Confused child is father to the man

OPPOSITION Leader Kevin Rudd is an ultra-cautious politician but in claiming heart-rending memories of childhood dispossession, he may have shot himself in the foot.

Rudd, either because of a genuinely flawed memory or by design, has portrayed himself as the quintessential battler boy by repeating a story he apparently believes is true but which others – better placed, perhaps – insist is not. Rudd has serially claimed his family was evicted from the dairy farm his father share-cropped upon his father's death following a car accident. He has also raised his deeply held suspicions about the medical care his father received in hospital before he died. In his maiden speech to Federal Parliament on November 11, 1998, he told the House that on his father's accidental death his mother "like thousands of others, was left to rely on the bleak charity of the time to raise a family. It made a young person think." It is becoming increasingly apparent one of those upon whose charity the Rudd family relied was Aubrey Low, the owner of the farm Rudd says his family was evicted from. The Rudds, according to Low's daughter, were not tossed off the property to spend the night in a car, as Rudd's audiences might believe if they listened only to his version of events. According to The Sun-Herald newspaper, there was no reason for the Rudds to move from their home until some six months after his death in 1969, when a new farmer was found to take on Rudd Sr's work and occupy the homestead that went with the job. This is not to diminish the enormous sense of loss Rudd, then an 11-year-old boy, would have suffered but to instead suggest Rudd, now a politician seeking the most responsible job in the nation, should not have depended on the memory of an understandably emotional child for his narrative. Nor should he have relied on that memory for other views he holds about his father's death. For instance, the official coronial record makes it clear that Bert Rudd was involved in a single car accident in late December, 1968, after spending an afternoon playing bowls and drinking beers and whiskies and a dinner at which he had more beers before he attempted to drive the 120km home. About 3am his car swerved to the wrong side of the road and hit a power pole. He suffered massive internal injuries and despite a number of major operations over a seven-week period, died on February 12, 1969, in the Royal Brisbane Hospital. Kevin Rudd's memory, however, is that "there were great concerns about the calibre of the surgeons who were operating on him toward the end of his period in hospital". Indeed, he told Channel 9's Ellen Fanning he'd like to know exactly what their skills were and what happened to them professionally "because I've heard reports that some of them were subsequently removed from medical practice. I'd like to know the truth of that one day but I've not had the time to check it out." It's a pity he did not check because the coroner's report contains no suggestion of medical malpractice. The story of the Rudd family's eviction is core to the myth of Kevin Rudd's earliest beginnings – and it seems untrue. His memory of malpractice is something he has held on to, and it seems untrue. As disturbingly, Rudd has become adept at evading questions which have the capacity to embarrass, as when he was initially asked about his contacts with the disgraced influence-peddler Brian Burke and dismissed inquiries by referring reporters to a story The Australian ran last November in which he was quoted as saying he had attended a "couple" of functions where Burke was in attendance in "recent years". For Heaven's sake, he was the guest of honour. He had three meetings with Burke arranged by backbencher Graham Edwards. The infamous dinner was attended by 20 to 30 people. It would have been hard to forget. Given Burke's standing as the spider in the web of intrigue which is the quasi-Western Australian government, the explanation doesn't wash. Nor did he do any better when he slid around Laurie Oakes' question about his living arrangements in Canberra, even though he had been paying rent to his wife Therese under exactly the same deal Malcolm Turnbull and several others had paid their spouses. Questions about Rudd's memories are legitimate, whether they be about childhood recollections or the people he associates with in Perth. They cannot be dismissed, as a Fairfax reporter attempted yesterday, as "a matter of interpretation rather than fact". This is the sort of moral equivalence which permits apologists for those who murder civilians to claim one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. It is not a matter of interpretation to falsely claim a summary eviction when, in fact, there was no family move for some six months. Nor is it interpretation to find malpractice where no evidence can be found. Last year Fairfax prosecutor-in-chief David Marr tried to smear Prime Minister John Howard by raising questions about his father and grandfather's business investments but the question of interpretation wasn't raised, only crucifixion. Rudd placed his adult narrative on the record. He must understand it will be subjected to scrutiny and he cannot seek to hide behind the persona of his 11-year-old self.