And The Word Was Kevin’s (But Who Would Believe It?) By Bernard Lagan “People never lie so much as before an election, during a war, or after a hunt.” – Otto von Bismarck The conservative statesman and unifier of Germany probably had it right. And, he should know. Elections, wars and hunts pockmarked his life. We know that the business of state has consumed Labor’s Kevin Rudd, who became Prime Minister again this week. And if it was a war that first dimmed his reputation for telling the truth, it is a forthcoming election that has darkened it. Rudd’s reputation is likely to be further called into question next week when a book dedicated to a forensic examination of Rudd’s campaign against his predecessor, Julia Gillard, alongside that of the media, is released. The book – The Stalking of Julia Gillard, by long-time Canberra Press Gallery journalist Kerry-Anne Walsh – chronicles, as its title telegraphs, a dedicated campaign to undermine Gillard’s Prime Ministership. The book’s publication has been accelerated in light of the leadership change, and on Thursday, Walsh would only say of the contents: “Put it this way, the book is not going to be Kevin Rudd’s favourite bedside read.” Neither can we expect Rudd to enjoy Australian Financial Review journalist Aaron Patrick’s new book, Downfall: How the Labor Party Ripped Itself Apart, an account of how the recent scandals have engulfed the party, and which includes the Craig Thomson, Eddie Obeid and Peter Slipper affairs. It was also rushed into print, just ahead of this week’s leadership change. Patrick told The Global Mail: “I hope Kevin Rudd and Labor’s other new leaders will take on board my core suggestion, that the party needs to set itself higher ethical standards to regain voters’ trust. “I imagine there are some sections of Downfall that Rudd agrees with and some he doesn’t. I do argue forcibly that all the evidence suggests his removal in 2010 was not the spontaneous uprising the plotters claimed afterwards, and provide anecdotes to back this up.” Two more fresh accounts of Labor’s trials – and aspirations — are on the way: one written by Rudd’s new Treasurer, Chris Bowen, who walked out of Julia Gillard’s ministry, and another by Kim Carr, who did likewise. In advance of the welter of tomes scrutinising the party and, to an extent, Kevin Rudd’s past, let us examine what we know of Rudd’s record for truth and loyalty. In a five-minute speech on Wednesday night, announcing that he would again contest the Labor Party leadership ballot against Prime Minister Julia Gillard, it took Kevin Rudd nearly four minutes to cross the great chasm he’d set for himself 96 days earlier. His undertaking, delivered on the Brisbane riverfront in late March – fittingly close to a structure named the Story Bridge – was that he would never again lead the Labor Party, under any circumstances. For a man who also said on that occasion that he believed in honoring his word – and that he could be rightly attacked if he failed – crossing the credibility chasm was airily achieved. That is, Rudd spent just 10 seconds on his previous undertaking: he sought not, he said, to fudge the fact that he’d changed position. And he accepted, he volunteered, full responsibility for his previous statements on the leadership. (What other contenders there might have been for that responsibility, he didn’t say.) Of course, we have long accepted that many people – perhaps all of us – don’t always tell the truth. Politicians are no exception. Graham Richardson, minister in the Hawke and Keating Labor Governments, wrote an entire book, Whatever It Takes, that sought to excuse the abandonment of principle for political power. Even the sainted Winston Churchill coined a phrase for it: “terminological inexactitude”. But has Kevin Rudd now acquired such form for dissembling and backstabbing that it stretches beyond what we might regard as acceptable? My first dealings with Kevin Rudd occurred nearly a decade ago, when I was writing a fly-on-the-wall account of Mark Latham’s ill-fated period as leader of the Labor Party and his doomed 2004 election campaign against John Howard. Latham – to his later regret, after Loner: Inside A Labor Tragedy was published – had taken me into his confidence during that year, agreeing to regular, off-the-record talks, about his colleagues, strategy and the campaign. Rudd was his then shadow foreign affairs spokesman, and an issue had arisen early in 2004 when Latham had gone on Sydney radio to announce that, if elected, he’d have Australian troops in Iraq home by Christmas. I recall being astonished when, after the election, Rudd told me he’d desperately tried, and failed, to talk Latham out of ever announcing such a move. I was astonished because Rudd had smoothly defended and justified the policy right up to the election. Although I recognised that Rudd could hardly have undermined his leader by dissenting from the policy before the election, the ease with which he’d dispatched successive television interviewers – the estimable Laurie Oakes and Tony Jones among them – who’d questioned his support for the policy, seemed to me remarkable in the light of his later admissions. That episode would later go to the core of Rudd’s capacity for honesty and loyalty, when it was examined in greater detail by Latham in his own book, The Latham Diaries. In his book, Latham wrote: I’ve had a suspicion for some time now that Rudd has been feeding material to [Laurie] Oakes. Decided to set him up, telling Kevvie about our focus groups on Iraq. No such research exists – Gartrell [Tim Gartrell, then the Labor Party’s general-secretary] says he’s doing some qualitative polling but not focus groups. Today, right on cue, Jabba [Latham’s term for Oakes] has written in The Bulletin: ‘The Labor Party’s polling firm has been busily running focus groups to test the public mood following Latham’s ‘troops-out’ announcement. The most significant finding, I understand, is overwhelming support for the alliance with the United States.’ Trapped him. The Latham Diaries offers another example of what Latham portrayed as Rudd’s capacity for dissembling: Friday October 22, 2004. On Wednesday The Australian carried a front-page story saying that if Rudd didn’t become shadow treasurer, he would go to the back bench. Rudd came around to see me yesterday morning, lobbying to be shadow treasurer. He went into a long explanation of why he’s so wonderful. When he finished, I put my cards on the table; that I regard him as disloyal and unreliable, and that he only holds his front bench position because of his media profile and public standing among people who have never actually met him. I also told him that if the newspaper report was true, he should get ready for the back bench, as there was no way I could give him shadow treasury. He appeared surprised, protested his innocence and then broke down badly, sobbing over the recent death of his mother. I told him to leave work and go back to Brisbane to rest with his family. But he wouldn’t give up. Even though he was crying, he kept lobbying to be shadow treasurer. It was becoming quite sad. Then he said words that I will never forget: ‘I swear on my mother’s grave that The Australian story is wrong, totally wrong, and that I’ve been loyal to you and will continue to be loyal to your leadership.” I don’t mind people bullshitting me in politics, but not like this. Let us now move to February 27, 2012 – the day Rudd lost his first leadership challenge to Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Immediately after his 71 votes to 31 defeat, Rudd told the assembled Labor MPs: “To Julia I would say this: leadership is hard – harder in this Parliament than in the last. “You will have my absolute support in your efforts to bring us to victory. “I will not under any circumstances mount a challenge against your leadership. “I go one step further. If anyone turns on Julia in the 18 months ahead, of the type I have seen reported in much of the press, Julia, you will find me in your corner against them.” Rudd’s next set of assurances of loyalty to Gillard came a little over a year later. On March 21 this year he refused – on the cusp of a fresh caucus leadership ballot called by the Prime Minister – to run. He told the media then: “When I said I would not challenge for the Labor leadership I believed in honouring my word. “This is a difficult day … but I take my word seriously. “I am not prepared to dishonour the word I gave solemnly.” The next day – Friday March 22 – his office posted a press statement from Rudd on his website. He promised to never again seek the Labor leadership and now said there were no circumstances in which he’d ever return to it. Its full text read: Mr Rudd has said consistently over the last 12 months that he would not challenge for the Labor leadership and that he would contest the next election as a local member of Parliament. That position has not changed. Furthermore, Mr Rudd wishes to make 100 per cent clear to all members of the Parliamentary Labor Party, including his own supporters, that there are no circumstances under which he will return to the Labor Party leadership in the future. As we now know, it took 96 days for Kevin Rudd, to jettison that promise. The problem with delivering a raft of solemn assurances – and then reneging on them – is that, each time, fewer people will believe you. And that’s a problem for a man who is about to make a lot of promises to a lot of people.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 22:23:59 +0000
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