Rein calls for ‘people power’

Kevin Rudd’s wife, Therese Rein, has urged voters to lobby their MPS and senators if they want him to return as Labor leader and rejected criticism of her husband’s performance as prime minister.

Rein told reporters outside the family home in Brisbane yesterday that her husband had shown ‘‘courage and integrity’’ at all times and the vitriol had been ‘‘unhelpful’’.

‘‘I guess I would say that I actually know what the truth is,’’ she said. ‘‘I think the Australian people know what the truth is.’’

Earlier in Washington, Rudd said the future government of Australia ‘‘is not about the power of factions,

‘ ‘‘I guess Iwould say that I actually know what the truth is. I think the Australian people know what the truth is.

Therese Rein

Kevin Rudd’s wife

it’s about people power’’.

Reinforcing the people power message, Rein said Australia had become ‘‘two lands’’.

‘‘There’s kind of what happens inside the halls of parliament house and then there’s what happens on the street where all of us are getting ready to go to work, looking after our families, looking after our mums, just ordinary people,’’ she said.

‘‘And what ordinary people tell me is that they trust Kevin and they respect him. They know how hard he worked after the 2007 election and in the leadup to that.

‘‘They know how hard he worked during the global financial crisis.

‘‘They know he is committed and worked hard as foreign minister and tried to do the very best he could do.

‘‘And sometimes I think it’s useful for people to tell their local MPS . . . and their local Labor senator ‘Look, this is what I want. I want you to hear me’.’’

She would not be giving her husband advice on whether to contest the leadership.

‘‘I will tell him to follow his heart and stay true to himself, as he always has.’’