Patrick Weller: Kevin Rudd - Twice Prime Minister
I was a huge Kevin Rudd fan (I still am) and I was enthralled when Labor won the 2007 election by a landslide, with a 23-seat swing in its favour, and he was sworn in as the 26th Prime Minister of Australia on 3 December. This government was in fact a great reforming government, similar to the Whitlam Govt of the early seventies and I am sure that history will look back well on the period of his prime ministership. How about this for some far reaching Govt initiatives
Here is the back cover blurb explaining the book
It was a very different Kevin Rudd who returned to office in 2013. Kevin 07 was a fresh face and a new image: the convivial, Mandarin-speaking nerd who seemed so different from past leaders and who held so much potential.
By 2013 Rudd retained some of his popularity but none of his novelty. The Opposition could say nothing derogatory about him that his colleagues had not already said. A series of policy grenades had to be defused. His second term was to be short, brutal and nasty.
Yet, despite his defeat, Kevin Rudd was an unusual Labor leader and prime minister.
Political scientist and biographer Patrick Weller spent several years observing and talking to Rudd and the people around him to explain how one person came to the job and sought to meet its demands. Weller takes us back to Rudd's boyhood in Nambour, son of a poor Queensland dairy farmer; to a member without a faction who led a bitterly factionalised party; to the only federal Labor leader to win a majority since Paul Keating in 1993; and to only the second prime minister since 1914 to be sworn in for a second time.
This book has the advantage of interviews in 2008 and 2009 with ministers who were then supporters but who became diehard enemies. Weller also had the benefit of unique access to the Prime Minister's Office. His biography is a revealing account of the man who became prime minister—twice.
The book told me a lot about Kevin that I had forgotten or just not known. He stood as a giant during the period of his first Prime Ministership and we can only say 'What if...'
It is to the lasting shame of those powerbrokers in the party that he was forced from office so unfairly in favour of Julia Gillard and then pushed out the leadership so quickly after coming back and saving Labor from annihilation in 2013.
I was a huge Kevin Rudd fan (I still am) and I was enthralled when Labor won the 2007 election by a landslide, with a 23-seat swing in its favour, and he was sworn in as the 26th Prime Minister of Australia on 3 December. This government was in fact a great reforming government, similar to the Whitlam Govt of the early seventies and I am sure that history will look back well on the period of his prime ministership. How about this for some far reaching Govt initiatives
- The Rudd Government's first acts included signing the Kyoto Protocol and delivering an apology to Indigenous Australians for the Stolen Generations.
- The previous government's industrial relations legislation, WorkChoices, was largely dismantled
- Australia's remaining Iraq War combat personnel were withdrawn
- The "Australia 2020 Summit" was held.
- In response to the global financial crisis, the government provided economic stimulus packages, and Australia was one of the few developed countries to avoid the late-2000s recession.
- Australia's standing in the world community was enhanced hugely by his own spectacular successes on the world stage, in avenues such as COAG and the G20.
- His signature policies were on such things as broadband, education, health and climate change.
- His Resource Super Profits Tax and the Senate-rejected Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme did not stand a chance against strong opposition from big business and the media and the disruptive influence of the Greens whose unrealistic expectations spelt doom to these visionary initiatives.
Compare this with the sparse offerings from the current Abbott Govt which does nothing but cut and cut and cut, and whose world view is primitive and reactive. I felt proud to be an Australian with Kevin Rudd in office. I feel embarrassed to tell people I am Australian now.
It was a very different Kevin Rudd who returned to office in 2013. Kevin 07 was a fresh face and a new image: the convivial, Mandarin-speaking nerd who seemed so different from past leaders and who held so much potential.
By 2013 Rudd retained some of his popularity but none of his novelty. The Opposition could say nothing derogatory about him that his colleagues had not already said. A series of policy grenades had to be defused. His second term was to be short, brutal and nasty.
Yet, despite his defeat, Kevin Rudd was an unusual Labor leader and prime minister.
Political scientist and biographer Patrick Weller spent several years observing and talking to Rudd and the people around him to explain how one person came to the job and sought to meet its demands. Weller takes us back to Rudd's boyhood in Nambour, son of a poor Queensland dairy farmer; to a member without a faction who led a bitterly factionalised party; to the only federal Labor leader to win a majority since Paul Keating in 1993; and to only the second prime minister since 1914 to be sworn in for a second time.
This book has the advantage of interviews in 2008 and 2009 with ministers who were then supporters but who became diehard enemies. Weller also had the benefit of unique access to the Prime Minister's Office. His biography is a revealing account of the man who became prime minister—twice.
The book told me a lot about Kevin that I had forgotten or just not known. He stood as a giant during the period of his first Prime Ministership and we can only say 'What if...'
It is to the lasting shame of those powerbrokers in the party that he was forced from office so unfairly in favour of Julia Gillard and then pushed out the leadership so quickly after coming back and saving Labor from annihilation in 2013.
No comments:
Post a Comment