Read Alexander Downer's comments below. I suppose I can luxuriate in that comfortable place of I Told You So, but still, it continues to baffle me. It was all there before the last election. I told anybody who would listen, ie virtually nobody. Nobody wanted to listen, nobody wanted to look at all the things that just didn't add up. I sat with a Labor luminary having a late-night drink in June 2008. He turned to me and said: ‘Mate, one day the Australian public will grow to hate Kevin Rudd as much as I do.’ That day has arrived. Members of the Federal Parliament all know each other; not necessarily well, but at least a little. Over the past 20 years, few, if any, MPs have been less popular than Kevin Rudd. All politicians are at the very least a trifle vain. They like to be the centre of attention, to be in the media, to be ‘consulted’. There is barely an exception. All of them think they are a bit better than they really are. Nearly all of them are ambitious, many furiously so. But on all of those counts, no one in recorded Australian political history has ever exceeded Kevin Rudd… What MPs didn’t like about Rudd, the backbencher, and Rudd, the shadow minister, was his conceit and vanity. On 9 September 2004, an Islamist fanatic tried to blow up the Australian embassy in Jakarta… I told my staff we ought to go immediately to Jakarta… Indirectly, I let Rudd know he was invited. I drove to my office to prepare for my departure. There was a message to call Rudd. He was furious. The f***ing VIP plane wasn’t going via Brisbane to pick him up. It f***ing had to. He ordered me to change its f***ing flight schedule. I explained ...(that) to travel via Brisbane would add hours to the journey. Instead, we would pay for a commercial flight for him.... A fusillade of abuse, much of it with sexual references, ensued… The point is clear: people at the embassy had died, we needed to get the Indonesians onto the case to establish who the culprits were, we had to show support to the embassy staff ... But for the member for Griffith it was about one thing: himself… Rudd wants fame. He wants to be on TV every night. He wants to be recognised everywhere he goes. He wants to be the centre of attention… Something happened (in his childhood) made him determined one day to be famous… But like all people who seek fame for themselves at the expense of others, his fame will eat him up… I sat with a Labor luminary having a late-night drink in June 2008. He turned to me and said: ‘Mate, one day the Australian public will grow to hate Kevin Rudd as much as I do.’ That day has arrived. |
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