It was not one of Kevin Rudd’s better interviews. Perhaps it was the rattling of the champagne glasses at the World Economic Forum behind him that distracted during his hyped chat with 7.30‘s Leigh Sales, but he didn’t put in a good performance.
In particular, there was the painful moment when Sales had to extract an admission from him that Julia Gillard was the Prime Minister. It was reminiscent of the strange malaise that overcame the then-PM on budget night in 2009 which rendered him unable to utter the word “billion” about the budget deficit.
There followed some desperate media attempts to inflate this into a leadership story. But, for the moment, and almost uniquely in this Parliament, any leadership focus is on Tony Abbott, his poor performance in recent weeks, and his reticence in recent days, which even extended to question time yesterday.
The real story, perhaps, is: Kevin, why? Was it relevance deprivation syndrome? Was there something genuinely important happening at the WEF in China that Rudd needed to convey?
Or was it simply that he couldn’t help himself, that he could only stay passive for so long before letting some leadership hares run? “It’s important I lend my shoulder to the wheel as well when it comes to making it clear to the Australian public what they’d be buying on trust with Mr Abbott,” Rudd said by way of justification.
Oddly enough, for once, Labor has been doing exactly that of late. Without any assistance from Rudd at all.
Crikey together with OurSay collected some 120 questions and more than 6600 votes to decide the top three questions you wanted to ask independent MPs Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor. In a Crikey Live event yesterday afternoon our Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane put them to the political powerbrokers as part of a wide-ranging discussion on the economy, tax reform, health funding, gay marriage … and whether they’ll stick around for another term. Listen in to the chat …
See how power works in this country.
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If Rudd is to win back the prime ministership before the next election he should do so before the end of this year’s spring sittings at the end of November. If Rudd is to win an election contest by the end of November he has to build momentum by mid November. Since there is so little talk of a Labor leadership change currently he has to start saying ‘Look at moi’ now to try to start destabalising Gillard.
What a lot of nonsense Crikey! I thought Kevin Rudd was very good
in the interview. At least he looked and sounded like a PM, which is
more than you can say for the current incumbent, most times.
He has every right to have a say, particularly about what is going on
in Queensland. Rudd is also an acknowledged expert on China, so I
don’t understand what everyone is going on about.
Is he preparing for another tilt at the leadership and PM’s job? Who
knows, and more importantly, who cares. Personally, I think that
would be a good thing.
I’m with CML. Leigh Sales thought she might have been on to something when she couldn’t get Rudd to clearly say the name Gillard before the word ‘government’ but after she had hassled him a few times he did mention the word and it was his prerogative then to imply that “that wasn’t hard was it?” To her. In effect Rudd put the upstart in her place. And correctly and respectfully, she went back to her place.
Rudd is not going to destabilize Gillard. Rudd has said, and I agree with him, Labor can win the next election. Talk of Labor leadership challenges always begins in the media, particularly the media which wants to boost Abbott. It always demeans the ALP and does nothing for Rudd. He is completely at home on his Queensland patch, he can’t do any harm only good for the ALP there and when he’s in foreign parts, especially in Asia where his profile and presentation is positive, Rudd can score points across the board – looking like a team player.
The tide is turning for Labor and as Abbott comes more under the spotlight his lack of grace let alone policy nous will turn that beam into a headlight – with him the bunny. Oh yeah, this is starting to become a decent contest.
Leigh Sales was so intent on goading Rudd into destabilising Gillard that she wouldn’t let him finish a sentence. What is it that she doesn’t understand? The Labor Party votes for the Labor leader, until Rudd is voted in then he will not be the leader. Whether Rudd challenges or not it is up to him if he is elected leader. Why not ask Simon Crean if he is going to be leader to the next election, or Bill Shorten, or Wayne Swann or Greg Combe or Tanya or Nicola or Kevin Burke , you could go on forever – the Labor Party has a multitude of very intelligent capable people who could easily find a leader of significance. Look at the Liberals – Bronwyn Bishop, Kevin Andrews, Scot what’s name, poor Julie Bishop, Scott Thingo, Andrew Robb, Sophie – lordy lordy you’d have to be kidding.
Sales seems more about conservative sales.