the verbose, complex and over-intellectual arguments that Rudd so frequently presents on television. It’s must be difficult to comprehend even for ABC viewers.
Throughout the interview, Rudd kept condescendingly referring to the new leader of the Labor Party as “Albo” while referring to the other members of the party as Ed Husic or Kristina Keneally then adding,
“I think we all have reached a view about Albo many years ago, that he’s a man with a big heart and what you see is what you get.”
It’s a petty and it’s unnecessary.
Perhaps it’s time for Kevin 07 to move on.