Rudd’s heartfelt journey
EXHAUSTED mothers navigating their prams around the midday rush. An elderly couple sharing a slice of carrot cake at the indoor cafe. Teenagers simultaneously gazing and tapping at their mobile phones as they contemplate a bite to eat.
Back in June 2013, it was like any other Friday lunchtime at Corio Central Shopping Centre. Then, a slight break in the regular hubbub. A few security personnel enter through the automatic doors. Photographers juggling camera gear jockey for a prime position.
Surrounded by the Labor Party faithful in scarlet slogan T-shirts enters a backbench MP. He’s clad in a sombre suit and maroon tie, looking, as Barry Humphries scathingly described, like a mild-mannered dentist.
Kevin Rudd was on the campaign trail. But it was a campaign like no other.
A general election hadn’t been called. He wasn’t prime minister or opposition leader. He wasn’t even a member of cabinet. Things would soon change. Footage of his swing through the shopping centre and his rapturous reception at Christian College Geelong and Diversitat were broadcast on television bulletins that evening.
Newspaper headlines heralded the second coming of Kevin07, after a failed attempt in 2012 and a bizarre blow-up by former Labor leader Simon Crean in February 2013.
Geelong was the start of a nationwide campaign of personal vindication. By the end of that month, Mr Rudd had replaced Julia Gillard as PM.
“It was a memorable day. I’ve always had a great affection for Geelong,” Mr Rudd told the Geelong Advertiser this week. “It has a good, strong industrial culture. That’s why together with Richard (Marles) and Darren (Cheeseman), along with Kim Carr, who was then industry minister, we worked our guts out for the car industry.”
Not for the Faint-hearted covers the first five decades of Mr Rudd’s life, from his childhood on a share farm at Eumundi, near Nambour, to the final days of the 2007 election campaign.
“I’ve never put pen to paper before because I’ve been out in the field, as it were, doing things, so this was a unique experience. But it’s good to be able to sit back and reflect,” the 60year-old said.
“What I found particularly enjoyable was reflecting on the influence of family, on the influence of your mum and your dad, your wife, your children and as your political career slowly begins to unfold.”
Young Kevin contracted rheumatic fever during boyhood, which damaged his heart, hence the autobiography title. His family often had to rely on charity following the death of his sharefarmer father Bert when the future PM was only 11 years old.
“Australia in the late ’60s/early ’70s in itself was not for the fainthearted and, because I lost my father at that stage through an accident, life was fairly difficult for a number of years,” he said.
“My mother had to then become the family breadwinner and she then at that stage had a number of kids to bring up and I was the youngest.”
It was these circumstances that attracted the teenage Rudd to the Labor Party — not a natural fit given his rural upbringing.
“Certainly where I grew up, in rural Queensland, nobody had heard of the Labor Party; my father was in the Country Party,” he said.
“Everybody in the town was either a member of the Country Party or voted for the Country Party and so therefore it was as natural as baking pumpkin scones on a Saturday morning that people would vote for Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
“By the time I got to the later years of high school, simply by watching people like Gough on television and through the things I begun to read, I started to question whether (being a conservative) was all normal and frankly it wasn’t.”
The undergraduate Mr Rudd moved to Canberra in the late 1970s to study Chinese language and history at the Australian National University.
During his studies, he worked as a housecleaner around the nation’s capital and was known to brandish a can of Mr Sheen at political reporter Laurie Oakes’ household. More importantly during this time, he met wife Thérèse Rein at a Christian movement meeting.
They married in 1981, not long after Mr Rudd’s graduation and just before jetting off for diplomatic postings in Stockholm and Beijing.
Mr Rudd said his time abroad followed by his work as chief of staff to Queensland Labor leader Wayne Goss gave him real-world experience that many modern representatives lack when they make their initial run for parliament.
“I’m glad I didn’t belong to that group that believed that if you hadn’t been elected to parliament by your mid-20s, you’ve somehow failed,” he said.
“I think Australia is poorly served by a culture of child politicians. It’s better to have people out there, whether they’re Labor or Liberal, who have a broad experience of life doing a range of different things before they seek elected office.”
The ambitious bureaucrat won the seat of Griffith at the 1998 election, a poll remembered for the GST and the rise of One Nation in Queensland.
Labor heavyweights acknowledged Mr Rudd’s communication skills, with his profile bolstered by appearances on Channel Seven’s Sunrise program alongside Howard minister Joe Hockey. With Kim Beazley struggling in his second stint as Labor leader, Mr Rudd joined forces with Victorian left-winger Julia Gillard to form a political “dream team” to challenge the allpowerful Prime Minister Howard.
The Kevin07 election secured a new generation of Labor MPs, including Mr Marles, who defeated incumbent backbencher Gavan O’Connor.
“I spent a lot of time in Geelong, both in Corangamite as well as Corio (during the 2007 campaign),” Mr Rudd said.
“I remember being at Deakin to open the medical school and these were huge additions to Geelong’s infrastructure. I also remember the work we put into rail infrastructure, which ended up being the Regional Rail Express, which improve links heading in the direction of Geelong as well as investment in the road system, including the Geelong Ring Road.”
His connection to Ford remains seared in his memory.
“I still feel angry, almost every day, even though I’m from Queensland and we never had a car industry. I still feel angry that all that work which we put in and previous governments put in all the way back to (Ben) Chifley (1945-49), to see that all undone by a government which couldn’t care,” he said.
“So I have such strong memories of being there with the workers on the assembly line.”
Mr Marles backed Julia Gillard in the 2012 ballot between Australia’s first female PM and Mr Rudd, who was forced to stand down as foreign minister.
However, Mr Marles shifted to the Rudd camp the following year and his former boss is effusive in his praise for his former protégé.
“In terms of brain power and horsepower, this guy has got all the horsepower to occupy the most senior cabinet portfolios,” the former PM said.
“As far as going to the top is concerned, there’s nothing that will stand in his way. He is a highly capable individual. That is a matter for him and, of course, that beast called the caucus and the factions which I failed to eliminate.”
Mr Rudd now divides his time between New York and Oxford, where he is completing doctoral studies. A second autobiography is in the works, covering his six tumultuous years in government.
“(Being PM) is challenging, it’s tough work but also rewarding. I can say this for certain, it ain’t for the faint-hearted.” Not for the Faint-hearted by Kevin Rudd, published by Pan Macmillan ($44.95).