Opinion: Could someone please give Kevin Rudd a hug?

The former prime minister’s latest Twitter outburst shows he is still desperately seeking relevance while looking for someone to blame, writes Des Houghton.

KEVIN Rudd is still hurting.

It is 10 years since the smartest boy ever to come out of Nambour was ignominiously toppled as prime minister.

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Rudd was not simply rejected in an uprising by his own ALP colleagues in 2010; he was humiliated by them. To show his charisma and his extraordinary gifts of persuasion, Rudd returned to lead the party that dumped him, only to be dumped soon after by the Australian people. More humiliation. There is a Hollywood cliche for such occasions: He plunged from the dizzy heights of success, to the lowest depths of despair.

And still Rudd rages against his enemies, and those who he perceives to be enemies.

You only have to read his rants on social media platforms like Twitter, or read his opinions in the Left-wing media to see he remains hurt and resentful.

It’s hard figure out who he despises the most – Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott or the “Murdoch media mafia”.

Rudd misfired when he attacked Scott Morrison’s handling of the bushfires response. He did so again when criticising Morrison for calling for global investigation into the source of the Wuhan virus. Rudd’s defence of Jackie Trad and his attack on The Courier-Mail this week were equally baffling. Kevin was lashing out again. Why?

First I think we need to appreciate the level of Rudd’s disappointments. I suspect he saw himself as God’s gift to global politics, and still wonders why he wasn’t allowed to complete his mission.

Former prime ministers Kevin Rudd (left) and Malcolm Turnbull have many similarities.

Rudd says then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull initially backed his bid to become United Nations secretary-general. Later, Turnbull withdrew his support, fearing a backlash from the LNP’s right wing, he said. Rudd was deeply wounded again.

I think Turnbull has a deep understanding of what motivates Rudd, maybe because they have some similar personality traits. Both regard themselves as masters of the universe, wrongly stripped of power – not traditional enemies, but treacherous allies.

In his memoir, Turnbull recalls the night Rudd was toppled by Julia Gillard.

“All I could think of was, ‘Someone should give the poor bastard a hug.’ ”

In his memoir, Rudd says the Gillard betrayal “was deliberately and deeply personal”. He says Gillard believed he had “deep flaws in my own character”.

“Gillard concluded that these mental health problems which she had so carefully diagnosed arose from the neglect I had suffered in childhood, leading to ‘a craving for attention and applause from the crowd’,” he wrote.

“There was also, according to Gillard, evidence of ‘menacing’ and ‘bullying’ behaviour towards herself, which was news to me and everybody else I ever worked with.

“According to Dr Gillard I had also become morose, introverted and depressive.”

Kevin Rudd with Julia Gillard after she toppled him as prime minister

Rudd said it was a false narrative designed to pressure caucus to “replace me and put me out of my misery”.

In a stylish op-ed piece in the Sydney Morning Herald on June 30, 2010, Turnbull wrote about Rudd’s inglorious expulsion.

“Rudd’s downfall came like a thunderclap in a summer’s storm – one minute he was master of all he surveyed, packing his bags to hang out with Barack Obama at G20, and then the assassins struck and he was gone,” he said.

“ … unlike her deadpan husband, Therese Rein’s face spoke volumes – the horror and the pain and the sheer screaming injustice of it all. How could they do this to my husband? How could they do this to him after all he had done for them?”

I can only guess that Rudd surfed in to the Trad controversy out of boredom. Apparently he is trapped in isolation in his multimillion-dollar beachfront house on the Sunshine Coast watching the whales head north.

He tweeted: “There’s an investigation into Trad (no findings) on the appointment process of a school principal. Result: 10pgs of Murdoch coverage.”

Rudd had dutifully photographed all the stories of the last few days.

He also criticised our coverage of the sports rorts affair, Angus Taylor, and, you guessed it, Scott Morrison – apparently not enough unfavourable coverage.

Kevin Rudd is brought to tears by tributes in Parliament after his resignation.

To me, the tweet showed Rudd was desperately seeking relevance while again looking for someone to blame.

The Courier-Mail’s coverage of the Trad imbroglio has been exemplary.

In his heart of hearts I’m certain the boy from Nambour knows the scandal was generated not by The Courier-Mail at all, but the Crime and Corruption Commission.

And there is something else Rudd knows. Trad was expelled from the Palaszczuk ministry by a union-led Labor Party machine that saw her as an electoral liability. The same machine ousted Rudd for the same reason.

So now Rudd sees himself at the King Lear of Australian politics, a tragic figure more sinned against than sinning.

As Turnbull said, can someone please give the poor bastard a hug?

And can ScoMo put aside political animosities and offer Rudd a meaningful job; perhaps as Australia’s boy scout on the Wuhan inquiry.

He has talents. But his sniping from the sidelines is starting to annoy me.

Des Houghton is a media consultant and a former editor of The Courier-Mail and The Sunday Mail