Meet the real Kevin Rudd

Thursday, 17th June 2010

David Marr reckons the PM is power-hungry. In fact, says Alexander Downer, he just wants fame

The Kevin Rudd phenomenon is one of the more extraordinary to have swept through Australian politics over the past two generations. For Kevin Rudd to have become prime minister of Australia was astonishing enough, but to have had record personal approval ratings for more than two years in office just defied political gravity. Five years ago, no one who knew Kevin Rudd would have imagined in their wildest imagination that this could happen. Yet it did.

Let me explain.

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.

There is a parliamentary consensus that Kevin Rudd is bright. No one could reasonably doubt his addiction to hard work, his studious attention to detail and his passion to acquire knowledge. His success at university and in his early years as a junior diplomat attests to that.

As prime minister, those qualities have shone through. Kevin Rudd, PM, knows stuff, speaks a foreign language — and a hard one at that — and works day and night with barely a break to sleep.

He knows he has academic ability, of course. I recall walking through the corridors of Parliament House late one evening about five years ago and encountered a busy- looking Kevin Rudd. ‘Alex,’ he said to me, ‘you and I are too bright to be leaders of our parties.’ Well, I had been the leader, and a pretty poor one at that, so the comment says something about his mood and self-esteem at the time, not me.

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