True, Grattan fails again to draw the conclusions demanded by her evidence, but here’s just some of the most damning of it:
A FORTNIGHT after Kevin Rudd re-appeared this year in his once-regular spot on Seven’s Sunrise, host ‘’Kochie’’ confronted him with an unpalatable truth. ‘’In all honesty,’’ he said, ‘’we get lots of viewers saying ‘we preferred the Sunrise Kevin Rudd to the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’.’’…
Even at a personal level Rudd can be hard to read. A long-time acquaintance, listening to his recent mea culpa, wonders, ‘’Is this a decent character who suddenly finds the work hard, or is it the ultimate in spin?’’ The man’s inclined to give Rudd the benefit of the doubt. But thinking back on their association, he muses, ‘’All the time I ask myself, is this my friend or am I being used?’’…
‘’Rudd is a victim of his own hyperbole,’’ says social researcher Hugh Mackay - whether it’s about the summit, the apology to the stolen generations (only modest progress has been made on benchmarks of indigenous advancement), climate change, even the GFC. ‘’The mea culpa is in the same mould - hyperbolic.’’ ...
This government is outfitted in a verbal uniform. The daily dress is set in what are known as ‘’round the worlds’’ - ‘’lines’’ sent to those who are doing media. It is said that the day after Therese Rein was reported as losing a lot of weight, the ‘’round the world’’ contained a helpful prompt, based on comments Rudd had made, to the effect, ‘’Doesn’t Therese look great?’’...It all started to sound like a spoof on China’s Cultural Revolution....
Further, Rudd’s consistency when faced with a ministerial crisis was tested - and found wanting.
He described Environment Minister Peter Garrett as a ‘’first-class minister’’, who had met the core measures of ministerial responsibility. ‘’I stand by the minister as I did last week, as I will do next week.’’ It sounded clear enough. But before last week was out, Rudd had sliced away from Garrett control over insulation and other parts of energy efficiency, and declared it was no good sugar-coating the demotion....
Rudd explains his U-turn by denying it. ‘’The position was completely consistent,’’ he insists....
WHILE the GFC was a special circumstance, more generally Rudd has greatly downplayed the role of cabinet compared with the Howard or Hawke governments. ‘’Cabinet is not a place of long discussion about policy,’’ says one senior government man. ‘’It’s a tick-and-flick exercise of the Strategic Priorities and Budget Committee and, to a far lesser extent, of the Expenditure Review Committee.’’…
All this year, Rudd has been flat-out on the health and hospitals policy. Yet ministerial sources say the full cabinet has had little role… Cabinet did not see the final outcome until just before it was announced by Rudd at the National Press Club on Wednesday… ‘’You’ve just got to hope that someone is checking what is going on,’’ said one minister, speaking before the announcement of this major decision.... Apart from the massive stimulus package being a tick-and-flick exercise, so was the multi-billion broadband project. ..
The hospitals policy has been an example of Rudd’s personal ‘’sleeves rolled up’’ style. He may be rolling them up too far. He personally did 21 of the government’s more than 100 consultations with hospitals, health groups and citizens around the country. One senior Labor source says it is an example of the PM’s ‘’Kevin everywhere’’ mentality…
At the start of an election year, his staff are already drained. One Friday afternoon a few weeks ago, Rudd was out of town and it was uncertain whether he would return to Canberra that afternoon. Suddenly, a great whoop was heard from staff in his Parliament House office. They had just heard that the boss was not coming back that day.
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