The downfall of Kevin Rudd was as fast as it was unexpected. Though we all knew he and his government were in trouble, no-one, or very few, saw that he would be challenged successfully and having led Labor to one election victory, he would not allowed to attempt to lead them to a second. Wikileaks has shown us that the US Government saw this coming before the press in Canberra did. Right-wing commentators such as Andrew Bolt predicted a challenge to his leadership weeks before, predictions dismissed by left-wing commentators as ludicrous.
I quote David Marr from his essay, Power trip: The political journey of Kevin Rudd, part of the Quarterly Essay series:
When his approval rating began to dip sharply in the polls early this year [2010], commentators wondered if he might be the first prime minister since Scullin back in the Depression to lose power after only a single term. There was speculation that he was in a very delicate position: essentially friendless in the party and ripe for decapitation by Julia Gillard before the looming elections. This is rubbish. For one thing it underestimates the debts owed by the party to only the third man in sixty years to bring Labor from Opposition to government. But such talk does point to the strange patterns of the man’s political career.
Even after the leadership wrangle was done and Rudd was dusted, left-wing journos on ABC’s excellent Insiders tried to argue that those who predicted the spill were making it up and that there was a spill was entirely co-incidental, and that it was a sudden in real-life as it appeared in the media. When you stuff up, just admit you stuffed up and move on. Such are the vagaries of politics and predictions. Andrew Bolt, for that matter, predicted that Wayne Swann would not be Treasurer after the election, due to his handling of the mining tax. And so it goes.
I was never a fan of Rudd. I thought his prime ministership would be like having the country run by Sir Humphrey without the laughs, and I wasn't entirely wrong. On the other hand, I think Labor panicked in getting rid of him, or perhaps there were other forces at work. Certainly, after such a political bombshell, Labor have done little to get their government "back on track".
Meanwhile, David Marr’s essay is good reading. It is sympathetic to Rudd without being sycophantic. The criticisms of him as an automaton, obsessed with micromanagement and astonishly poor people skills are balanced with his qualities of hard work, depth of knowledge and determination. Marr’s conclusion that Rudd is driven by anger is well-argued. From my inexpert, ill-informed position, it seems to me that vanity is his strongest drive and Alexander Downer agrees with me. Both agree on his drive for power though - maybe that is the key. In any case, Marr’s essay is a good primer on the life and beliefs of Kevin Rudd, finding those strange patterns throughout his career that account for his rise and perhaps his fall. Though down, Rudd is by no means out. Like all good robots, he could reassemble himself and come back at us in the sequel.
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