Wrote this while on the bus trip from Canberra to Sydney:
An Epitaph for Kevin Rudd
24/06/2010
As you may or may not know, Australia has today lost a Prime Minister who filled many of us with hope three years ago, only to find it dashed as recently as six months ago. I was only sixteen in the 2007 election, and therefore not old enough to vote, but after eleven years of John Howard’s reign I could see something disturbing happening to this country which I loved so much. People say we get the governments we deserve, and this appears to be true, because the more insular and petty we Australians became, the higher John Howard climbed. He took us places we should never have gone, namely Iraq, Nauru and WorkChoices.
We elected Kevin Rudd with the expectation that he would uphold the mandate the Australian people gave him with their vote. He spoke today in his final press conference as Prime Minister that he was proud of the things his government had achieved, and I think we all were. Ratifying the Kyoto Protocol and the apology to the Stolen Generations were among his first acts as Prime Minister and they filled us with anticipation of what could be achieved in the future. He was elected under the slogan ‘New Leadership’, and this is exactly what he appeared to provide. Leadership is an important quality in a Prime Minister, best displayed by courage of both word and deed.
Fast-forward two and a half years, and much has changed. The courage we needed in a leader has failed him. Vacillations on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, which was intended to fight climate change, proved to be his undoing, and not because he failed to pass it into law, but because of the ease with which he gave up on the ‘greatest moral challenge of our time’. He lost the courage we needed for Australia to progress. I look at the United States and hope with a fervency akin to praying that we never become like that, so sure of our own importance that every decision we make must be the right one. In a way, this is what happened to Kevin Rudd. He was referred to by the President of the Australian Workers’ Union as a ‘crypto-fascist’, presiding over a Cabinet dominated by a small group who made all the crucial decisions affecting our population. His policy on asylum seekers, labelled as ‘tough but humane’ left him a poll-chaser determined to out-conserve the conservative wing of the Liberal party led by Tony Abbott, and the electorate was left questioning exactly what he stood for.
Today we’ve been given a new chance. The new Prime Minister is Julia Gillard, a female, red-headed, immigrant, unmarried atheist who by her demography alone seems better qualified to represent the changes that have taken place in Australian society that render the typical middle-aged, middle-class, Christian white male of a Prime Minister somewhat obsolete. Kevin Rudd’s failure was a lack of conviction and a lack of understanding of what the Australian people wanted and needed in a leader. Julia Gillard, who has always been a strong figure and able to power through with a considerable amount of skill, needs to keep Rudd’s failings in mind if she wants to succeed. I hope that she will be up to the task of leading our nation.
Written on the day of Spillard.
I should really learn not to be optimistic as far as politicians are concerned.
