Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s portrait by Ralph Heimans is part of the Parliament House Art Collection, yet some ALP homes won’t hang up a poster of him. Photo: Department of Parliamentary Services.
There is one current Labor MP I know (who shall remain unnamed), whose impressive home is adorned with large, framed and autographed picture-posters of former Labor prime ministers.
Most were in office sometime during the course of this MP’s life and all were known to them personally, even if some only casually.
Whitlam’s there, as is Keating and Hawke. Gillard too.
The signed posters take pride of place in this staunch ALP home, given prominence over more traditional artwork that more conventional homes might have on display.
I happened to visit this home once and was somewhat bemused by how ‘in-your-face’ these pictures were, adorned around the most visible walls of this house, and how much this family was made up of ‘true believers’.
Others might relegate such ‘art’ to the pool room, perhaps.
Not this household, and fair enough. The Australian Labor Party is their life.
Then it dawned on me during this brief visit – there was no autographed poster of Kevin Rudd.
There was no picture of him at all on these walls. And he was PM twice.
So I dared to ask the question on my way out the front door.
“No Rudd poster?”
“Nope,” came the swift response.
“He f@#*ed up our party.”
As entertaining as that little exchange was for me, it confirmed an undeniable truth of which we can all easily find constant reminders.
Kevin Rudd was a divisive figure and no more so than within his own party.
His portrait hangs in the halls of Parliament House, yet his image is banned from the walls of some ALP homes.
Swept to power on a wave of popularity in the Kevin-07 federal election campaign, the hostility towards him inside the ALP was obvious from the earliest months of 2008.
His controlling, erratic and disrespectful conduct towards his own earned him too many powerful enemies.
That’s not to say he was a terrible Prime Minister. He wasn’t.
Rudd skilfully guided Australia through the global financial crisis; and his sorry speech to the Stolen Generations stands today as one of this nation’s greatest political addresses.
His intellect is beyond question. His judgement, however, has often been open for discussion.
After its 2007 election landslide victory, Labor should have been in office for at least a decade. But it was an opportunity squandered.
Once accounts of Rudd’s temper tantrums and his lambasting of MPs and public servants began to leak, and when the polls began to fade, his caucus turned on him to insist he didn’t see out his first term in office.
That’s all history now, as is the fact that when his successor Julia Gillard’s polling eventually plummeted too, Rudd was recruited back to help save some of the furniture Tony Abbott was intent on nabbing for the Liberals.
Through all this, however, one Anthony Albanese remained faithful to ‘the K-Rudd’.
While he was publicly a genuine and loyal soldier for PM Gillard, Albo loathed the manner in which the mantle was ‘stolen’ from Rudd.
In the rematch Rudd-Gillard leadership tussle in 2013, Albanese voted for Rudd (again) and briefly became his and Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister.
So it was no surprise when in 2023, Prime Minister Albanese appointed the former Labor PM as Australia’s Ambassador to the United States.
In 2016, now a two-time former PM and a former Foreign Minister, Rudd had lobbied for Australia to nominate him for the role of United Nations Secretary-General.
He was denied by then Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Rudd’s knowledge of global affairs is untouchable, his work ethic unquestionable, his network unmatchable, and his diplomatic skills un… well … almost unfailing.
It is beyond question that Rudd has served Australia well in Washington D.C. and is widely regarded. He got things done.
But it’s those old, occasional lapses of judgement that will highlight his tenure.
It’s those blunt and disparaging (albeit truthful) criticisms of Donald Trump that Rudd shared on social media – before Rudd was appointed Ambassador and before Trump was elected the second time – that came back to haunt him in office, and which were never going to serve Australia’s interests in the long run.
PM Albanese has gone to great lengths to praise Ambassador Rudd in announcing his imminent departure from the role.
The Prime Minister insists there was no pressure from the Trump Administration and that it was a decision made purely by the outgoing Ambassador to embrace a new role leading the highly-regarded Asia Society think tank.
Yet Australia’s current Prime Minister, as loyal as he is to his good mate K-Rudd, must be quietly breathing a sigh of relief that Australia’s relationship with the United States will no longer be clouded by those ill-judged social media outbursts from years ago.
Albo has no doubt earned himself a spot sometime on the aforementioned Labor MP’s walls.
Yet despite all the good work since his times in the Lodge, the now Dr Rudd will perhaps never really be forgiven by some Labor loyalists for the way in which he “f@#*ed up” their party.
