1397829600# When he jetted into Russia last month, Kevin Rudd laughed off suggestions he was posing as a freelance peacemaker, trying single-handedly to solve the Ukrainian crisis.
Former backers in the Labor Party found themselves awkwardly talking up his skills while also denying he was some sort of special envoy. “He’s not acting as a Labor secret agent to try to fix it,” Bill Shorten said, “although Kevin is a man of remarkable talents.” However, the former prime minister has now hinted at a behind-the-scenes role in resolving one of the most diabolical security dilemmas in the world, the territorial dispute between Japan and China in the East China Sea. It was April 10 and Rudd had just regaled a crowded auditorium at the German Historical Museum in Berlin with the parallels between Europe in 1914 and the current security situation in east Asia. Many in the rarefied world of international diplomacy believe that as he can no longer lead Australia, he now wants to lead the world.
Watch out world. ALP's savaging of Kevin Rudd is a suicide attack. By trashing Kevin Rudd's reputation, Julia Gillard's supporters are destroying Labor's brand Source: The Sunday Telegraph Anyone who has spent a bit of time riding the political roller-coaster will tell you the same thing - in politics things are never quite as good, or as bad as they seem.
In moments of crisis, that advice is shoved at you like a buoyancy device being thrust into the hands of a drowning man. In moments of elation, it's whispered into your ear by someone who's been around the block before, and seen it all coming crashing down. I've heard that advice, I've given that advice, and I believe it is almost always true. I say "almost always" because a clear-eyed assessment of Labor's present predicament suggests that for Labor, things may actually be worse than they seem.
Before we start, it may be worth clearing one thing up. The gender agenda: Gillard and the politics of sexism. Gillard support strong within Labor Labor MPs pledge their support for Julia Gillard as she delivered a speech in the Hunter Valley. 26, 2012 IN JUNE 2009, 23-year-old Giorgia Boscolo became Venice's first certified female gondolier, breaking into an occupation that traditionally had been passed from father to son with the result it had been all-male for 900 years.
To qualify, Boscolo had to demonstrate she could manoeuvre the narrow gondola, which is 10.66 metres long and weighs 227 kilograms, through Venice's winding waterways using a single oar, all the while speaking English and telling stories to her tourist passengers. She also had to be able to predict the treacherous Venetian tides and currents. Other women had tried and failed to pass the rigorous 400-hour course, so Boscolo clearly has what it takes. Julia Gillard would undoubtedly feel some sympathy for Giorgia Boscolo. Some of the criticism of Prime Minister Julia Gillard has related more to her gender than her politics. Divided they stand. Illustration: Matt Davidson AT TOMORROW's caucus meeting, Julia Gillard will be presenting herself to her colleagues as the tough leader ''who gets things done''.
See www.theage.com.au for live coverage of the Labor leadership spill from 10am tomorrow. She has a credible set of arguments to back the claim and can point to legislative wins in a challenging parliamentary environment. That is not in question. The parliamentary Labor Party is revisiting the leadership issue only 20 months after removing Kevin Rudd because his replacement, throughout most of 2011, made one poor judgment call after another and has consistently failed to secure the trust of Australian voters. Over the past excoriating week for Labor, I imagine that many caucus members have been looking back to the events of 2010.
We need to talk about Kevin. 'The truth is, Rudd was impossible to work with.
He regularly treated his staff, public servants and backbenchers with rudeness and contempt.' It's time to let the facts get in the way of the story - The Drum Opinion - There is now a great divide between 'insiders' and the rest of us know-nothings, who sense that we are being fed lies but have no way of proving it. (Australian Broadcasting Corpo. Find More Stories It's time to let the facts get in the way of the story Michael Gawenda When I was editor of The Age, there was a political figure who was a great leaker. He had a couple of journalists on the paper he leaked to regularly. He leaked on big and small issues, from what amounted to gossip to full-on character assassination. Why supporters you might ask? But here's the thing: not only did he leak only when guaranteed anonymity, but he would then insist that the reporter quote him on the record saying he knew nothing, about any of this leaked information and at times, for instance, he would go as far as saying the rumours - his anonymous rumours - were ridiculous and untrue.
Call me naïve, but it seemed to me that journalists, if they agreed to play this game, were agreeing to lie to our readers. Time we heard truth about the real Kevin. Rudd and Gillard lay out their credentials Former Foreign Affairs Minister Kevin Rudd and Prime Minister Julia Gillard lay out their case for leadership. Tim Lester reports. 24, 2012 I worked for the Rudd government for just more than a year in 2009 and early 2010, including seven months as one of Kevin Rudd's speechwriters. Why they hate Kevin Rudd so much. Fire, fury and the ALP fight for 'frankness' - The Drum Opinion - Finally, Swan is engaging in Keatingesque attacks and Gillard is speaking with fire. One teensy-weensy problem. It is directed at Rudd not Abbott. Find More Stories Fire, fury and the ALP fight for 'frankness' Greg Jericho And so it finally happened.
After all the months of waiting, all the media articles, all the press conferences with questions that were met with dull, straight-bat answers that felt like they were written in advance by a computer program soaked in sludge, finally Wayne Swan found a way to cut through. The man who has presided over an economy with low unemployment, low inflation, low debt, AAA rating across the board, finally discovered a way to be heard. Labor In Freefall As Rudd Challenges. Poor old Labor.
The grand old party of the Australian political system — one of the oldest working class political parties in the world, in fact — is facing one of its bleakest moments in perhaps half a century. At this stage of the electoral cycle, Labor should be moving along calmly, passing key elements of its legislative agenda and preparing marginal seats for in-depth defence. Instead, it is tearing itself apart. We have open warfare in the Labor Party. We have the former prime minister battling the current Prime Minister. Rudded: the knack of being all things to all people. Kevin Rudd sheds a tear at a press conference after being deposed as PM by Julia Gillard, as his son Marcus looks on. Picture: AFP Source: AFP ONE icy Canberra winter's morning some 18 months ago, in the sepulchral quiet of one of Parliament House's lonely stone courtyards, a bewildered-looking Kevin Rudd conducted one of the strangest press conferences ever seen.